DAY FOUR:

Hoping that this day would be luckier for me than the last, I awoke. Of course I was tremendously excited about the itinerary for today; we were going to the Great Wall of China! Although we were supposed to go there first, our itinerary proved to be false (as it did on a few other occasions) but, as Adam said, "With Adam Weaver as your guide, nothing can go wrong. You can always trust Adam."
I think I forgot to mention Adam's introduction of himself. When we first got on the bus, he noticed that there were fewer of us on Bus 2 (23) than on Bus 1 (29, I think). He commented on this by saying "I see I have the smaller group. That might be because you see I am younger, and younger is not always better. I have to tell you, though, Adam Weaver is the BEST tour guide." We all clapped, and he looked a little embarrassed.
Anyway, we ended up going to the school first. It was really interesting. When we arrived, the first thing we saw (apart from the gorgeous scenery) was a bunch of little Chinese kids waving at us and grinning ear to ear. Actually, before we saw that, we saw the principal's house, which looked something like a cross between and embassy and the White House, but that doesn't sound as welcoming, and not nearly as cute. We learned that it was the principal's house later; there wasn't a sign on it or anything.
We all paired into groups of three (my group being Ash, Ann and me) and one student came up to each of us to be our guide. Our guide's name was Winnie. She was really nice, and answered all of our questions. We talked about basketball for a little bit, also swimming. They had two swimming pools at the school; a really shallow one inside and a normal-sized one outside. She told us that when the teacher was in a good mood, they got to go swimming. "When the teacher's in a bad mood, we don't go anywhere." The was telling us about how Hangzhou was known for their dumplings, and I said that the dumplings had been pretty good here. "You don't know how bad things are in Beijing." I laughed, but it turned out to be true. Not that Beijing was bad (that came out sounding wrong). It was pretty cool. Just Shanghai and Hangzhou were way nicer. The weather in Beijing was the best, though.
As we were passing one of the girl's dorms we met up with another group. The two guides rattled stuff off to each other in Chinese (or something that sounded like Chinese. It could have been some other Asian language). Winnie paused, gestured toward a little alley, and said "That's where the lovers go." We laughed as she and the other girl told us about one couple who had been spotted by security guards and had to run away. "It's hard to find a place where there aren't any cameras. They'll stop you." Ash said that in most schools in America couples are allowed to kiss all they want in halls. One of the chaperones told us in the bus that her guide had been exceptionally good at English. "She said that she was really surprised she was chosen as a guide. She leaned forward and said 'The food really sucks.'"
Yep. Good grip on the English language.
After the tour we gave a concert for the Chinese schoolkids. It was okay, except the director wasn't as good as Mr. Leck or Mrs. Jay. I'm not just saying that out of pride. She really wasn't. To be a director (or a singer) you have to do more than just beat out time; you have to sort of...
Geez. The only things I can think of sound really dumb. They're true, though. Might as well say them.
Become the music, let the music flow through you, let it guide you... I sound like I'm talking about the Force. I think I mean that it's kind of like wind. You can't see it, you can't hear it, you just have to show it. That sounded dumb, too. Anyway, whatever you have to do, she wasn't really doing it. As a result, we weren't quite up to par. Not only that, the Hawaiian choir did two songs alone, while the rest of us only got to do the combined numbers. What is up with that?! Not only that, the Hawaiian choir had already gone to the bus and we had to wait for them to even start.

We waved farewell to the school, but we weren't too upset because we were headed for the Great Wall. Talk about cool!
Before we attempted the climb we had lunch. An exceptional lunch it was, too. It was SO good. I could have eaten a horse, I was so hungry. There was so much to chose from so that even though I only got a little of everything my plate was overflowing.
We had an informal concert after lunch, but apparently TU and a couple other people didn't hear about that, because they were way up on the wall by the time anyone noticed. I don't think any of the choir managers knew, but a bunch of us (Ash, me, Ann, Kris, Will, and a couple other people) had to yell up. On three, we all yelled "COME DOWN!" at the top of our lungs. They didn't respond, so we did it again. Faith yelled "WE ARE!" We didn't, however, see TU. He had gone around the corner. Faith turned around, and next thing we saw was TU, running down at breakneck speed. Have I mentioned that the stairs were uneven? We all expected to see him fall down the entire way. He didn't. He's lucky like that.
Mrs. Jay decided there was only one song we could do without a piano, so we only sang one. It kinda stunk (there being only one song, not the actual performance). Fortunately for us the trip up the Great Wall was awesome.
More about DAY FOUR in the next post.