O.K. . . Enough About China

With such an amazing trip, I could go on forever. But I just want to end my China blogs with my two favorite pictures from the trip: My three cute grandsons, and my cute husband!

Night Train to Xi'an

One of our favorite adventures in China was taking the night train to Xi'an to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. We left the train station at 9:00 p.m. and arrived at 8:00 a.m. Kirk donned his sleep mask and earplugs, and was out for the night - but the rest of us partied a while before we settled in. It was like one big slumber party in those tight quarters!




When we got off the train we headed to the Terra Cotta Warriors - it was amazing to see the army that had been buried to protect the emperor! The next day we really enjoyed the city of Xi'an. It has a section that is surrounded by an ancient city wall that is still intact. We planned to bike all around the city on top of the wall - but it had been raining, and they wouldn't rent out the bikes - fearing that we'd slip. We still liked moseying through the narrow alleys of the old city. The further back from the main street, the cheaper the goods were to buy, the food was more authentic, and we got to see real life in China. We loved it all.

Huanguacheng Great Wall

We got to experience the Great Wall twice on our trip, the 2nd time at Huanghuacheng, an unrestored section of the wall by a lake and a great little village. Part of this section of the Great Wall was destroyed and fell into Jintang Lake after being bombed during the Japanese invasion of China 50 years ago. After a boat ride across the lake, Mike and Trent and I left Kirk, Bri, Garret and Zach at the lake while we hiked to one of the guard towers (posted "no admittance") where we climbed through the ruins up to the roof where we had an amazing view! Coming back down through the little village was really fun to see the little street vendors selling their wares and produce. We even watched how chestnuts are roasted.

Zachy

Its has been especially hard to go so long without seeing our cute little one-year-old Zachy. Those little ones grow and change so quickly, we're glad we got to be with him at such a cute age. He was a real trooper on this trip as we hauled him everywhere—of course, I would have been pretty happy to have someone haul me on their back up all those stairs to the Great Wall!



Zachy is so cute trying to say a few words. Since his Ayi speaks Chinese to him all day, I'm pretty sure some of those words are Chinese.









Zachy loves playing follow the leader - and he is always the leader of course. He especially loves to do it at the dinner table, and of course we all play along.



Whenever we were out sightseeing, he attracted so much attention from the Chinese people. They would just mob him, taking pictures, wanting to be in pictures with him, pinching his cheeks, poking him, patting his head, and he was a pretty good sport about it—most of the time.



We saw lots babies wearing traditional Chinese "split pants." Here Zachy meets a little friend who is dressed in girl clothes, but is obviously a boy! We could never really figure out how people dared taking their babies out in public with these pants - but we never saw any accidents.















Sure had fun with this cute, cute little boy!

LDS Church in Beijing

Mike and Bri go to church at the top of a high rise building in Beijing—The Golden Tower. There are three branches in Beijing - two are for ex-pats and foreigners, and 1 branch is for Chinese Nationals. The two ex-pat branches get together for activities sometimes, but they can't mingle with the Chinese Nationals branch at church since the government is so strict about the "no proselyting" edict. Bri was preparing a Primary lesson and her Ayi saw a picture of a baptism, and told Bri that she had done that - she was trying to tell Bri she was a Christian. But Bri just had to say O.K. and couldn't discuss it with her. In order for church members to be able to meet, they have to follow this rule very strictly. They've had some pretty interesting church experiences. Mike is the 11 year old scout leader, and he took his scouts for a camp out on the Great Wall a few weeks ago on a Friday night. On Saturday night, the whole branch joined them to camp, and then on Sunday morning they all had Sacrament Meeting on the Great Wall. How cool is that! For General Conference, Mike said as a bunch of them from their neighborhood car-pooled together to Priesthood Meeting, they attracted a lot of attention from the Chinese guards, who were really busy on their radios calling in about lots of American men in suits all getting in a van heading to some kind of high level rendezvous. It looked a little suspicious—all those men in black! For the Sunday General Session of Conference, the branch members met together at church in the golden tower to listen to the re-broadcast (since live was in the middle of the night), then they all had picnic lunch together, and then listened to the 2nd session.

International School of Beijing

We went to visit Trent and Garret's school while we were there. The International School of Beijing is a private school with pretty amazing computer labs, classrooms, state of the art playing fields, playgrounds, etc. About 1/2 of the students are American. The other half are Australian, South Korean, English, Chinese, etc. Trent and Garret's teachers are both from Australia. Mike and Bri are thrilled with the education Trent and Garret are getting.

The Best Part of Being in Beijing

The best thing about being in Beijing was being with Mike and Bri and their family. They are doing amazingly well over there in this newest adventure. It was so fun to hear Mike speak Chinese to everyone. The Chinese people were always surprised when an American was speaking their language. In fact, the taxi driver from the airport was so excited he was "giddy" over how well Mike spoke. We were really impressed with Bri's Chinese also. She has to communicate with the Ayi everyday, and Ayi doesn't speak any English. Bri also communicates real well out in the market place. Mike and Bri live in a beautiful big home in a gated, and guarded community. Trent loved driving me all over their neighborhood on their Tuk Tuk. Just a few hundred yards away from their gated community is the village hutong (which means narrow alleyway). They go into the village often to buy food, etc. Its such an interesting contrast in lifestyles. We loved being with them so much! We were able to celebrate Trent's 8th birthday a few weeks early. Trent and Garret and Zach gave us lots of hugs and kisses. We miss them all so much already! It was the trip of a lifetime!