She ate it all folks.
First things first, popsicles before we head up. I thought the hike from the parking lot to the base was about enough :)
Lili and Nicola in the gondola.
First glimps of the wall.
Pic nic on the wall.
Shea, Poppy, Lili and Nicola.
The chute, the carts or tobagons. Who knew?!
Lili FINALLY meets the Huns.
Not very many could rock this shirt. I know in the scheme of things it's minor, we just weren't expecting them. We won't lose anyone wearing them, that's for sure.
If I had any idea what we were in for today I would have declined and I'm so glad we ended up going. We had a great time. We went in a lovely air conditioned van with three other families. I was absolutely in over my head on the hike! Three and half hours we hiked. In the blazing afternoon heat with little to no relief, up and down the whole way. At one point I looked up at another flight of stairs and just about cried. We were doing this climb from the mountain top to get to a metal chute to carreen down the mountain to the bottom, which frankly sounded like hell on earth to me. At one point I realized that the idea of climbing back up all the way we had come was a far bigger fear than ony old slide could be. Bless Lili who could have ran ahead to be with her friends but stayed with me all the way telling me I could do it. Honestly, I had NO IDEA that I was capable of the climb we did today. Don't get any ideas Eric, I do NOT, I repeat, I do NOT want to take up this mountain climbing thing as a sport. I literally had no choice but to continue on today, I met LOTS of fellow climbers who looked at me with the same dead dog tired look and we didn't need words, we were kindred souls, all stuck in the same situation. I think Lili actually enjoyed all of it. I enjoyed the end :) and the moment we were on the bus back :) Seriously, it was stunning beyond words and I'm pretty darn impressed with myself today and at the end Lili thought I should buy a 'I climbed the Great Wall' shirt and so I did. Also got Jia some cheater Angry Bird chopsticks. What. A. Day.
We ate lunch at 3 at the bottom in a dumpling house. I ordered fried rice and Lili ordered noodle soup. She took my rice the moment it came. I wasn't thrilled about soup but I also wasn't concerned enough to order something else. When it came I was delighted to see that it was home made noodles! Eric, they were identical to the ones we had in Nanchang on the street! Bonus.
Oh, and the chute was amazing. Felt cool with the breeze, the scenery was beautiful and we didn't die. I actually couldn't reach the handle on the tobogan and so Lili had to control our decent. Scary. She did a fabulous job and I'm sure me telling her the entire way down (10/15mins) to SLOW DOWN wasn't a drag at all.
When we got back to the hotel we signed into the camp and got our camp package. We were assigned our bus, we're bus 1, there are 3 buses. We also got two t-shirts each. They are hands down the ugliest garment Lili and I have ever seen. We were told we have to have them on all the time. So, when we went to the group dinner tonight we wore our new fashion statement t's and Lili was worried that we'd be the only ones there wearing them. I thought it was funny to see her worry about clothes. Not something we see with Lili very often! Anyways, we got to the banquet hall and we were literally the only ones there in the yellow shirts! Lili was not happy, and there were comments. Oh the angst. Near the end one other girl showed up wearing it and her name was also Lili.
We sat with two families for dinner, one from San Fransico and one from Texas. The texan family just got back from camping on the great wall! I had no idea you could do that. Apparently you could in the past but they stopped it and it's been re-opened in the last month. Very cool.
Our wake up call is at 7 and then we start the 'root seeking camp of summer 2012'.
FCC families are so cool. Everyones love for the kids just shines through and everyone has been so friendly. I think we're in for some really fun days here.
Lili here: Ni hao, today was so cool. Quite an adventure! The Great Wall was awesome but way too hot. The steps are all uneven but other than that it was great. I was so proud of my Mom. The tobogans were amazing and I had so much fun driving. If only Mom would have let me go faster! Next time I want my own cart. Got a great new pair of sunglasses after mine broke. There are a lot of FCC families at the hotel now. Can't wait to meet all of them. Night.
Me again, yes, getting all the comments, texts and e-mails. Thanks everyone. Mary, I did get an umbrella, it's lilac so a tad frivolous and I won't be going back to the zoo to get the Panda one. Catherine, thanks for the link about the flooding, did you all hear, it was record rain fall and 35 people died. I don't know how they died. The internet connection is slow. Took an hour to load todays photo onto blogger. Very frustrating. Still haven't found any wifi. My assailant from the other morning was back in the lobby this morning, Lili and I ran, he approached another family, I didn't stick around to see what happened but our guide for the camp told us to look out for people like him, ya' no kidding. Turns out he's a taxi driver.
