Great Wall-Peking Duck Adventures

We are having a great time here and getting our culture shock in full force. We started the day at 9am meeting our guide and headed off to the Great Wall. It took about an hour to get there and once we were there we were concerned about the rows and rows of tour buses. However, once we started up the wall it wasn't crowed at all. So we must have went on a different part than everyone else because we didn't see many people at all. It was quite pleasant and a beautiful day. Our guide commented on seeing the blue skies as she said you don't see that in the city. We dressed warmly and it paid off as we were not cold at all. As predicted people did approach the boys and requested their picture taken with them. They of course were glad to be treated like a celebrity. Here are some of the pics from the Wall:

We then headed back to the hotel and were able to travel a lot of the back streets and see the rural parts of Beijing. It was very interesting and I am glad we got to show the boys how people live here not just in the big city. They loved seeing all the bicycles with the huge loads. After seeing all those people on the bikes, it is easy to see why they don't have to worry about their calorie intake (can you tell I am struggling with all the food here!) Speaking of food, I forgot to mention that we did go to lunch at the gov't run Jade Factory. That was neat and again they served us dish after dish after dish. It was good and my little adventurer, Travis, tried just about everything. He is loving the Chinese food and especially learning how to use chopsticks. All the waitresses here love to assist him as well :)

Next we squeezed in a short nap and then went to our Peking Duck dinner at 7PM. The dinner was served here in the hotel as this hotel is famous for their Peking Duck and the Chinese Opera that is right here in the hotel. Caleb was not a big fan of the duck. They brought it out and started carving it and he turned green and started crying. I took him straight to the bathroom where he proceeded to toss his cookies. I guess it was a little too much for my picky eater! I talked him into just sitting with me for the rest of the meal and I really thought we would replay the bathroom event when they brought out the final dish...FISH. Yes, Caleb is my fisherman but he certainly doesn't like to eat what he catches. And here lay a big fish-head, fins, tail and all and they started cutting into it and serving it to him. Needless to say that was our clue to leave the restaurant. We were full anyway! The boys favorite part of the meal was seeing the fish tanks on the way out. We explained to them that was their menu! Here are some more pics for you visual folks. Keep the comments coming as we are thrilled to here from everyone at home. Oh and Caleb just now came up to me and said "You know how we always have one good thing and one bad thing happen on our vacations?" I said yes. He said, "The bad part was the long plane ride, but the good part is going to be getting Shelby." -Oh how insightful my Caleb is-I love that kid!