Just a few more hours

Ni Hao! Ye Su ai ni!

It is early Monday morning here. We will begin to shower and get ready to fly to Nanchang in just a little while. We leave Beijing this morning (leave the hotel about 9:00) and arrive in Nanchang early afternoon. We will meet Hannah Ruth a couple hours after that!

We started yesterday morning with church at the Beijing International Christian Fellowship. The service was bilingual - Mandarin and English. The music and message were very good. I learned, "Ye Su ai ni" which means "Jesus loves you!"

After church we went to the jade factory and Rick bought me a beautiful jade bangle bracelet. It is a lavender jade color. In China there is a tradition that when a baby girl is born, the mother wears a jade bracelet on her left arm (closest to her heart) until her daughter is 18 and then passes it on to her. She then passes it on to her daughter and on etc. Our guide, Sherry, has a green jade bracelet that passed from her great grandmother to her grandmother to her mother to her. I hope my granddaughter wears this bracelet! I do not know if I will wear it when I swim in chlorinated pools, but the tradition is that I will never take it off until I take it off for her.

We then went to a restaurant at a "Friendship Store." It was off the interstate and reminded me of a Stucky's but much larger. The food in the restaurant was fabulous. All of our meals so far have been Chinese family style and lots of food! Very good, but it is starting to seem all the same.

We proceeded to the great wall where Rick and the boys were among a handful of our group to make it to the top. I went only a little way and then enjoyed talking with others in our group. The wall is much steeper than I ever imagined and that intimidated me. The first people (from our group) to the top were a family with two young girls (5 and 8 years old.) We were amazed! Rick talked with them and they are a family who does triathalons and marathons. The girls never slowed down! Rick and the boys were faster on the descent.

After another fabulous dinner, we went to a Chinese acrobat show. It was very good, but we were all tired. We had to have our luggage packed by 10:00 last night and have only our carry on this morning. They check us in so we do not have to be at the airport as early. It is weird though, my bag has left my sight! One family just got their bags yesterday (they had been lost) and then had to give them up again.

I was too tired to post last night, but I am up and ready this morning. Someone from our group was able to share a camera cable with us. Our group is becoming somewhat of a family. Enjoy some pictures from our first two days. The one at the top is the Culps at Tianemman Square. The next time I post we will have Hannah Ruth!