Hi All, So we are home from our trip, and mostly over the jet lag. What an exciting time!! We loved it! I could tell you stories for hours of everything that happened, but since my space is limited, I’ll just give you a short description, and some unforgettable points.
Day 1: we arrived in Beijing and had the adventure of finding our hotel via subway! Thankfully a nice man could speak both English and Cantonese (The Chinese dialect that Dale speaks), and helped us find our way. It took nearly three hours!! Once in the hotel, we all crashed! The “boys” went out later that night and found a street market that sold live scorpions (you pick the live ones and they fry them up in front of you! YUM!)
Day 2: We explored the nearby attractions Tiananmen Square, and the Forbidden City. The amounts of people in these areas made the subway encounters from the previous night seem like nothing!! Apparently 16 million people live in Beijing, and nearly 19 million work there.
Day 3: We embarked on a very interesting tour of a Jade Museum and Shop, the Ming Tombs, and The Great Wall. “Ellie” was our guide, and she was very informative! We learned a lot. The section of the Great Wall we visited is the most popular section (Michael Jordan climbed this section when he visited!!) and that is apparent in the photos.
Day 4: Another Flight, to Guangzhou. That afternoon we walked around the “People’s Park” and enjoyed traditional Chinese gatherings of exercise, dance, singing and games. The parks are the life of the party! That evening we had dinner with Dale’s cousin and her family that still live in the area.
Day 5: Another view of traditional Chinese culture with a trip to a Folk Art Museum, The Guangdong Museum in the Guangzhou Yue Xui Park, and the Sun yat-sen Memorial Hall. Dinner again with the family, this time Chinese – we all got strange looks and cheers for trying to eat with chopsticks!!
Day 6: Bus ride to Taishan, and a visit to the rural village where Dale’s grandmother lived, and his mother was born.
Day 7: Trip to Dale’s village, and the house still in the family. He brought a feast for the remaining villagers, and we chose household items to take home with us. These two days were the most educational! It was exciting to learn how things are different now for villages, yet still so far off from what we are accustomed to.
Day 8: Bus ride to Hong Kong. We spent the afternoon and evening exploring the city and shopping at a few of the many street markets.
Day 9: We took a ferry across the bay to Hong Kong Island and rode a tram car up to the top of Victoria’s Peak. After enjoying the spectacular views of the city and bay below we stumbled upon a Zoological and Botanical Gardens with many tropical plants and an Aviary and Primate exhibits. After taking the ferry back to Kowloon, we enjoyed a wonderful Chinese dinner, and then went back to the bay to watch a laser light show to music put on by the buildings along the bay on the island. Very beautiful!! Then – More Shopping!!
Day ten concluded the trip with a very long flight back!
It was a jammed-packed couple of weeks, but we wouldn’t change it for anything. Check out the Photo Albums and videos listed on the Bottom of the Right-hand Column. The pictures are worth a thousand words!! Make sure you have plenty of time to look, there is a lot to take in!! (as we learned from the trip!)
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Unforgettable Experiences In China:
The Traffic: At first look it can only be described as complete chaos!! However as the trip went on we came to appreciate this confusion as a very intricate balance of give take. And admiringly only saw a total of 2 vehicle accidents the whole time! Ironically this makes the Chinese very good drivers in my eyes – they have to be to survive the mess they call intersections!!
The Smells: The smell of the outdoors changes with every step you take. One minute it’s the pleasant fragrance of fresh cut flowers or the local tea shop, the next it’s of roasted squid on a stick, and urine in the gutters. The pollution was worse in some cities than others, but the smells were everywhere!
The Street Markets: Such a blast of energy all smashed in to 4 or 5 blocks. Little “booths” of whatever you could imagine that are put up and taken down every day or night. A bargaining Know-how is a must before entering any of these locations (Thanks Dale!!)
The Villages: Such a different lifestyle altogether! And a dying lifestyle too. The closeness of the houses and the neighbors, the dinners of rice, pork, egg, and peanuts wrapped in bamboo leaves. And the unquestionable loyalty of those who continue to support their homeplace decades after leaving it.
The Food: Authentic Chinese food includes No-Trimmings Meat (skin on, heads on, bone-in), Fabulous teas, Fried Rice that melts in your mouth, and Learning that you can eat rice and noodles with Chopsticks!! And the most horrendous food of the trip – Not the scorpions on a stick, no, it was the HOT POT!!!
The Bathrooms: Toilets consist of a bowl that sits IN the ground – the edges are flush with the floor and you stand on the sides and squat. See Picture in Hong Kong Album. Oh, and very few public restrooms supply toilet paper for you.
