Beijing Stop No. 5: The Forbidden City

We intended on visiting the Forbidden City on Monday, after Tian'anmen Square.  But it closed.  Lame.  Especially since we were flying out of Beijing the next day at 2 pm or something.  So we decided to haul ourselves back the next morning bright and early.  We were some of the first people in line and we were freezing.  It was SOOO cold that morning.  But the lovely thing was that the City was mostly empty and much more enjoyable that way.
The Forbidden City was the home to the Emperor and his court for a really long time, through both the Ming and Qing Dynasties.  Something like 24 Emperors lived there.  And the place is massive.  HUMONGOUS! Did they really need that much paved space?  I guess so.  There were several massive halls each with their own throne for the Emporer and each with their own large courtyard.

This is all one piece of stone, carved with all kinds of royal and mythological symbols.  

One of the many throne rooms

Ben imitating the dragon/dog guarding the entrance. It looks like it's stepping on it's pup, but they believed that it nursed from the paws.  So really Ben is imitating nursing...

It's hard to describe the grandeur and immensity of the place.  The very last place we came to was the garden, which was smallish compared to all the courts and halls.  But very pretty.  and by this time Ellie was out.  She had enough of being drug around in the cold and just cuddled up in our arms and zonked.

At the Lovers' Trees.  Two cypress trees growing intertwined

And that was Beijing for us!  A city with incredible history, unbelievable drivers, and inconceivably disgusting smog.

Beijing Stop No. 4 or 5...what am I at now?

Tian'anmen Square!

We came here after seeing the Great Wall and eating lunch across the street at the world's largest KFC (where I think a worker was trying to tell me that Ellie was to small to play in the playplace, but I feigned ignorance and let her play).  

At any rate, this square is massive.  Really, really huge.  We were too late to go into the mausoleum and see dead, frozen Chairman Mao, but it's all good.  

Ellie enjoyed running around holding her monkey harness.

 Of course the Chinese there were constantly snapping Ellie's photo.  By this time it was no longer a novelty and now just slightly annoying.  Especially if they would try to pick her up or "ask" to hold her (and by ask I mean try to take from my arms).  Luckily Ellie had no desire to be held by a stranger and would cry or run away. Plus she was tired!

See!?

Behind us is the entrance to the Forbidden City (the next stop on our tour).  We are quite far away from it so it's difficult to tell that the picture of Mao hanging above the entrance is at least 20 feet tall.  That's one huge portrait.

We Interrupt This Program to Bring You a Special Bulletin...

Though my posts on China have been much delayed, and many of you may have heard the news through phone calls or facebook, I thought I ought to post anyway.  I did for Ellie, and it would seem unfair if we didn't here.

Anyway, we are very excited to be welcoming another GIRL into our family!  She's due July 6th, but if she wants to be like her sister and come a bit early, I won't complain.

This is me at nearly 20 weeks, the day we had the ultrasound.

This pregnancy has gone much like the last.  Constant nausea for the first trimester, but no vomiting.  And then just getting bigger after that.  I'm definitely getting bigger faster, and I think a lot of it has to do with my complete lack of abdominal strength.  I didn't have much before, and Eleanor really messed me over, and I never did anything to fix it.  My doctor says I'll pay for it with increased lower back and abdominal pain.  Swell.

The ultrasound itself was highly amusing.  The technician was this funny, squat little Japanese man who made the most amusing comments.  The best was when he was checking the gender and said, "No, no little bumps here.  Hi, hi*, no boys parts." And then that's what he typed up on the picture he printed out for us: "Female. No boys parts."
*hi is Japanese for yes, though it is used as a filler word a lot.

We've got no idea what we're going to name this child, though Ben did put forth a strong contender by suggesting Einsteinium Epsilon.

Beijing Stop No. 3

THE GREAT WALL!

Really, it was great.  Probably my favorite thing we saw/did in Beijing, maybe all of the China (besides being with Crystal and Aaron).

First of all, getting there was...an experience all its own.  We hired a private driver so we could go to a less crowded spot and it was cheaper.  But it must first be said that to the Chinese, traffic laws are mere suggestions. Especially if you are paying for the ride it seems.  This guy was insane!  For instance, we were at the end of a long line of four lanes of cars waiting at a stoplight.  He pulled over to the shoulder, drove a long for some distance, then merged over all four lanes into the left turn lane and cut his way in there.  It was nuts.  But the most terrifying was when we were nearly hit by a shower of bricks.  We were in a little village on our way to the wall and there was a motorcycle pulling cart coming towards us with a truck full of bricks behind him.  The truck driver decided to try and pass the motorcycle and swerve back into his lane before hitting us.  Unfortunately his bricks were not secured. Our driver served to avoid the small avalanche of bricks that fell off and then stopped to check out any damage.  We were mere inches from being hit, but luckily the car wasn't even scratched.  Thank goodness for prayer!  The thing that cracked me up the most was that the car behind us, who must have witnessed the whole event, started honking his horn in impatience while our driver checked to make sure everything was okay.  Welcome to Chinese driving.
We had experienced some "paparazzi" while in China, but this beat all.  The Chinese were obsessed with taking pictures of Ellie (so are we, so who are we to blame them).  There was a large group of Chinese tourists just before we were about to get on the wall, and they all wanted to take their picture with Ellie, who happened to be strapped onto Ben. So they lined up and started clicking away.  It was hysterical.

Even Crystal and I had our faces photographed a few times.  We're just cool like that.

Anyway, the wall.  It's funny, in some ways it is smaller and yet bigger than you imagine.  It's not terribly wide, probably only 10 feet wide. But you could see it stretching off in the distance in both directions for miles, roaming over the tops of the mountains.  It was incredible.  Pictures will do better justice.  Here you go.

