Yeah, so apparently we hit China right in the middle of a gripping cold wave. There have been reports all across the news here about ice storms and record snowfall. Luckily, we have escaped most of the ice…

That is…until today.

We woke up this morning to ice on cars and on our balcony. It was sleeting pretty hard when we boarded the bus at 9:30am for some local sightseeing.

I’m not quite sure why we decided to venture out into the frozen world, but we did. We visited a Buddhist Temple first. It confirms for me that the Chinese have some of the oddest art in the world. After we survived the Temple, we headed on over to some other religious pagoda/tower. We barely made it up the icy stairs and then across the frozen courtyard. What greeted us was about a 150′ tall tower.

Of course you know that the dads HAD to climb the darn thing. Bill (in the Army) took off first, with me quickly on his heels. Then on his shadow. Then on is voice. Then I had to stop. Then I got passed. Then I stopped again. Then I got passed again. Then I stopped again. Then I made it to the top…

It was a nice view and all, but I’m not sure my heart and lungs felt it was worth the effort.

Coming down was tough too, but only because the stairs were so steep and the railing was ice cold. See the title of this post.

Then they took us to a porcelain shop. I tell you what, if I had a way to ship the stuff back to the U.S. without it breaking, Mom and Nanna would have a few nice things. I thought about you guys, I really did, but it would have been prohibitively expensive to ship them and there would be no guarantee of their condition. But it was some pretty stuff.

For lunch we packed up Mei, grabbed some of our new comrades and hiked 1/2 mile to the local Pizza Hut! Yay Pizza Hut!!!

Jen had an honest to goodness Mochachino and slice of cheesecake. She was in heaven. We had pizza as well and it hit the spot.

Coming home was tough. It started sleeting on us and we were walking into the wind. The ice stung our cold faces and we had to watch out for ice on the sidewalk. We finally made it home and warmed up in the hotel room.

Mei took a late nap, as did Jen and I. I’ve got to stop taking such late naps. I woke up in a total stupor. I couldn’t keep my eyes open and my stomach hurt. I took me a good hour to snap out of it.

We had a special dinner up on the 8th floor tonight. Our guide must have heard us complain about the buffet, so he arranged a nice dinner. I could not eat and barely made it through dinner due to the after affects of my nap. I found a couch near the door, because they had the room temperature set to “Sun”. I played with Mei on the couch while Jen talked it up with the other moms. I think it was good for her to have some girl time. Mei smiled and played with our waitress girls, who talked and touched Mei to their hearts content.

We have an off day tomorrow. That is good and bad. Good in that we don’t have to get out in the nasty weather, but bad in that I am afraid the day will drag on. Monday and Tuesday will both be whirlwind days. Monday we fly to Guangzhou and Tuesday we have our medical appointment. The flight will be a dry run for bring Mei home on the 777 for 14 hours….

Welp, time for a hit of bottled water and then some sleep.

Later gators.