The Signs: Funny Translations like: Forbidden to step here, Refuse to sit on, etc. Along with pictures of weird things like people getting hit by cars! Also, signs for things that seem odd to our culture, like Air-raid shelters and spitting, but are perfectly normal for the Chinese. And lastly, translations that come out as bad or funny words to us!
The Parks: City parks are everywhere!! They are filled with beautiful tropical plants, gardens, and gathering areas. These parks are used constantly by Many people. Every time we went to a park, early, afternoon, evening, there were always a ton of people dancing, singing, performing, doing Tai Chi, playing games, etc. The parks are the life of the party!! Plenty to do, and even more to watch!!
The Smells: The smell of the outdoors changes with every step you take. One minute it’s the pleasant fragrance of fresh cut flowers or the local tea shop, the next it’s of roasted squid on a stick, and urine in the gutters. The pollution was worse in some cities than others, but the smells were everywhere!
The Street Markets: Such a blast of energy all smashed in to 4 or 5 blocks. Little “booths” of whatever you could imagine that are put up and taken down every day or night. A bargaining Know-how is a must before entering any of these locations (Thanks Dale!!)
The Villages: Such a different lifestyle altogether! And a dying lifestyle too. The closeness of the houses and the neighbors, the dinners of rice, pork, egg, and peanuts wrapped in bamboo leaves. And the unquestionable loyalty of those who continue to support their homeplace decades after leaving it.
The Food: Authentic Chinese food includes No-Trimmings Meat (skin on, heads on, bone-in), Fabulous teas, Fried Rice that melts in your mouth, and Learning that you can eat rice and noodles with Chopsticks!! And the most horrendous food of the trip – Not the scorpions on a stick, no, it was the HOT POT!!!
The Bathrooms: Toilets consist of a bowl that sits IN the ground – the edges are flush with the floor and you stand on the sides and squat. See Picture in Hong Kong Album. Oh, and very few public restrooms supply toilet paper for you.
The Signs: Funny Translations like: Forbidden to step here, Refuse to sit on, etc. Along with pictures of weird things like people getting hit by cars! Also, signs for things that seem odd to our culture, like Air-raid shelters and spitting, but are perfectly normal for the Chinese. And lastly, translations that come out as bad or funny words to us!
The Parks: City parks are everywhere!! They are filled with beautiful tropical plants, gardens, and gathering areas. These parks are used constantly by Many people. Every time we went to a park, early, afternoon, evening, there were always a ton of people dancing, singing, performing, doing Tai Chi, playing games, etc. The parks are the life of the party!! Plenty to do, and even more to watch!!
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Almost there!!!
Hey Everyone, I thought I'd do one more post before we go bye-bye! Cuz it has been a crazy last week! Let's start with after the last post . . .
Tuesday Mommy went to COSA Ranger Training, and learned about helicopter medicals and Raptors. And she is now CPR certified. Also, since it was a weekday I went to Deanna's, the back-up babysitter, and she told us that she's moving, so I no longer have a back-up babysitter!! HERE WE GO AGAIN!! but Mommy was thinking about not using her anyways, for other reasons that she really wouldn't talk about with me. Then on Friday Mommy went to the training again, and learned Defensive Tactics, like self defense for cops . . . and she got her Butt Kicked!!! Literally!!! Everyone had to take turns holding the pads to punch and kick, and since it was Mommy and 12 guys, she got a little beat-up! She tried to beat-up right back, but it just wasn't enough!! She still has a few bruises, and she was so sore that she could hardly move until Monday.
On Saturday we had ANOTHER blizzard!! Mommy only got pictures on her phone this time, it was a little smaller than the last one. We only got a couple of inches of snow, 3-4 I think. But once again, the wind is what made it a blizzard. Out by our house (not in town) the winds made snowdrifts across the roads a couple feet high!! Of course it's all melted by now though!!
Also, this weekend we were just a bunch of sickies!! Mommy got a little bit of sinus and cold stuff (but she thinks the beating she took on Friday helped knock it out of her!), Daddy got the worse end of the sinus stuff. He's still suffering. He's been taking all sorts of medicines and stuff so that he can get better by the trip. I hope he does! Me on the other hand, my stories a little different. I woke up in the middle of the night Saturday night and got sick in bed. Mommy came and got me. Then Sunday morning I thought I was going to get sick again a couple more times, but nothing ever came up. I had a little fever but it was gone by the next morning and I was all better!! Monday was a normal day for us! Then Yesterday . . . yuck!! I slept in until 10:30, I don't know why!! So when I got up Mommy gave me my normal Cheerios and a Sippy cup of milk for breakfast. (I drink whole milk, not 2% like Mommy and Daddy!) I was so hungry from not eating much before when I was sick I drank all that milk up! But then I didn't feel so good. I just sat on Mommy's lap and watched PBS until lunch time. At lunch Mommy tried to give me a taste of her yogurt, but I didn't want any. She put a little on my lips, and as soon as I tasted it . . . ALL THAT MILK I DRANK CAME RIGHT BACK AT MOMMY!!!! It was so yucky!! It got all over me and Mommy and the couch. She tried to catch most of it in the blankets, but not all of it stayed there! It looked like cottage cheese, but smelled HORRIBLE!!! (in fact mommy's still trying to get the smell out of the couch!) Needless to say, I got a bath, but when I was all done I felt fine again. In fact, we went back down stairs and that yogurt looked so good by then I started eating it!! And I haven't gotten sick again!! Mommy and Daddy think it was just some bad milk, since they didn't taste any, but they just hope it's not a milk allergy. I don't think it is, cuz I still like my cheese, and yogurt!! oh well, I'm just glad I'm not throwing up anymore.
