Forgotten Leftovers

Well, I knew that I would forget something when I did that marathon post.
Last night, we almost had to move. For some reason explained by the hotel as "It's not our fault, it's the building next door." Our floor was nearly fumigated by a smell that is not of this earth. Or, it was some kind of Polyurethane spill, or something of that ilk. It was like they were stripping and re-finishing a bowling alley in our air vents. There were 5 families on this floor, the 19th, by the way, and one of us decided to move to a different floor. I was handed a set of keys for another floor, but we ended up staying. They said it was the building next door, that they were working on, and somehow, the only floor affected was the 19th of 20? I don't really see that as being feasible, but you never really know.


Again, I missed some things from a FEW days ago, that Heather just reminded me of. With the excitement, who will blame me? We went to Tien men square, the famous square where there were protests, etc.
It was an interesting place, we learned that it could hold 1,000,000 people. I thought about it, and that means the entire city of Detroit would fit with a little room to spare. That's a sobering thought, eh? And to top it all off, it's just the entrance to the Forbidden City, the place for the emperors of China.


Much of the Forbidden City was under construction, so we couldn't go into the main buildings, but it was still pretty cool. The emperor that built it was so paranoid, he had the flagstones installed 15 layers deep, so it couldn't be dug into. The amazing thing was that there is a Starbucks in the Forbidden City, but it is well hidden. They won't even let you take pictures of it. Funny, eh? They got permission if they would follow the rules of architecture that the city has.

After the Square, and the Forbidden City, we had lunch in a Peking Duck restaurant. This is supposed to be the most famous one in the city, but there happen to be 2 different locations. We found this out when one of our number didn't show up, and Dennis went to find her. She was taken to the wrong one. Dennis has been a humongous help to all of the families under his care, but definitely for us. We will miss him when we return to Detroit.

So that brings us to the last bit of forgotten time, maybe.

After ALL of this, the Square, the City, and the Duck, we went to the Great Wall. After all that we did already that day, the Wall was killer. But who do we see when we are there, looking all fresh and chipper? Mark and Kristen! The couple that you have read about on this blog before, our best Michigan adoption buddies, the ones that we met in Chinese class, the couple that lives down the road from us, etc. They come all the way to China, and their group tours the Great Wall at the same time that we do. We have definitely removed the possibility of coincidence with them, if anything has worked for us, it is our connection with them. We were able to make the first section of the wall, where there was a shop that sold you "hero" cards, that proved that you climbed the wall. There is a family in the May travel group, that has a daughter that they adopted before with leg problems, she wears a pair of braces and has trouble with walking. She started up the Wall, and when she couldn't make it any further, her daddy picked her up and carried her the rest of the way to the top. That is inspiration.

So that is all the backstory that I forgot. I hope. So sorry for the marathon posts, but that is what happens.
B