I can't believe we've been back for a week and a half and I haven't told you about China yet. No good excuse just lazy and busy. A bad combination for me.
So we started our 8 day adventure to China on April 5th with a flight from Naha to Shanghai. Amazingly when you live on this side of the world it is only a 2 hour flight to China. That still blows me away. We then went though immigration/customs with our group and had a layover for our flight to Beijing. The Shanghai airport was HUGE! That is about all I remember about it. Well that and that when we went to the airport store Alison picked her snack based simply on the fact that it was pink. Just so you know her rule of thumb is if it is pink it must be good. I can't argue with that logic.
From Shanghai we flew to Beijing which was also about 2 hours. The Beijing airport was HUGE and very new. On the bus to the hotel we learned that Beijing's Terminal 3 was only a year old and was built for the Olympics. No wonder it was so big and new. We made it to the hotel around 10pm and were ready to hit the bed, I mean cement slab. The hotel was very nice but the beds left MUCH to be desired. We called them rocks, but another couple on our trip referred to them as slabs and I have to agree they were much like a slab of concrete.
Beijing was very cool. Much prettier than I expected. Also much dirtier than I expected. Not dirty like trash everywhere, but dirty as in dusty. My kids were filthy by the end of each day from exploring every thing there was to climb. Our first day included Tienanmen Square, The Forbidden City, a silk factory, lunch, The Temple of Heaven, and a park which I want to say was Jingshan park but I could be making that up, and dinner. It was a long day. We were able to see the road where the tanks rolled in to Tienanmen Square and enjoy the beauty of the many rooms and buildings of the Forbidden City. On day 2 in Beijing we traveled to the Great Wall. This was definitely one of my top 2 favorite places. It was amazing to be there in person. I still don't really feel like I've been there. We all climbed quite a way up but we stopped before the top for the sake of our 2 year old. Alison and Owen did great climbing. We have lots of pictures and a keepsake card that says we climbed The Great Wall. Very Cool life experience. This day also included a trip to the Ming Tombs, lunch and dinner. On day 3 we went to the Summer Palace. This was definitely one of my favorites too. Incredibly beautiful. I just didn't expect such beauty, I'm not sure why. I could have spent several days exploring this place but we only had a couple of hours. We also went to a market this day. Since neither Jeff nor I are good at haggling we looked around said a lot of "bu yao" and decided to hit the Coldstone Creamery we saw across the street. YUM! We had free time this day too so we used ours to swim and go to McDonald's and Wal Mart. Do we scream American tourist or what?
The next morning we woke way too early to fly from Beijing to Xi'an. Xi'an is famous for the Terracotta Warriors. Once arriving we had lunch and headed to the Xi'an city wall. After there we headed to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. It was pretty but definitely a little creepy for me. The huge gold Buddha was weird to look at. Owen made his mama proud that day. He wanted to know why they were burning "pencils" which were really incense. We told him that was how they worshipped Buddha and he asked "why". We said we weren't sure. He then looked up at the huge Buddha and said "God is bigger than him, God could step on him". Amen Owen, Amen. I was so thankful that he wasn't even tempted to think that a shiny statue was cool.
We then went to a dinner show that night. The food was pretty good, except for the beef and the show was fun. The next day we headed to the 8th wonder of the world, the Terra Cotta Warriors. These were really cool. What rich history they represent, but also much violence and Godlessness. It was amazing to see these in person. From there we went to The hot springs and then the Ban Po museum. The next day we flew from Xi'an to Shanghai.
Shanghai was amazing! What a neat city! Incredible skyscrapers mixed with old architecture. Great shopping. Definitely a cool place to visit. We visited the Bund, down on the water and then the Yu Garden Market which was definitely a fun place to shop. If only I'd had more time I'm sure we'd have come home with less money. We finished the night with an acrobat show which the kids loved. On Sunday we woke up early again for our flight back to Naha.
It was an incredible trip. One I never would have dreamed of taking. We experienced such rich history, yet found ourselves very thankful to God for our freedoms in The United States. We are truly blessed to have been able to visit China and also to be from such a great nation. This trip will always be one of my favorite life memories.
