Attempt to upload pictures!

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Hello!

Tonight we are staying in a city called Yinchuan. It's been a hectic trip so far! It's hard to believe that we left more than a week ago.

This is by far the best gaming cafe we have found so far. We have only spent time in a cafe a couple of times before now. The upload speed is great and they even let us plug in our camera! That is a first.

Everyday it seems we see something incredible.

Here are some statistic's we've been keeping:

1. We are in hotel #6. We sometimes forget what floor we are on.
2. We have spent 40+ hours driving in the truck from Beijing to where we are. It doesn't seem so far on the map but the road is not always easy going! There are a number of express-ways that were closed to public use closer to Beijing for the Olympics. That made a normal 5 hour drive into a 13 hour drive...
4. The beds are always hard. Sometimes so hard my side goes numb! Sometimes only hard enough for my arm to go numb. We used our thermarests one night. That made the bed much more cozy.
5. Food is fantastic. It takes us a long time to order (communication is a problem!) but we are usually really happy with what we get. Kwesi does all the work in orderin with neigh's and moo's! Kwesi even manged to get take-out from a restaurant! I am still not sure how he managed that.
6. Smog is never ending. Even if we aren't outside in the pollution, then we are inside with the smokers. We sometimes wonder what is worse.
7. There are 16 people in our tour. Claire and Dave are the whitey guides. Claire is from the UK and Dave is from NY. John is our Chinese guide. 2 Canadians, 1 American, 1 Brazilian, 1 Finnish, 3 Autralians and a bunch of Brits!
8. Kwesi's truck duties: load and unload luggage from the back locker. He is a sucker for punishment! I am almost out of band-aids. Kwesi has this job because he thinks he doesn't like to sit around while others work. I know he has this job because he can't stand having someone else do it poorly! It is quite a feat to fit everyon's luggage into the locker. I have no truck duties. ;-) Although, I have taken it upon myself to take care of the library, which is in disarray.

We'll keep you posted. Hopefully we will find another cafe with good upload speed! It has taken us a couple of hours now to post the pictures and we are bushed...

Thanks for all the emails! We read all of them with smiles on our faces.

Meghan and Kwesi

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Photos

The truck!
This is Caprise. We are in Qing Dong Ling when we first saw "her". The truck has hundreds of thousands of kms travelled...

Summer palace
This is from the Summer Palace in Beijing. We were there the day after we arrived from Canada!

Marble Boat
Yep, made of marble! No, it doesn't float. This is in the Summer Palace.

Summer Palace
Beautiful roof tiles!

Forbidden City
On the ticket, it's actually called the Palace Museum. ;-)
Unbelievable how many Chinese tourists were there where there with us!

Eastern Qing Tombs
This is the first place we headed to after Beijing (a mere 4 hour drive away!) The tombs were magnificent. There was a lot of detail and thought put into the tombs. This one was the most "opulent".

Eastern Qing Tombs
This was an entrance to one of the numerous tombs. There are so many of these "roads" there. The bridge was beautiful.

Qing Dong Ling
A picture of a famer's bicycle loaded with firewood.

Qing Dong Ling
Meghan attempting to be artistic...

Caprise
This is how far the truck made it the first day... Right behind is the hotel!

Eastern Qing Tombs
Spririt Road.

Eastern Qing Tombs
This is called the "Spirit Road". There are many statues here of different animals and warriors. They protect the way to the tombs.

Eastern Qing Tombs
Meghan and Kwesi contributing to protecting the tombs!

The Great Wall!
This is where Meghan and Kwesi started their 10km hike of the wall. Cool, eh?

The Great Wall
In some places, the wall was a big rough... I can't say the hike was easy!

The Great Wall
Entrance to a guard tower. We walked through or around many of these on our hike.

The Great Wall
Here is the remains of one of the guard towers. Some were in better condition and others had been rebuit.

The Great Wall
Kwesi the Super Star on the Great wall! Kwesi is the one who carried the water. Meghan carried her umbrella...

The Great Wall
Meghan on the Great Wall. The umbrella was very handy... It was VERY hot that day!

The Great Wall
The landscape was truly stunning. Why all the greenery isn't wilted we don't know... ;-)

Datong
Kwesi's artistic impression of Datong night life! There were a lot of street signs. (Zoom explosion.)

Hot Pot!
This was our first hot pot lunch. Took forever to figure out the ordering but man, was it ever good! There are some of our travel mates.

Pagoda
This is the oldest wooden structure in China. We don't know exactly where we were... We stopped someplace outside of Datong on our way back to the hotel.

Yuangang Caves
These caves were amazing. Many many budda's carved into the rock. Too amazing to capture here! This was one of the large buddas. There was a larger one inside one of the caves.

Hanging Manastry
Wow! Yes, that is the only word for this place. Imagine driving around the corner to see the building built into the cliff!

Comments

[Yitzik]

Great Photos
Hi Meghan and Kwesi, It seems like you are having lots of fun. I’m jealous. Keep updating us and uploading these great photos. Yitzik

[Jason Watt]

Smog
Either you were a lot farther from Beijing when you saw the Great Wall than I was (which is quite likely) or the smog situation has improved (HA!) because you can actually see blue sky in your pics.