Wow. Thats all I can say about this trip. It has zipped past like there is no tomorrow. Yesterday I suckered up and paid to hold a panda...wow. She was so cute, she kept trying to eat my hair!!! She is going to be the mascot for the Beijing 2008 olympics...she's going to be so big then, and I can say I knew her when. :) We also got to hold a Lesser (red) Panda. Very raccoon like, also cute, but feisty. Loved every minute of my animal time here in China!
From there we boarded a plane back to Beijing and we arrived to rain rain rain. It was pouring. We had to deplane out in BFE and ride a bus back to the terminal, boy was that fun. Then the bus got lost, and we get to our hotel, which after the last place, is a major let down. Its too "western". I've grown to love the hard beds here, I want one. I've slept so good.
Today we headed out in rain to the Great Wall. I cannot get over this. Its HUGE. And I can't figure out how guys ran around on that thing in armor, it was so steep in some places! We went to the Badaling gate, and walked up the "hard" side. Of course I had to buy a "I climbed the great wall" shirt" I shall wear it proudly.
Today was the last day for 18 of our group members, I said goodbye to some of my favorite people, Misty, Kylie, Marissa, and Mary. They were great girls, I wish they were coming on the extension to Tibet. We had a fairwell dinner where we talked about the sites one last time and then Kevin (our guide if I haven't talked about him already) gave a funny fairwell speech to the people that are leaving.
Kevin, I love this guy. He's 24, and our Chinese guide. His dream since he was young was to learn english. His English is amazing. We've taught him so much slang its not even funny. He's always saying, Kevin is the man. He worked so much crap into his fairwell speech he had us rolling on the floor with laughter. His dream is to come to America one day, I hope that I can keep in touch with him and show him around some, where-ever I live.
Tomorrow we leave for Tibet at 9:30 am, so I'm going to leave you with this short entry. I cannot WAIT to get to Tibet. Altitude sickness could be an issue, but I'll try my best to not let it bring me down!!
Hope all is well in the states!!!