China

We decided to take a trip to our "neighbors". Even though it really wasn't a long flight...for some reason it sure wiped Morgan out :) Luckily they had luggage carts at the airport just for her.

We were greeted by our tour guide Si Si (C.C) We even got our names on a sign which we've never had before (outside of family). We decided to book our own tour guide which turned out to be the BEST thing ever! With 2 kids we were able to take our time and not rush anywhere or talk about the different sites more. It was really nice and Si Si was great! Morgan loved her which helped out a lot cause she took Morgan several times and held on to her. We also had our own driver so as we went through all of the sites we never had to turn back to the entrance Si Si would just call him to come pick us up.
Directly from the airport they took us to the Temple of Heaven. Just driving in Beijing was a lot different than Korea. Traffic actually moved! There was still tons of it and I thought the horn honking was bad in Korea! We were at a red light and even our driver was honking his horn when there really was nowhere for us to go. But everyone else joined in too. They seem to have more grass and sidewalks than in Seoul. So to me it looked really nice. There were tons of people on bicycles and that was very brave with the way they drove. I could have sworn we would have hit a few people but they are used to it.
We got to the Temple of Heaven and it was amazing. It covered tons of space and the whole entrance of it is more of a park where everyone hangs out. They even had grass! I almost jumped the fence to run on it. (We sure miss it being in Korea)

A very popular game in China is similar to the hacky sacks that we used to play with. Only theirs has feathers connected to it. They all just stand in big circles and have at it. All ages too. In the circle of people in the back there is an old man. You can barely make out his gray hair.

The sidewalk leading up to the Temple is covered with older people. I guess retired men and women come here and hang out. Checkers, poker, even karaoke.

Closer to the Temple the crowd died down a little. I guess this is a type of guitar they play in China.

It then opened up into the courtyard of the Temple. I think the Emperor only came to the Temple twice a year to pray. One for the harvest and I don't remember the other one.

This is the Temple of Heaven.

As you can see this is all right in the middle of the city.

This is one of the places the Emperor would pray and make sacrifices.

All around the back wall of the Temple there are these sacrifcial alters and where they'd make the sacrifice to their Gods.

The tablet represents the "God" that he'd pray to in this temple. They don't have a statue of it. I don't know if there's statues at all or just not here. So the Emperor prays to a name plate basically.

Our family at the Temple of Heaven.

More courtyards that lead to where the Emperor would pray to the other God. I believe this one is the God of Harvest but don't quote me on that.

The Emperor would stand on this platform and offer a prayer. Everyone stood in line to stand here where the Emperor had stood.

After making the sacrifice the remains would be taken to this cooker so to speak and disposed of.

As we were walking to where we were going to be picked up by our driver, we were almost ambushed for the first time, of many little did we know. We've noticed that asians don't seem to know what personal space is. We were asked to take quite a bit of pictures. Morgan of course the most. However, I got some fame and glory for a while. These VERY friendly ladies within some group wanted their picture with me. And the first lady started pulling me around trying to get the best angle I guess. After her picture was taken her friend grabbed me and was holding on to me while others took her picture. Finally I was able to break free realizing that fame and glory isn't all that great when your being pulled around for pictures when you have a different agenda. Morgan luckily was on Nate's shoulders at the time. We really had to keep an eye on her. I carried Caden the whole trip in my Ergo but that still didn't keep people from coming up to me and pulling at it trying to see him. I once had to elbow a lady to get away. Our tour guide even yelled at some people to leave us alone. It got really bad.
We had dinner at some Chinese restaurant and then was taken to our hotel for the night.

The Great Wall

The next morning I had to admit was my favorite. We were able to see the Great Wall of China. Of course on our way we HAD to stop by a jade museum. I guess China is known for their jade. And for some reason this place has a deal with all tour guides to stop there. We get there and listened to their little shpeil and then they would follow us around while we looked at everything. It was very annoying. (We had been warned about this though from some friends of ours so we were expecting it). Finally we were back on our way to the Wall.

A view from our car as we were approaching. It is amazing!

So in Beijing there are 5 touristy areas of the wall. We of course just went to one of them. It took them 2000 years to build and whole wall is 3000 miles long. I never realized that the wall was built over mountains. Boy was I in for a surprise!! The steps were very uneven and as soon as you'd get to what you thought was the top...it went over another hill. We decided though to keep going and make it to the end. Heck we weren't planning on coming back to China anytime soon. Morgan was a trooper and Caden I think slept the majority of the time. Not very many kids there at all so we got a lot of looks and words of amazement and encouragement and of course pictures.

The bottom or entrance to this section of the wall.

Here we go!

The Wall from the side.

This is how Morgan climbed the wall :)
of course not the whole way. The steps were pretty steep. Morgan did a lot by herself with a hand helping her up.

(I don't know how to rotate this video.) We tried counting steps. We'd get to 30 and then rest and start over again.

