Yiwu, China... MY DREAMLAND

August 22- Our last day for Olympic events! We woke up and took a trip to the Olympic Green for Athletics. The 50km walk started at 7:30am, but we arrived around 9:30. We saw some decathlon events (discus and javelin) and saw some of the 50km walkers finish. Italy was so happy when he entered the stadium for his gold medal. He ended up doing some running on the track with his flag, after having just race walked 50km. We didn't stick around long because we had volleyball across town and USA was playing Russia!

It was a great match! USA had won the first two sets, but Russia came back to tie it and take it to game 5. There were a ton more Russian fans than USA fans, so we had to be extra loud. The guys pulled it out though, winning 3-2 and advanced to the gold medal game (that they also won)!

After, we went to lunch and headed back to the hotel to make some signs for the Today Show. It was the last night for them recording, so we had to go. We saw the women's water polo and soccer teams, and the men's beach volleyball team. I finally got a picture with Ann Curry, too, after having tried 2 other times. Third time's a charm! We met up with Sarah and Sean again, and met a guy named Peter who was staying at our hostel and all went out. We tried to find the Budweiser tent, but were unsuccessful, so we went to some random bar and drank and talked. Fun times.

August 23- We woke up, booked out Great Wall tour and got some lunch before heading out to the Summer Palace. It was so pretty there! Definitely the nicest thing I've seen in Beijing. The architecture was great, as was the view from the top of Longevity Hill. It was quite the hike to the top with the steep steps, but it was nice. We also took a dragon boat across the lake to walk across a pretty bridge. After a few hours there, we went to the night market on Wangfujing to try some pan-seared dumplings and did some shopping at the Olympic store and at a nearby market.

When we got back to the hostel, Lena (the owner of the hostel) said free beer and food because China won the gold medal race. We didn't feel like celebrating that (we all know who won the MEDAL race total...) but who can resist free stuff? We had some delicious fried rice, and had some drinks. After listening to really loud music, singing "My Heart Will Go On" at the top of my lungs, and seeing our picture from the softball game on yahoo, we headed off to bed for our early morning on the Great Wall.

August 24- Early rising! We boarded a coach headed for the Great Wall Mutianyu and the Ming Tombs. It took about an hour and a half to get there with picking people up. Our guide Jean kept us entertained with her knowledge of the Wall and the history of China. We took a ski lift up to the wall. Such an amazing sight to see! And so tiring of a climb! We walked up and down a bunch of stairs and ramps, taking a ton of pictures along the way. We spent a couple of hours on the wall before we headed down on a toboggan slide! It was sometimes fun, most times not because I had to pull myself down the majority of the the way because it hardly moved. At the end I got rammed in the back because people didn't stop.

After I bargained for an "I Climbed the Great Wall" shirt, we headed to lunch at a jade factory. We saw how they make statues from jade, and how to tell real jade from fake. I didn't know there were different colors of jade, but our guide described them to us, and that the Olympic medals are special because there is jade in each of them- and different colors of jade for the different color of medal. We had Chinese lunch family-style- beef which was probably the best, chicken, rice, veggies, and I tried a dumpling which was not good. We headed to the Sacred Way of the Ming Tombs (not the ACTUAL Ming Tombs like we had originally thought) and it was a little ridiculous. We made the best of it, though, by taking pictures on the giant marble animals. After this joke, we went to a bigger joke of a silk factory. We took a 5 minute tour on how they make silk quilts, then they gave us time to shop in the store. We think that they put us on these little side things not listed to have their friends make some money on the side- so lame.

After a long day, we took a nap then watched 30 minutes of the lame closing ceremonies and went to dinner at Annie's before going out with Sean and 2 guys from our tour- Brad and Brett. We sat out at a bar, then got some beers from a market before talking to some guys from Italy and Hungary and going dancing at a salsa club- random, but fun.