Good Bye China

We left Chaoyang early in the morning for a 4 hour trip back to Shenyang city. While in Shenyang we stopped at the local Wal-mart and went shopping. Our goal was to spend $1000 USD in less than 90 minutes. That is about 7,500 Chinese Yuan! Liz divided the team up and gave us each a list of items to buy: toys, shoes, clothing, medicine, books, music. It was so much fun to shop for the kids. Everyone managed to do their shopping and be checked out in 90 minutes!

We then went to the 'Forbidden City' in Shenyang. The Forbidden City in Beijing is modeled after this one. We were only able to spend 30 minutes here so I wasn't able to get too much information about it, but it is amazing.



Saturday in Beijing we had a VERY full day. We started off at the Great Wall. I was only able to get to the 4th tower. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling well that day and could go no further. How frustrating is was for me to travel that far and not be able to get to the top.

While we were at the Wall, there was a group of musicians coming in. They were from the states if I remember correctly. But as I was descending the wall you could here them play...the theme from Star Wars!


After the Wall, we went to a Jade factory, the Friendship store (saw how cloisonne was made) and the Beijing market to do some shopping. It was probably good that I wasn't feeling very well as I wasn't able to spend much money.

After shopping, we went to a 'Kung Fu' show and Peking Duck dinner. The show was good and the dinner, what I could eat of it, was great!

We got back to our hotel around 11:30pm and packed for our early departure in the morning. That really was a full day.

Sunday we left for the airport and found out that our flight leaving Beijing was going to be 3.5 hours late leaving. Actually it ended up being 4 and we missed all of our connecting flights in the states. Long story short...instead of getting home at 3:30 pm, I got home at 11:30pm.

It was wonderful to be met at the airport by my men, roses in hand, happy to be home.

This was an amazing trip.

If you remember, please keep the children of the Chaoyang Orphanage in your prayers. There is so much need there I can't express it totally in words. It brings me to tears when I share or review my pictures. I can only pray that by our team being there we were able to show Jesus' love and compassion to those around us. And that maybe we touched a life or two.