I am a hero.

warning I fell asleep while writing this, so I apologize for any gramatical errors...

Well at least for this first week I am here the days are going to be jam packed with activities. So I will try to put it in an easy to read hilight fashion. No gaurantee, I tend to ramble. What I am doing is keeping a journal on my computer and then I will copy and paste selected (usually most of it, save a few details) portions to the blog. 

One thing that is different about this trip so far than other trips is that I am truly a tourist. We go in groups everywhere,  even dinner. I think that I will have the opportunity to do some more non-touristy things when I get to Dalian. Dr. Miller said we get to spend a saturday with a Chinese family. 

This morning I woke up around 5 am to Dr. Miller snoring. I slept a little  bit after that, but not too much. I was able to call home on skype. It is pretty amazing that how that works. I talked to Matthew but mom and dad weren’t home and then I got  to talk to Dane! Breakfast had all sorts of food. It was pretty amazing how many different foods they offered. I just had cereal though. Haha.

After breakfast we loaded the bus and went to the Ming tombs. An interesting fact: The tour guide said that when new emperors came into power they would  destroy everything from the former emperor, sometimes even burial sites in order to  create the right fung sheia. The Ming tombs had a small museums with replications of relics found at the burial sites of other emperors. There were gold plates and bowls. And some of the most crazy head crown things that I have ever seen. One really cool thing was that the columns in the building were wooden and

 made from the trunk of one tree. It probably would’ve taken three people to hug that thing it was so big. And since this building was built 500 years ago and the trees came from far away, the way they transported them was interesting. They would cut a whole bunch down and then wait for the seasonal floods and float them down to where they needed them. 

Before we actually got to the wall we had to go to the commissioned tour guide jade factory and then to the “Friendship store” which was lunch and a quick tour of another factory/workshop. 

Pretty interesting to see the workshops, but that could be another whole post.

The Great Wall. So our tour guide told us if we could climb to the top of the portion of the great wall we were at we would prove ourselves heroes. Some sort of local tradition. It was an incredibly difficult climb. Haha. Millions of stairs, I should’ve been counting. In most of the pictures you see of the great wall its long and flat. We were climbing the part that was straight up. And not all the stairs the same height. But it was gorgeous and pretty crazy to think how this expansive thing was built so long ago. Our guide also said that he thinks it is a myth that you can see the Great Wall from outer space. Anyone know if that is true?  (http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/workinginspace/great_wall.html) 

There was also a crazy old man who followed us the whole  way. He was pretty entertaining though. 

Personal musing note: There were houses right next door for people who work at the Great Wall. Seems like a crazy existence to just work and live. But I guess I don’t really know what these people really do after work, do they get weekends? What’s important in their life? I don’t have the inside view. I just know how important church  and things outside of work is to my life. This is an incomplete thought, but I don’t really have time to finish it now.

On the drive back from the Great Wall we stopped and saw from a distance the Olympic Bird'ss Nest and the Water Cube!!! That thing is so sweet looking.

Dinner at a round table. That’s how most of the meals are here. Everyone sits at a round table and the food is put in the middle and then you can spin it around and get what you want. We have mostly had sort of sampler meals so far. Some really good stuff, some not so good. But I don’t think we have had anything really crazy yet. That’s all for now.

next post: sensory overload