This was just the first set of steps. You can see the Entrance by the cars.

A little bit further up.

Taking a little break. Always time for a "funny" face.

So in building the wall they also built it around their camps where the guards would stay. You can see the guards housing and the wall around it. It continues up on the left around that mountain. We hiked up along the right side.

From the top (at least of what we could climb on this end). You can see the wall continuing over the mountain in the back. It is amazing!

Us at the top.

You can see the wall continuing across the valley from where we were. The section that is close to us in the picture is a good example of the switchbacks and hills we had to hike. I believe this was still 2 switchbacks away.

I believe the Great Wall of China is on the list for 7 Wonders of the World. And it truly was amazing and a great wonder as to how they were able to build it. I've heard you can see the wall from space but I'm not sure if that's true. Definitely one of the most exciting things of our trips. If you ask Morgan about China the first thing she'll talk about is the really big wall. :)


Ming Tombs
After climbing the wall we met our tour guide back at the bottom (I guess they've seen it so many times they just wait at the bottom). We went to another restaurant. This one had some super market below it. Probably another perk for the tour guides to stop by. We saw a lot of the same people from the wall there. But a lot of the things in this market were unique to China. Stuff made from bamboo etc. But afterwords we went to the Ming Tombs. I think there are 16 Emperors in one of the dynasties of China. All are buried here except 3. We were told which ones and why (lost or don't know where they died etc...) but I don't remember what ones. I know one of them is the 2nd that isn't buried here because the main tomb is the 3rd Emperor.

Map of all of the Ming tombs.

Morgan was a pretty good sport with all the picture taking but she would save her poses for us.

Statue of the 3rd Emperor.

This doorway you could also just walk around. From what Si Si told us you can walk around it when you are going in but when you are coming back out you must walk through it. I guess coming back from the land of the dead sort of thing.

All the Emporers are buried in a hill. Some have been excavated and they have things they were buried with on display. However they don't know the exact spot this Emperor was buried because all the people that were involved with it were killed. (Yikes! I wonder how they got them to sign up for that job!)

If you catch Morgan in a good mood :) she'd pose for you. Especially if she's by herself. I can understand how overwhelming and kinda scary it could be to take pictures with people you don't know. This is one of the many kids that got their picture taken with Morgan. Now I guess in China they don't do the diaper thing....but in their little kids pants there is no crotch. There is a slit that leaves the butt right in the open. Very weird and definitely an eye opener to see some child walking around and the booty is hanging out :) I don't know if they do this here in Korea. I've asked my mom if they did this in Mongolia and she says they just don't wear pants at all in Mongolia so it must be a China thing.

The main tomb.

This is the headstone.

Just some tree in the middle of the wall.

That night we were able to go to a Chinese Acrobat/Circus. This was the end of the performance and we weren't allowed to take photos (one guy got in trouble) otherwise we'd have more pictures. The girls on the front row in red (feathers are from the 2nd row of girls) were bicycle riders. They'd stand on their bikes and ride around. The finale was all of them on one bike. The quote of the day was after the show. Morgan turns to me and says..."Mommy can you teach me to stand on my bike."


Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City
The following day we went to the square. I guess history wise has been known more for the massacre that happened in 89. But it is also where one of their presidents are buried or on display. There were tons of people there. Very busy.


This is the building the president's body is on display. I'm not one to look at dead people so we were more than happy to bypass the line.

View of the square from across the street. This is where the guy was in the massacre that stood up to the tanks.

This is the building across the street from the square. It has something of importance but I don't remember what.

Entrance to the Forbidden City from the Square. Where am I? (Nate thought that would be funny)

Us in the Square.

Entryway to the Forbidden City. The picture of the man on the wall is the president whose body is in the other building. Yep...good enough for me. At least here his eyes are open right :)

Flag pole. Supposedley they pick the guards who are the most attractive and fit to be these guards. I guess they want a good face to represent their country.

We thought they were doing some kind of "changing of the guards" but he just walked past the other ones up the stairs and back down. Maybe he was delivering some top secret message. Or maybe just the score of the game.

There is a man on top of the roof. We are assuming fixing something.

Entrance to the Forbidden City. We were one of the lucky ones who were given access to the city. Since it's Forbidden and all. Unfortunately, a lot of people were granted that same access. I guess not so special after all?




Morgan sure entertained us when we were bored. (Not that we ever got bored). But I can see why people would want to take her picture. We sure are good at getting these things on camera :)


There are like 5 entry ways into the City. The Emperor always went through the middle one. I think the Empress in one and probably his mistresses in the others (I don't remember who the other ones were for actually...but we did find out that the guy had like 75 mistresses. no joke!) Just inside there are 5 bridges over a little waterway. Again the Emperor would always walk over the middle one.

Here we are walking over the middle bridge just like the Emperor.

I think this was the main building.

