8:30 we left for the great wall. The drive is about 2 hours through Beijing and the country side. We saw every type neighborhood possible, including condos that someone named the Irvine Condos. In one area they were building with bricks; I was happy to see rebar, but it was pretty far apart. When we were getting closer to the wall, I got so excited, I couldn't believe I was going to get to see the Great Wall. There is a gondola that you can take both ways, there is also a toboggan that you can take down. Kevin Palmer and I decided that we are going to walk both ways. It is incredibly steep and there were only 2 (maybe three) level areas. I was so winded going up, I was passed by several students, and although Robert Carter passed me, he stayed with me to the top. Although it was fairly cool, I was sweating by the time I reached to the wall. Once up there, i was fine, it is so cool - hard to believe it is so old. Everyone took a lot of pictures. After taking many group pictures, the choir sang My Heart Will Go On (theme from Titanic). People stopped and listened and cheered when it was over. I thought i was videoing it through my phone, nope, only 2 seconds of cheering. Then the Beautyshop sang Swing Down Chariot and while videoing that my i phone decided to reboot. Ugh! I did finally get about 30 seconds of that recorded. then a group of Chinese girls sang a song for us, so we sang the ""Farewell Song" a traditional chinese song. Music really is a unifying force. The walk down was much easier and i had a nice talk with Kevin P.
I"ve decided the one thing I take for granted is clean hands. Not from the sanitary position as much as mine just always feel grimey.
Here are some tidbits we've learned from our guide Ina
Panda eyes means that you have dark circles under your eyes
In 1998 couples with no siblings can have 2 children
In 2011 all couples will be able to have 2 kids
There are 20 million people in Beijing and 4 million cars
We got back around 2:20 pm, but had to leave for the evening's concert no later than 3:45 and needed to change and eat. We went to McDonalds, it was easier than KFC, but still a mess. I have to wash my only pair of long pants that aren't jeans. I wore them on the plane, all day yesterday and then again tonight. I may also buy another pair of long pants, or maybe another skirt since I will soon be sick of the same clothes to wear to the concerts.
The church is on the other side of Beijing - about 1 1/2 hours from the hotel. It's a large church with quite a sound and video system. I got to be the shooter (work the powerpoint slides). One of the men that works the video screens kept switching to other cameras so I'd have to tell him to cut to screen 4 (the words). I did pretty well, except when they sang Be Thou My Vision, I got so into the music, I forgot I was supposed to be shooting. Right around the time I figured it out, James stopped the singing, he thought the computer froze. They only stopped a few seconds. After that boo boo, I did OK. I then went down to help with the CD sales - the church was packed, literally standing-room-only. A couple of women from the church were handling CD sales, but I did get to help people pick out the right CD. One of the women working the table spoke as much English as I Chinese and so we often just smiled apologetically at each other and I'd give her a hug.
Back to the hotel at 10pm for dinner - McDonalds again, nothing else is open. I had vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce.
The attached picture is of me with Brianna - my "adopted daughter". She is a math major - we talked about how we are neither right nor left brained. She has her act together, very confident, full of life and quite a good alto soloist.
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