Great Walls of China: Long Days, Good Travels, and a Few Adventures

Hello everyone! We are safe and sound in China and we have had a few adventures along the way. As you may know, Darryl left Ephrata before we did in order to get a few days of work in before meeting us in Shanghai. Ethan, Alaina and I left Seattle a 1:30 on Thursday and flew ten hours to Tokyo, changed planes, and headed to Shanghai. Unbeknownst to us, Darryl had gotten on his flight in Dalian, which flew to Beijing, circled around for a while, and then flew back to Dalian! Everyone had to get off the plane, and then they boarded again and headed back again. He did finally make it to Beijing just in time to make his flight to Shanghai and was there to meet us as planned. The only problem was that in the confusion his bag never made it to Shanghai. We figured if that was the worst thing that happened we were in pretty good shape. Sherry, our exchange student from last year, and her family were there to meet us with a van and driver. We drove through a nasty lightnig and rain storm and finally arrived in Sherry's hometown, Nanjing, around 1:30 a.m. We were tired and collapsed into the hotel beds. We were able to spend the day with Sherry and her family exploring Nanjing. What a beautiful city! First we went up to a small mountain and visited the masoleum of Sun-Yat Sen, the founder of the Republic of China. To get there we climbed 398 steps, one for each of the original residents of Nanjing. I only had to stop and rest once. :) Then we went to see the old city wall which surrounds the city. It is 600 years old, and many of the bricks it is made of are signed by the original makers. We were told that if their work wasn't good they were killed! We had a wonderful lunch with Sherry's family, who gave us gifts and insisted on paying for everything. They are really wonderful people. We explored the park outside the wall and bought a few souveniers. Then they took us to the traditional market and we spent a long time wandering and just enjoying the city. We had a really interesting dinner consisting of 24 courses of small amounts of traditional foods. There were a lot of dishes on our table when we were done! Then they took us to the train station where we had booked a sleeper. We had a really relaxing, restful overnight ride, and at 6:45 this morning we arrived in Nanchang. Now we are freshening up and trying to get ourselves organized. Our guide, Mary, says Maia will be brought to the hotel around 2:00. We are so excited! I will attach some pictures of our day yesterday. Next time we write it will be as a family of 8!!!!!