I was so exhausted last night; while I had hoped to post, I just had no energy left to think. We visited the Great Wall, took a tour of the hutong, and watched an acrobatics show in the evening. We ordered room service and put on a DVD; and I fell asleep almost before finishing dinner. Dave even had to eat my dessert for me (I'm sure that bothered him). :) I'm glad that we have been kept as busy as possible during our days in Beijing. It has given us new appreciation for our new daughter's culture and home. So now, we are not only in love with a little girl's face in a picture, but also with her people and her land. It has also helped us adjust to the time difference, and has helped keep us from getting too anxious about big upcoming events - of course, now we're just crazy people knowing that we'll be with our new daughter in a matter of hours. Our guide in Beijing, Lily, was absolutely one of the most special people we've ever met. We hope to stay in close contact with her after we leave China.

Earlier today, we left the hotel in Beijing and took a short flight to Hefei. We have checked in to our hotel here, and will receive Zitao tomorrow morning. Tonight we went to dinner with the Clark family, who are also adopting from Hefei, and we're trying to rest in preparation for a BIG DAY tomorrow.

Here are some pictures from yesterday (in other words, what I didn't have the energy to post last night)! The Great Wall was quite simply, amazing. We climbed to the very top tower, which apparently rather few folks manage to do. Even Gennie went all the way to the top, although she had some help from her Daddy's shoulders at times. (Our guide said it was an elevation gain of 880 meters in total - that's a lot of stone steps to climb!)

At the bottom of this section of the Great Wall, we pose for a picture (we decided to go ahead and buy a book that some vendors were selling with photographs of the Wall, that included a portrait of us in front of it).

The beginning of our amazing walk with history.

Here is the great climber, 3-year-old Genevieve, making her way up the steps of the Great Wall of China.

We could see other sections of the Great Wall from where we were.

Inside one of the guard towers. (Sarah and Genevieve were running around, playing hide and go-seek and tag, not quite grasping the concept of who had been there in times past and for what reason - I kept imagining the Chinese guards with their torches in the cold night air, watching for signs of the northern enemy).

Posing with our guide extraordinaire, Lily, at the top of this section of the Great Wall.

Looking down at what we had already climbed. Did I mention I did this with a pack that weighed about 20 pounds? Oh, and Dave did it carrying 46-pound Genevieve most of the way. I carried her a good part of the way back down... should have thought about that eventuality (what goes up must come down, including tired toddlers)!

I love this picture of Sarah; she thought this outing was really fantastic.

Genevieve and her Daddy - Genevieve enjoyed this mode of transport quite a bit on the ascent.

After our adventure on the Great Wall, we sit in front of a stone tablet, which according to Lily (and I'm trusting her on this one) - it says, "You are not a hero until you have climbed the Great Wall." So - here we are, heroes four, with the fifth and sixth helping us with the camera work.

Our next tour was of the hutong district in Beijing - ancient sections of the city that include many centuries-old buildings of the common people. The tour is taken via rickshaw (pedicab), which Sarah thought was marvelous. It was my favorite part of the day, too, but for a different reason (other than the "wheee" factor). The hutong district is full of families living in these ancient stone houses, with no plumbing to speak of. Many families along a particular alley will share a public toilet. There are small shops that look like they might have looked ages ago, vegetables and essentials piled colorfully in wooden carts, and the whole area is vibrant with people who make do with what they have in the most special way. While the streets are dirty and the smell is certainly interesting, the insides of these houses are kept perfectly clean and bright, and the residents are proud of their dwellings. I know this because we were invited into the home of one of the elderly hutong residents, and we felt honored to spent some time around a small table in her living area.

Here are the rickshaws on their way around the hutong. Di and Gennie are up front, and Dave and Lily are in the next.

As we walked towards the home of our gracious host, we passed children doing what all children love - playing in a big ol' pile of dirt.

Our hutong tour guide is on the left (in the hat), and our gracious hostess of the hutong is on the right. She showed us several items that she was very proud of, including furniture which has been in her family (and in this particular home) for hundreds of years, and items that she had made herself out of beads, and other handiwork. We also met her pet cats (she surpasses us with a total of seven cats; I'm sure they get more work than ours do), and several lucky grasshoppers which lived in small wooden cages near the front door. The furnishings were very traditionally Chinese, and she was absolutely dear to invite us in and show us what her life is like. From now on, whenever I think of China, I will think of this woman and her life in the hutong.

After the hutong tour, we went to an amazing acrobatics show. Later, these Chinese lions balanced themselves on a large ball.

This is what I always think of with Chinese acrobats - the ladies spinning dishes on flexible rods. Later on, some other women acrobats performed tricks involving large numbers of people piled high upon small numbers of bicycles. Gave a new meaning to the term "mass transit."

Well, I'm signing off for the evening. My next post will include pictures of us with our new daughter! We meet in the lobby to go to the Hefei Civil Affairs office in about 12 hours.... not that anybody's counting....

I'm about to be a mommy again. (This is the best I've felt 12 hours before gaining a daughter, I can tell you that!)