It's my birthday and I'm in China!

I'm so lucky. This morning I met the guys I'm working with in the lobby of our hotel. Two of the Germans on the project brought me a bday present - a tour book (in English) about their city in Germany cause apparently I need to go there for this project. The thing is, I just met these guys and I always think that Europeans (Germans in particular) are kinda hard to get to know, but they took the time and energy to bring this for me (and wrap it up and make it look pretty). They were also telling me about some things we should do when I come there to work. They like me! They really like me! Seriously though, it makes me really happy that the people I am working with enjoy spending time with me. I am enjoying their company as well, which makes everything nicer...

Our tour guide Peggy picked us up at 9am with a van and we drove out to the Great Wall. It was about a 2 hour drive - Sunday morning traffic wasn't bad at all. Her English was very good and she answered a lot of questions and provided background on China, the wall and Beijing. We went to a less popular (for the tourists) part of the wall, which was great. One of our group had been to the other part and said there were too many people at the other location + it wasn't as pretty as the section we went to.

The Great Wall is on top of mountains, ya know. We walked up a little and were surrounded by folks who wanted to sell us "I Hiked the Great Wall" t-shirts and Mao watches (which are pretty amusing, I have to say) and there was a bit of a discussion about whether we were going to hike up the mountain. I immediately announced that I was going on the chair lift and would meet them up there. Seriously, I would have not made it - I've been walking a lot here and all, but it's a 3,000+ foot climb. Peggy convinced the guys it wasn't a great idea, so we all took the chair lift up.

The wall is pretty overwhelming. I mean, they had to get all that material all the way up there and then they had to assemble the darned thing. It's massive. You see it on top of the mountains in every directions. Wolfgang and I walked for maybe an hour and then went down (on China's longest toboggan run, which was way fun) and Roger and Michael climbed to the highest point we could see, which was very impressive.

We then drove to a government owned cloisonne factory. Cloisonne is an ancient method of enameling and it's all done by hand and is very time consuming. It was interesting and their work was beautiful and very expensive, so none of us bought anything.

After that, we then went to the Summer Palace, which is where the Emperor and his posse went when the Forbidden City was just too hot. Like most everything else in Beijing, it's all being worked on so that it's pretty for next year's Olympics, but like much else in Beijing, it's beautiful. We walked around there, took pictures, watched Michael inhale several ice creams, went on a ride on a dragon boat and then called it a day.

Came back to my hotel and there was a happy birthday card from the Hyatt. Nice. Ordered room service, cleaned up and posted my pix and I'm about ready to pass out.

Oh yeah, I melted my alarm clock last night. Sigh. I put it on top of a lightbulb so that the stuff that glows at night would be really bright. Then I forgot about it and took a shower. When I came back in and pulled it off of the lightbulb, the glass cover (which turned out to be plastic) had melted onto the lightbulb. Sigh. So, I have to depend on wake up calls, which always makes me nervous.

Anyways, this pretty much ends the tourist part of my trip. We start working again tomorrow and are hoping to wrap up early. If we do, I'm going to see if I can fly home a few days earlier. It would be nice to have a few days to acclimate before having to go perform an audit on the campus at home.

Bottom line is, I had a really great birthday. New friends remembered and went out of their way to do something nice for me, old friends emailed and sent mp3's of them saying nice things and it's only 9:30 (on my birthday) on the East Coast. In Seattle, it's only 6:30am on my birthday, so if you've forgotten, you have about 24 hours amnesty! I just feel like I'm so lucky to have the opportunity to experience this world in this way + I have the best people in my life. I know it's totally dorky, but I am truly blessed. I'm promise to be pissy and sarcastic tomorrow for your reading pleasure. In the meantime, just deal with it.