China — Day 2: June 2019

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Our second day in China (and first “full” day) started off with a visit to the Jade “museum.” We say “museum” because it was more of a big store/gift shop with a short tour/demonstration, but it was still entertaining. We got to see some amazing jade sculptures/carvings/artwork, learn more about all of the different types of jade, and see some “family balls” being made (we picked one up when we were here in 2014). We’re pretty sure this was the same jade place we visited last time too (?). We let each of the kids pick out a small piece — Esme chose a “Money Dragon” (a traditional good luck symbol), Brynn got a small Family Ball (basically ball carved inside of a larger ball), and Han picked out a dragon (his Chinese Zodiac sign). Leslie got a jade bracelet — and they threw in another one “for free” — and Mimi even got a gift too.

From there we headed to the Great Wall. There’s a bunch of different places you can visit/walk on the wall. This one was farther away than the one that we visited last time, but it was a nice trip, much more into the mountains/countryside. We took a gondola ride up (MUCH better than the stairs!) and enjoyed lunch and ice cream at the top. After exploring a bit and getting some pictures, we went back down and did some souvenir shopping and then looked around at the museum/village at the base. (There was an “alpine slide” there but we didn’t have time to go on it — maybe next trip!)

After another long bus ride back into the city, we had dinner at the Peking Duck restaurant and headed back to the hotel. Esme rested, Brynn went to the pool, and Jeff and Han ventured out a bit to see the Lego store and the pedestrian mall near the hotel, and Han got to be on “the big screen” at the mall across the street.

You can always go to the SmugMug gallery to view or download all of the pictures and video or order prints directly from SmugMug.