Day Two: Jade Factory and The Great Wall of China

After our trip through Forbidden City, we climbed back into our bus and headed toward the mountains. On the way, we stopped at a restaurant and jade . . . place. It wasn't made of jade. Jade was crafted into all kinds of decorative things and sold there. Beautiful things and delicious food. And we were hungry. My fitbit counted almost 9000 steps from our morning excursion. So, you know, that's a lot of steps. During the Great Wall trip, my fitbit counted about 12,000, but it reset while I was on the wall, because it resets at midnight, and back home, it was midnight. The night before. ISN'T THAT CRAZY? Anyway, enough about my fitbit, I'm just saying, it was probably about 15,000 steps for the day. That was a record for me.

(Enough about the fitbit, Krista, that's boring)

Sorry.

I think I'll just post pics again and caption as necessary. I'm running out of time before we go get some dinner! Brandon has been awesome this whole trip. We are having a wonderful time!

The food was really good. Very fresh. We just turned this lazy susan when we wanted something. My favorite was the onion and duck dish. Yum.
L-R: Brandon, Mark, Tiffany, Margaret, Matt, Lorraine

This is raw yellow jade.

We asked the tour guide how much this was. He said $65,000. We gasped. He grinned and said, "Free shipping."

Silk embroidery was on display. These were my favorites.

This was the demo table. These "family balls" are carved from one block of jade. They end with numerous globes, one loose inside the other, representing generations.

This is on the floor room.

 And then we were off to THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. We chose to take the harder route. Because of course we did.

Holy smokes, the Great Wall. This was not the harder route.

This is the harder route. 

Maybe it's a toss-up.

Couldn't figure out why this loaded sideways but I decided it was appropriate. Because we could barely breathe.

We climbed these really steep stairs to the top of one of the towers. Amazing.

Just the three of us. Me, Tiffany, and Great Wall.

We were walking on and Mark said, "Hey, look at your celebrity husband." Picture time.

This was the alternate way we took down, I highly recommend it.

Lorraine, Matt, Margaret, who turns 73 on Thanksgiving, and Emma. Happy Birthday, Margaret!

Our turn.

Our adoption group! Hey, Mark! Over here!

An exhausting, glorious day. Loved it.