So that's the crazy week we've had!! All of that on top of trying to pack and get things ready for the next couple weeks. Mommy's friend Katie is going to stay with Kitty and the Doggies. She's so nice! I hope she babysits for me again! Anyways - We leave tomorrow for Indy, then on Saturday I go to Aunt Janice's!!! Mommy says she probably won't be able to update until we get back, so start looking for stuff around the 24-25th. I'm sure there will be LOTS of pictures and videos!! Talk to ya all later!!
Tuesday Mommy went to COSA Ranger Training, and learned about helicopter medicals and Raptors. And she is now CPR certified. Also, since it was a weekday I went to Deanna's, the back-up babysitter, and she told us that she's moving, so I no longer have a back-up babysitter!! HERE WE GO AGAIN!! but Mommy was thinking about not using her anyways, for other reasons that she really wouldn't talk about with me. Then on Friday Mommy went to the training again, and learned Defensive Tactics, like self defense for cops . . . and she got her Butt Kicked!!! Literally!!! Everyone had to take turns holding the pads to punch and kick, and since it was Mommy and 12 guys, she got a little beat-up! She tried to beat-up right back, but it just wasn't enough!! She still has a few bruises, and she was so sore that she could hardly move until Monday.
On Saturday we had ANOTHER blizzard!! Mommy only got pictures on her phone this time, it was a little smaller than the last one. We only got a couple of inches of snow, 3-4 I think. But once again, the wind is what made it a blizzard. Out by our house (not in town) the winds made snowdrifts across the roads a couple feet high!! Of course it's all melted by now though!!
Also, this weekend we were just a bunch of sickies!! Mommy got a little bit of sinus and cold stuff (but she thinks the beating she took on Friday helped knock it out of her!), Daddy got the worse end of the sinus stuff. He's still suffering. He's been taking all sorts of medicines and stuff so that he can get better by the trip. I hope he does! Me on the other hand, my stories a little different. I woke up in the middle of the night Saturday night and got sick in bed. Mommy came and got me. Then Sunday morning I thought I was going to get sick again a couple more times, but nothing ever came up. I had a little fever but it was gone by the next morning and I was all better!! Monday was a normal day for us! Then Yesterday . . . yuck!! I slept in until 10:30, I don't know why!! So when I got up Mommy gave me my normal Cheerios and a Sippy cup of milk for breakfast. (I drink whole milk, not 2% like Mommy and Daddy!) I was so hungry from not eating much before when I was sick I drank all that milk up! But then I didn't feel so good. I just sat on Mommy's lap and watched PBS until lunch time. At lunch Mommy tried to give me a taste of her yogurt, but I didn't want any. She put a little on my lips, and as soon as I tasted it . . . ALL THAT MILK I DRANK CAME RIGHT BACK AT MOMMY!!!! It was so yucky!! It got all over me and Mommy and the couch. She tried to catch most of it in the blankets, but not all of it stayed there! It looked like cottage cheese, but smelled HORRIBLE!!! (in fact mommy's still trying to get the smell out of the couch!) Needless to say, I got a bath, but when I was all done I felt fine again. In fact, we went back down stairs and that yogurt looked so good by then I started eating it!! And I haven't gotten sick again!! Mommy and Daddy think it was just some bad milk, since they didn't taste any, but they just hope it's not a milk allergy. I don't think it is, cuz I still like my cheese, and yogurt!! oh well, I'm just glad I'm not throwing up anymore.
So that's the crazy week we've had!! All of that on top of trying to pack and get things ready for the next couple weeks. Mommy's friend Katie is going to stay with Kitty and the Doggies. She's so nice! I hope she babysits for me again! Anyways - We leave tomorrow for Indy, then on Saturday I go to Aunt Janice's!!! Mommy says she probably won't be able to update until we get back, so start looking for stuff around the 24-25th. I'm sure there will be LOTS of pictures and videos!! Talk to ya all later!!
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