Saturday in Beijing!

Hey everybody. This is Tim. 

Greetings from the amazing city of Beijing.  

Typically what our agency likes for families to do 

is start out their adoption experience in Beijing 

to get a feel for Chinese culture 

and allow our clocks to get acclimated to Chinese time.  

This gives us a few days before our "gotcha" day 

(when we actually get to hold Micah for the very first time). 

 So here is more of our Beijing experience. 

 Saturday was an amazing day.  

We started out the day visiting a jade factory. 

 They showed us many handcrafted pieces made out of jade.  

You'll notice in the picture below that they made a ship 

from one solid piece of jade.  

It is made into three different major sections.  

One section is crafted into Tiananmen Square 

and another is made depicting the Temple of Heaven.  

I didn't know what the third section was.  

The picture doesn't do it justice.  

Had to see it in person to see the crazy amount of detail that went into it.

After the Jade Factory it was off to the Great Wall-
something Jen had never seen.  What an incredible sight.
This was my third time seeing the wall, 

but my first time seeing this section of it.  

Here are some stats for you:

• Significance: the longest fortification ever built
• Purpose: to defend the Chinese Empire from Mongolian and Manchu enemies to the north.
• Tourism: China’s biggest and most popular tourist attraction.
• Provinces and municipalities crossed: Liaoning, Hebei, Tianjin, Beijing, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Ningxia, Gansu
• Location: From Shanhai Pass (39.96N, 119.80E) to Jiayu Pass(39.85N, 97.54E).  Most popular sections are around Beijing.  In total the wall is close to 3,700 miles long stretched in a straight line.
• Closest section to Beijing: Juyong Pass (55 km or 34 mi)
• Most visited section: Badaling (63,000,000 visitors in 2001)
• Terrain: Mostly mountainous, taking advantage of natural obstacles. From the Bohai coast at Qinhuangdao, around the north of the Great Plain of China, across the Loess Plateau, and along the desert corridor of Gansu between the Plateau of Tibet and the loess hills of Inner Mongolia.
• Altitude: From sea level to over 500 meters (1,600 feet)

Who's missing?
Yes, Jen didn't quite make it all the way to the top.  

But after thousands of steps and 50 minutes I made it along with

3 other guys from our group- Andy, Caleb, and Josiah (L to R)

Then it was on to the Olympic Park.

 On the left is the "Water Cube."  

This was where Michael Phelps won his eight gold medals
in the 2008 Olympic Games.  

On the right is the "Bird's Nest."  

This was where the opening and closing ceremonies were held.

Below is the tower where the flame burned.

Finally, we ended the day seeing an acrobatic show.  

We couldn't believe some of the things we saw.  

Tomorrow we head to Zhengzhou (pronounced Jung-Jo), 

the city where we will pick up Micah on Monday.

The amazing thing- this is the exact same city where we picked up Joshua!