Just outside the building you can overlook a courtyard. From here you can take several different paths all leading to more little buildings with smaller courtyards. We were told the city had 9,999 rooms. 1 less then the Gods.
So Nate had been carrying Morgan and set her down on a small ledge of on of the buildings to look through his backpack. In doing so a family with 2 boys came up asking if they could take their picture with Morgan. If they asked us we were a little more likely to let them take pictures. As soon as they were done some other lady threw her kid up on the ledge next to Morgan. It was so quick that we didn't have time to do anything. But then when she was done taking a picture someone else threw their kid up there. So people had started a line! It was seriously like seeing Santa. By that time though we had pulled Morgan off the wall. Crazy!!

Where the Emperor would sit over looking the courtyard.

Ah...the turtle.

So there really are turtles and cranes in Kung Fu!! :)

A backward glance at the main building from the other side of the courtyard.

So leaving the main courtyard we walked down a narrow alleyway. (we just chose one there were several on all sides of the main courtyard.) From this alleyway there were small little courtyards like the one above. These are all where the mistresses and workers lived. The one above is where the "highest" mistress/concubine lived. If she gave birth to a boy her maidens took care of the kids. She was never a part of it. This is so that if the boy became Emperor she'd have no influence on him. (I can't imagine never seeing my child!).

This is one of the few areas in the forbidden city that is in it's natural state. They haven't refurbished it. So twigs were going through the roof. It was nice to see the original building.

Behind all these alleyways and houses and courtyards there is a garden.

While walking out some kids came up to me. One of the girls was trying so hard to speak English to me and politely asked if she could take a picture (actually she was making the motions of taking a picture). It was sweet that she was trying so hard to talk to me. She even introduced herself and everything. While I was taking a picture with her, behind me someone had gotten a hold of Morgan (even on Nate's shoulders this time!) I quickly grabbed a picture to show some of all of this. Morgan was getting pretty tired of it. She really doesn't like other people touching her.
I think its from all of this.


Fresh Water Pearls

Another paid-tour guide stop. However, we all thought this one was a little more interesting. Here in China they have Fresh Water Oysters that they farm. They took us into a side room where they had a tank full of oysters. The lady pulled one out and talked about it. She had us guess how many pearls were in there. Yeah....we were way off. I think in the one she opened for us there were 31. Really small ones of course.




Summer Palace
By the afternoon we were getting tired of all the walking and stuff. So we took it slow at the Summer Palace. It was crazy busy. We were told cause the weather was finally nice. Si Si had been there just 2 days earlier and there was no one there. Amazing. This was one of the places Si Si actually yelled at some people to leave us a lone. Poor Morgan. The summer palace is where the Emperor would go to get away. He'd still do some business there.

They had some really interesting rock formations.

The palace is behind us on the hill. The land for the palace was huge. We are standing on just one side of it, plus the lake all the way back to the buildings on the hill and there's a lot more to the left of the picture. We walked all the way around past the palaces and then took a boat across the lake to the other side again.


OK so remember the cut in the kids pants I had mentioned earlier so their butt hangs out? Yeah. Nate was trying to be sneaky in taking a picture.

Adorable :)

Directly in front of the palace.

This was a an old theater where they'd watch performances. I think they used this before the one by the palace.

the Boat made of Stone. The Empress would sit on the top where there is a mirror and look over the lake.

These are actual boats that they used.

This is the boat that we rode in across the lake. We got the dragon one! (the other one was just a plain one so we got lucky)

Us on the boat.

Looking back at the palace from the boat.

this is on the left side of the lake from the palace (the dock is where we were let off). The bridge is called the Marco Polo bridge. I guess Marco Polo visited here and did something so they named it after him.

Us at the edge of the bridge.

Kung fu
Everybody was Kung Fu fighting.

That night we went to another Chinese restaurant (go figure) this one they dressed like empresses. Afterwards we attended a Kung Fu play/demonstration.


Right inside the auditorium for the Kung Fu they had this small boy beating a drum. He just sat there beating it keeping rhythm. We tried to smile at him and have Morgan blow kisses to him but nothing. In the story that was portrayed it was a monestary and the boys are Kung Fu monks in training. The boy grows up and becomes the main king guy. It was really hard to follow. But the kung fu was really neat. Even Morgan was doing karate chop moves when we left.

Here is the cast. The guy next to Morgan was the main character the story was about. The girl next to him I think was his mom? and then the old men were the old men. :)

They had a dragon dance at the end. He let us take his picture (two man dragon)


Time to say Goodbye...
The weekend went by really fast and we were kept busy the whole time. We were told we saw everything that Bejing is famous for which was great.

Our driver, tour guide and car for the 3 days.
Si Si and Mr. Shaw.

Our plane was on the runway already or something. They put us on a shuttle to get there.

Walking up the stairs to the plane actually on the runway. It was kind of neat.
All in all China was great. Part of me would prefer it over Korea....but then they say visiting a place is always different than living there.