The Great, Great Wall

The kids absolutely loved The Great Wall today. Not that I’m sure that they knew it was the great wall however. Éva said that it was Cinderella’s castle and Jie-Jie seemed to see it as a big challenge to be overcome. Éva and Baba went to the second or third tower (the one where you can get your picture put onto a little card). Jie-Jie and I went up to the first tower and that was enough for me. He wanted to run along the battlements and ‘walk’ up all the stairs. It was hilarious. The wind was blowing so hard at some places and the slope was so steep that he was pushed backwards as he tried to move forward. On the stairs he had his own special style. I held his upper body as he lent back into me and he kind of popped his feet up each stair. Cute, but a little disconcerting for Mama because he could have pushed me over backwards. Anyway, we had a wonderful time and the kids are totally wiped out tonight. It’s 7:30 pm and they are both snoring already. Yeah!

Jean-Pierre has gone out with the two other men in our group to a Chinese Acrobatic show (at least that’s what they are calling it). Mom and I are going to go tomorrow night with the little girl who is travelling in our group and maybe one of the other moms. I have to say that I was a little nervous about being left alone with the two kids. Last week Jean-Pierre just went downstairs to do some paperwork in the guide’s room and all hell broke loose in our room when he left. Jie-Jie was almost hysterical, Éva was crying her head off (lord knows why since she isn’t usually bothered by him leaving) and neither one of them wanted me to comfort the other. I was holding them both in my arms at one point and they starting whaling on each other. Éva was yelling, ‘No, no Sam. Stop it, no Sam’, and he was crying, ‘boo yao mei-mei’ (no want little sister) over and over again. It was ugly. Mom was in the room with me, but there wasn’t anything she could do to help because they both screamed louder if I gave them to her. I finally put Éva in the crib with her precious stuffed elephant and was then able to calm Jie-Jie down enough that he started to play. Eventually they both started playing, but I had to keep them entertained so they wouldn’t think about Baba and go off again. Tonight, by contrast, went extremely well. Mom stayed in the room with me again (Lord she is a brave soul) so she could play with one (yes, they both wanted to play with her tonight) while I got the other ready for bed. There was a little whining and some incanting of Baba, but nothing got out of control.

We hit three factories today. The pearl factory, the closiné factory and the jade factory. We went to town at the closiné factory, but the others I could have done without. I did buy Jie-Jie a little rooster at the jade factory since that is his Chinese zodiac sign.

Oh yes, we drove by the Olympic Village today as well on our way back from the wall. The two stadiums are amazing. We had heard all about ‘The Birds’ Nest’, but there is another stadium right beside it called ‘The Water Cube’ where all the aquatic events will be held. It is an incredible building. The whole building is built in such a way that it absorbs the energy from the sun for over 10 hours a day. That energy will be used to heat the pools, run the lights, etc. It looks like a big cube wrapped in bubble wrap. Very interesting. Tomorrow is Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City and we are trying to get the guide to take us to The Temple of Heaven. We’ll see.