NO LONGER USING THIS SITE PLEASE SEE NEW LINK!!!!

http://ellaming.wordpress.com

I am no longer posting to the site here. USE THE Above link if you wish to continue to follow us on the trip and future... I was tired of having this site blocked in China so I moved it to the link above!!! Enjoy and thanks for looking!

Only 30 mins left!

We just finished talking with our guide Elvin and after he left we walked around outside for a couple hours. In 30 mins our life and a special little girl's life will change forever. We ate at Lucys...good American food :) We checked out some of the shops that people have talked about online. It is really beautiful here. Weather is around 72 degrees. Here is a short little video I shot while we were eating:

GOTCHYA DAY!!!

We just got off the phone with Elvin our guide here in Guangzhou and we are going to get Ella at 2pm China time... We will post more as soon as we can!

Day 4... UGH...

What a long long day. We traveled this morning to the Temple of Heaven and toured it for a couple hours. Next we were off to a Pearl Factory and followed that up with lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe in Beijing. Then it was off to the airport. It is 10:50pm Guangzho time right now and we are both exhausted. It was a 3 hr. flight from Beijing to Guangzho followed by a 30 min van ride to the Victory Hotel. This Hotel is possibly the nicest hotel either of us have stayed in. We got a corner room overlooking the craziness of the city. It has a living room, bedroom, 2 bathrooms and is very spacious. I am going to post a few pics and call it a night... Tomorrow is the big day... Gotchya Day!!!!!!!!!!!! Finally... we are still awaiting word on what time that will be exactly...

Day 3

Today was another great day in China. We are really starting to get used to the Culture here. Beijing is truly an amazing place! Today we visited Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City. After the sight-seeing we visited a Silk Factory. Thenit was off to lunch for some Peking Duck. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! After the group got back to the hotel Amy and I decided to venture out on the town and get some good 'ol American McD's :) Big Macs and fries. It tasted just like the US. We then continued on our venture to a Flea Market that was 8 stories tall! We found some great buys on some silk and various other things. Who new they made silk traditional Chinese Dresses in Barbie size! Here are some photos from today. We are Flying out around 5pm tomorrow to Ella's province!!! We get here in 2 days! We are so excited, especially after seeing some of the little Chinese girls running around in the square today.

(click on Photo to Enlarge)

Day 2 (Part 2)

Since i fell asleep last night I wanted to finish up day 3 activities. After the Wall we stopped by a shop that made copper pots/vase type goods. They are hand made there in a small shop. The outsides are hand painted and placed in a kiln. They are then polished with three different types of rock to smooth the surface. Inside the shop on the second floor was a restaurant. We sat at a big round table with a lazy susan. Joe ordered us up a bunch of food and we sampled many different Chinese specialties. It was all good stuff. I even got to sample Beijing beer. It tasted very good as well. Along the way we also stopped at a Jade shop. After the meal we went to see the 2008 Olympic stadium (birds nest) and the "Cube". It was really cool to see and one could only imagine the amount of people that were in the area when the games were on. We left the stadium area for some Tea tasting. We tasted 5 teas from the area. All of them were very good...

A $3 trinket I picked up outside the stadium... Joe dared me to buy it! It was the conversation piece on the bus...Come'on you cant beat a battery operated rickshaw with people in sheep outfits... it even plays music!

Dinner!

Tea Tasting

Day 2

Today started off with a bang... literally :) Our bus driver was turning when a guy tried to cut in behind us and hit the back of our bus about a minute out of the hotel parking lot. We stopped right in the middle of the street blocking traffic on a road that was bumper to bumper. It was entertaining to listen to them yell at each other in Chinese :) We sat there about 5 mins before we just left since there really wasnt any damage to either vehicle. Notice the random guy walking along sweeping the street...on the busiest street in the city! We also had a police car drive right by like nothing happened...

The GREAT WALL...

Simply Amazing... a must see. My legs are still burning from all the stairs. It is an unbelievable sight to see. We climbed a section that was a loop of what we estimate to be about 1.5 to 2 miles long. It was made up of very inconsistant steps and surfaces. It took us about 1.5 hours to complete. Well worth the effort!!

Jade shop...