4/20/18
Today Grace started our morning at 830 after another good breakfast. We visited the Olympic village of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It is a huge amount of space and the government bought the land from the farmers in the area and paid them large sums of money. There is lots of concern around china that they hosted the olympics and all the citizens of china paid for buildings, but only Beijing got the improvements in infrastructure. They expanded and renovated the subway system and transportation for the Summer games.
The Nest itself cost more then a billion dollars! That is where the opening ceremonies took place. There were speed skaters practicing with roller blades. Not exactly speedy, but would give the Hosers some competition! (Hayden may have a video on his vlog)
We visited the Cube where Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals and Eliza was particularly very excited to see the pool. It was a quick visit, but pretty amazing. The indoor water park took up half of the building and was absolutely incredible. We took some pictures at the pool and then got back in the van to head to the Great Wall.
5OTM relay race. I thing there was a false start!
The trip to the Great wall had lots of traffic, but the kids kept us entertained with their singing and jokes. Grace told us about the history of the Great Wall: Started in 700BC and then added on in 200BC. Then completed 4000 miles of wall to keep the Mongals out during the Ming Dynasty. The Qing dynasty after the Ming Dynasty did not maintain it since they had more modern weapons of cannons and gun powder. Now there are 7 segments remaining of the wall in China.
We took the tram up to the Wall and walked for about 2 hours. The last part was very steep up a mountain and the last part was a bit treacherous. We did a few shout outs for Hayden’s vlog and many pics!
We made some friends and the kids did a dance for this family on the Great Wall for their elemetary school. They are trying to encourage social graces in the kids to balance they use of computers and technology. Ironically, the father asked if we would dance with their son, but the son (7 years old) ran away. Our kids did the dance anyways. We will link to the video on the vlog.
They caught up with us later and took pictures together. The banner of the elementary school is in the back.
I guess we missed the sign with the rules:
On the way home we stopped at a porcelain shop where they showed us how they make the intricate vases and bowls with copper designs.
We all fell asleep back to Beijing.
I ventured out to find dinner and found a noodle restaurant with pictures and some English on the menu so I was able to order knowing what I was probably going to get (meat dumpling and beef noodles). We ate in the hotel room and then crashed.
The Nest itself cost more then a billion dollars! That is where the opening ceremonies took place. There were speed skaters practicing with roller blades. Not exactly speedy, but would give the Hosers some competition! (Hayden may have a video on his vlog)
We visited the Cube where Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals and Eliza was particularly very excited to see the pool. It was a quick visit, but pretty amazing. The indoor water park took up half of the building and was absolutely incredible. We took some pictures at the pool and then got back in the van to head to the Great Wall.
5OTM relay race. I thing there was a false start!
The trip to the Great wall had lots of traffic, but the kids kept us entertained with their singing and jokes. Grace told us about the history of the Great Wall: Started in 700BC and then added on in 200BC. Then completed 4000 miles of wall to keep the Mongals out during the Ming Dynasty. The Qing dynasty after the Ming Dynasty did not maintain it since they had more modern weapons of cannons and gun powder. Now there are 7 segments remaining of the wall in China.
We took the tram up to the Wall and walked for about 2 hours. The last part was very steep up a mountain and the last part was a bit treacherous. We did a few shout outs for Hayden’s vlog and many pics!
We made some friends and the kids did a dance for this family on the Great Wall for their elemetary school. They are trying to encourage social graces in the kids to balance they use of computers and technology. Ironically, the father asked if we would dance with their son, but the son (7 years old) ran away. Our kids did the dance anyways. We will link to the video on the vlog.
They caught up with us later and took pictures together. The banner of the elementary school is in the back.
I guess we missed the sign with the rules:
On the way home we stopped at a porcelain shop where they showed us how they make the intricate vases and bowls with copper designs.
We all fell asleep back to Beijing.
I ventured out to find dinner and found a noodle restaurant with pictures and some English on the menu so I was able to order knowing what I was probably going to get (meat dumpling and beef noodles). We ate in the hotel room and then crashed.
I loved reading these first two days! Sounds fantastic
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