A Look Back: Our Travel and Beijing Experiences

What an adventure our trip was!  It started off so well... then Shanghai happened.  Our flight was already delayed due to a woman having to be convinced to leave the plane.  After an hour of encouragement, she decided it was best due to her health, but then they needed to find her suitcase among the hundreds already loaded.  This set us back in an already tight schedule.  The advice was to abandon our suitcases and run.  I never realized how out of shape I was, until I ran back and forth through the Shanghai airport for an hour straight.  We missed our flight, lost our baggage, and I had tears streaming down my face.  Catherine supported and encouraged me as she ran with her hand on my back and quoting scripture the whole way.  God sent an amazing guardian angel as an airport worker went ABOVE and beyond, in full suit and dress shoes, running with us, holding my carry-ons, and finding us another flight to Beijing within the hour. When we finally landed in Beijing, the realization that recovering our luggage was not going to be as easy as explained set in.  Hours of calling and communicating ensued amidst sight seeing in travel clothes. Mark, my true knight in shining armor, ended up having success and got us our suitcases delivered to the hotel from the US!  We were never so excited for clean clothes and deodorant!

Beijing was amazing as always to tour.  Although the first day was tough.  Not only were we running on empty in dirty clothes, but everyone seemed stressed and short tempered, not the feeling I usually get from China.  Despite the luggage fiasco... We had lots of fun (excuse my, I've traveled in the same clothes for 48 hours and hair brush and makeup are in suitcase look... Catherine looks amazing of course, though in the same suitcase-less boat). We saw Tienanmen Square, the Forbidden City, Hutong in a rickshaw, ate at a Chinese chain in the mall and shopped at a mall with a grocery store. (I bought lots of fun treats!)

In a rickshaw

In a courtyard of the Hutong

Tienanmen Square

 Our luggage showed up at the hotel that night! A huge celebration ensued!!  The outlook for the Great Wall the next day was MUCH BETTER as clean clothes and deodorant (especially with all of the climbing) make all the difference!!

I hiked more of the Great Wall than ever before! Catherine is an amazing encourager! We walked from one lift to the far end of another lift and then kept going! Climbed for over 2 hours and then came back down. Then...

Clean clothes AND a minion shirt :)

Catherine is so crazy!

We took a ski lift up (twice)... but I'll explain in a minute. We climbed lots of the wall and then it was time to go down. We took the toboggans!!!! I wasn't allowed to take pics, so I have some shots on our way up. It is LONG and goes on and on with curves and dips. The first time the lady in front of Catherine had a kid and she was so slow we had to keep stopping. So, Catherine said let's do it again. We got two more tickets and somehow convinced the admission lady to let us in since we didn't have the entrance ticket (it was with our guide). We got to the run and the operator recognized us. He asked if we were doing it again? We explained the slow lady. He felt bad, so he held the line for 5 minutes to clear the track ( lots of people waiting behind us). Then we got to fly down without any blocks! Catherine was faster than me, but so very fun!!!

It was the longest ride... even the SECOND time :)

Got to take this ride TWICE

My favorite part was the group of school kids that wanted to talk and take pics with us. They were so cute and full of giggles!! 

I caved for dinner, had to have my Spicy Chicken from McDs. Catherine insisted on authentic, so we found a dumpling place. Little tricky ordering, but finally got it... the breakdown was realizing they were giving us 12 dumplings for less than $2.50!!!!