(This is one of my favorite shots from the entire trip. Maybe someday she can use it in her 5th grade country report)

Ben and Ellie firing cannons. Though Ben pointed out that it isn't a very good strategic advantage to have an immobile cannon.  But let's be honest, the Great Wall didn't really do any of what it was supposed to do.

This was the steepest part of our hike along the wall. I'm not going to lie, it was rough!

You can see that the wall is on top of the mountain.  To get to it, we took a cable car up, and when it was time to come down (we hiked about a mile of it), we took the ski lift down.  As we were preparing to get on, we made sure to read the "Visitops Rules"

Click on the picture to enlarge it so you can read the rules in all their glory! Our favorites were #3 and #4. Also we cheated a bit and didn't tell them that I was 13 weeks pregnant.  Not that we could have communicated that anyway.

The drive back was still exciting, but less eventful.  Ellie fell asleep, an we had the driver drop us off at the world's largest KFC, near Tian'anmen Square. Which will be the subject of the next post, when I get around to it.

Beijing Stop No. 2

The Temple of Heaven is a complex of various prayer halls, but the most famous it the round one behind us.  The emperor would come here to pray for the crops and good harvests.  The number 3 was very significant to them so you'll see it everywhere in the architecture.  If I remember correctly the first tier of steps signifies the earth, the second  is people, and the third is heaven. 

Ellie was very keen to climb all the steps by herself.  Note; there are nine steps for each level up the the temple.  Nine was also very important (3x3), and it represented the emperor.

While we were walking from this hall to the Circular Mound Altar we ran into a lady peddler selling scarfs for very cheap.  Crystal and I are both suckers for scarfs, so I got one and she got two Crystal paid her with a 100RMB note.  She slipped it into her stack of bills (thinking she was sly) and then pulled out another slightly torn note and said "Oh, this one too old, give me new one."  But Crystal was quick and had noticed her slight of hand, and that the note she was presenting was a fake.  Crystal said no way and told her to deal with it.  You've got to admit, it was a pretty sly trick.  Most foreigners wouldn't notice the difference and wouldn't have any issues trading her for a "newer" note.  Then the lady would have made twice as much money off of them.  But she couldn't fool my genius cousin!

So here is the Circular Mound Altar, again repeating the 3 motif.  Also, the rings of stones that surround the altar increase by the power of 9 (Ben loved this stuff, so did I actually).  For instance, the first ring of stones around the central altar stone had nine stones, the next had 18, the next had 27, etc. The emperor would stand on the central stone and become the direct connection to heaven and pray for good weather and rain for the crops.

And now tourists stand here and take photos. Including us.

After we were done here we took the subway down to Tian'anmen Square, hoping to look around, but it was pretty dark and we were starved.  So we found a nice little restaurant with the most unhelpful staff (that was not a requirement, but customer service is very very low on the totem pole for the Chinese), and had the famous Peking duck.  It was very tasty, but I sure did miss the timeliness of most Japanese and American restaurants.  It took quite a while to get our meal, and with a squirrely, hungry, and tired baby...well, you get the picture.

First Stop in China: Beijing

Ben and I have only been married 3 years now, so it should come as no surprise that beside roadtrips, this is the first big family vacation we've had.  Honestly, we wouldn't have even thought of doing it if we didn't live so close to China...or without Crystal and Aaron living there as well.  Anyway, it was a huge adventure and went without a hiccup...until the last few hours in Shanghai (but we'll get to that later).
I thought for my sanity and your's I'd break down my posts into the sites we saw, because we crammed a lot into a few days.

Really, our first stop was the airport, where we caught this in action.


We landed in Beijing on Friday night and took a taxi to our hotel. The first thing I learned about China is that their drivers are INSANE.  I thought Rome was crazy, but it was nothing compared to the speeding, law-ignoring chaos that was Chinese traffic.  Never in my life have I been so afraid for my life.  But we arrived intact and had a moderately decent rest on the second hardest bed I've ever encountered.  Apparently the Chinese believe that the firmer the mattress the better this is for your back.  I weep for pregnant Chinese women everywhere.

Lama Temple-Honestly, I'd never heard of this place, but it was really close to our hotel, and was recommended to us by some of Crystal and Aaron's friends.  I looked it up on wikipedia, and is it one of the largest Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in the world.  And it was huge.  I wish I had known more about it before going, because I think that always makes things more interesting to see.

 So here are the three of us, fresh from bed, as you can tell by Ben's hair.

After the temple we had a wonderful traditional Chinese meal with the family of Crystal's Chinese tutor, Annie.  My favorite part was the duck, while Ellie was all over the red-bean paste hedgehog shaped dumplings.

And then Ellie passed out during the taxi ride back to the subway station.  It was wonderful, and a skill she continued to hone during our trip (thank heavens)!

That night we went to the Silk Street Market to do some souvenir shopping.  We let Aaron do the bargaining for us (he speaks Chinese) and picked up some great stuff for really cheap (*pashmina scarf-$5, cultured pearl necklace-$13, hanging cherry blossom painting-$30ish).  We discovered that the key for us was deciding beforehand what you would pay and walking away if you couldn't get it.  Invariably they shouted prices down the aisle as we walked away until they caved to our price.  We win!

Ellie Kisses

We just got back from our Christmas vacation to China to visit my cousin Crystal and her husband Aaron.  We had an amazing time and it was great to be with family for the holiday.  I've got tons of pictures to go through and posts to right up about it, but in the meantime please enjoy quite possibly my favorite moment from the whole vacation.  It is about 3 minutes long, so I don't blame you if you stop half way through since it's all pretty much the same thing.  But it is ridiculously cute.  Just thought I'd warn you.