starting from the middle

sadly I am getting tired waiting for all of these pictures to down load so you'll have to get the trip in pieces. This is Beijing the second part of the trip. What struck me here , in this photo, is how can something so awful look so beautiful? All part of the governments plan I suppose
now the forbidden city we are told gets 1 million people come through a day in the "slack" season, many more during the high. And FYI, every chinese person can get a chance to tour the city if you can't afford it the government will pay to send you, hum ?
this is it, what I was waiting for !!! I could wait see the Great wall of China, which we learned the west gave it that name, who would have guessed that 3" of snow would keep me from seeing much! This was unbelievable! our guide said in the 5 years of being a guide she has never saw such a thing " you are very lucky" I was sad not to "see" it however it was awesome, how many people can say they had a snow ball fight or skitched down the rails of the great wall, according to lily not many.
oh yeah it's for real
and when I thought of doing this picture for David I never planned it would be like this. Shout out Fenwick from the great wall!
lily , our guide brought me to the fire house can you believe it, except after this picture she asked me not to get to close it is guarded by soldiers oops. I only saw 2 fire trucks and 4 ambulances the entire time.
little qua qua and me. again lily went the extra mile and got me and wendy to an orphanage that our agency supports from the states.These kids all have disabilities and are waiting to be chosen to go home. I had kinda set it up before I left but wasn't sure if it would pan out, so me and wendy skipped the silk market to play, what a great trade!FYI qua qua is adopted just waiting for her mom and dad to come.
the night be for we went to this home we were scrambling looking for things to bring to the kids there,when I had a great idea, Sky had written me a card for everyday of my trip . so we tore of the plain side of his cards and brought colored pens. this was a huge hit with the kids. I was so excited to tell sky that his cards not only blessed me but the kids too, this little guy, who has not been adopted he has cataracts that they don't have the technology to fix, wrote one of the card for us to say thank you and Sky was most excited about getting this gift! when I was telling him on the phone the next day about it I said and we had just enough cards for the 11 kids, he said "oh so that's why God had you stay 12 days so you would have enough cards for all the kids" YES!!! We are doing something right!
now we went to a Chinese opera. I had heard that their opera was like listening to a choking chicken and let me say it was a perfect description.

I became a great user of chop sticks, either learn or starve!
so this is the Olympic site, the birds nest,
this is whats around it! games in a few short months? I can not even begin to tell you how much work there is still to be done. I was in atlanta and oh boy good luck.
Frankly I wasn't very excited to go to this place I was done checked out of China and counting the hours till I was on the way home. But the summer palace was one of the most beautiful places I had ever been. And then we walked up to this gate and I knew it somehow, Yes I think that this is the gate they made a replica of in Epcots China, I know I am crazy but when you are a million miles from home everything that is home makes you happy. So I took plenty of pic's and will compare it when I am there in a few weeks! notice I have no jacket on this was a big deal for us because it was so cold that 99% of our pic's is me in my jacket.

here we are 2 days from sledding down the great wall, this weather sure is like home.