We lucked into two days of beautiful, albeit cold, first days in Beijing with no smog to obstruct our views. The high of 45 degrees the first day was certainly a change from Singapore's 90 degree days but we actually all loved the change, despite shivering frequently! By our third day, temperatures started to rise and were in the high 70's by the time we left.
One of the main things that we learned through our visit to China was that Singapore is definitely "Asia Lite" as expats here often describe it. Yes, Singapore is in Asia and there are a lot of different cultures and cuisine here, but we can also find a salad or Diet Coke when needed and signs are in English - or at least can be pronounced since they use our alphabet! If we had not had a guide taking us around everywhere in Beijing we would have been lost - unable to read anything in the scariest traffic we've ever seen. And meals were definitely an adventure!
Of course, the most entertaining part was the fact that we were an "attraction" - the number of people that stopped us to take pictures with the blonde members of our family was amazing - and embarrassing. Apparently, of the 156 million people who visit Beijing each year, 153 million of those are residents of mainland China. That means that a lot of the people visiting Beijing had never seen a white skinned/blonde haired person before! As a result, some of those families are now going home with a lot of these sorts of pictures.....
The "peace" sign as I remember it means "cute" in Asian culture!
Note the other cameras taking this picture and I don't even think they were related to the girl in pink!
Note Chairman Mao's picture which is EVERYWHERE in the city
From the Forbidden City we then explored a local hutong which is a traditional Chinese neighborhood. They have very narrow streets, small houses along the sides, communal bathrooms/showers and they definitely made our children appreciate their own home. A local family invited us to lunch where they served us local entrees while talking to us about the neighborhood. We then went into one of their rooms to learn how to make dumplings which all three kids embraced with enthusiasm. There are numerous dumpling shapes depending on which part of China you come from so they had the opportunity to try several different shapes. I'm glad that we got to eat the ones that the owners were making but it was fun watching the kids make them as well. We ended our time in the hutong by taking a rickshaw to our final destination - kite-making using rice paper!
Our teacher
Inside this family's compound
Holding bonding (as usual) with our guide
Our second day in Beijing led us to the Summer Palace situated on Kunming Lake. The 540 acre lake was entirely man-made in the 1750's and the excavated dirt was placed beside the lake to create Longevity Hill. Temples and other structures built by emperors over the years have been restored and we were able to walk through several of them. By climbing to the top of Longevity Hill - and aided by another beautifully clear day - we were able to have amazing views over all of the Summer Palace as well as Beijing itself.
From the Summer Palace, we headed to the Beijing Olympic park where the 2008 Summer Olympics were held. The Beijing National Stadium was nicknamed "the Bird's Nest" and was a stadium easily recognizable thanks to it's nickname. This was where the opening and closing ceremonies were held. The Beijing National Aquatic Center was another impressive building commonly referred to as the Cube (half of the interior space is now a water park).
(we gave up after umpteen attempts to get everyone in the air at once!)
Our last day in Beijing took us to the Matianyu section of the Great Wall of China. This section of the wall is restored but considered less touristy than other sections of the wall and therefore less crowded. We took a ski lift up to the top of the wall and then hiked a section of the wall for about 2 miles. The Great Wall of China was built to protect ancient China from the nomadic groups of the Eurasian Steppes. First pieces of the wall began in the 5th century B.C. with other pieces added on over the centuries until the current wall length of 8,500 kilometers was achieved. Large portions of the wall were built during the Ming dynasty using rammed earth, bricks and stones. The portion of the wall we visited was built approximately 600 years ago. After hiking the wall, a highlight for all was the luge ride back down to the base of the mountain!
Riding up on the ski lift
A little bit of traffic in the road leaving the Great Wall
From Beijing we flew to Xi'an, the capital city in the Shaanxi province of China. It is one of the oldest cities in China and is one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China. Xi'an was our destination due to the fact that the Terra Cotta Warriors were discovered by a farmer here in 1974. The warriors are believed to be part of the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang who died in 209 B.C. We were able to actually meet this farmer and have him sign a book for us.
We spent part of a day walking through some local markets - buying Chinese outfits for Henry, Ella and Mommy - as well as buying a few trinkets for the kids. The types of food being sold on the street in the Muslim Quarter were amazing. Goat feet on a stick was a very popular option
(We have an old wooden shutter from the Shaanxi province that looks exactly like this one!)
Visited the home of an old wealthy family and this was the description for one building -
"Room for members of family who make mistake to make introspection"
- fancy way of describing of Time-Out Room!
While in Xi'an, we had the opportunity to visit the Hanyang Tomb - a joint tomb of the fourth Emperor of the Western Han Dynasty (188 - 141 B.C.) and his Empress. The tomb covers over 4 miles, although most of it has not been excavated and instead has just had earth-penetrating x-rays taken to determine what is below. It is like a little kingdom complete with miniature statues of soldiers, servants, animals and the like all positioned around the tomb itself. We were able to see what was being excavated by going into an underground area that just glassed off the excavated spaces. After touring the museum, we had the chance to go behind the scenes with an archeologist who took us into their offices and showed us archeologists cleaning artifacts and trying to piece them back together. He said that most of the people who do this type of work are women because it takes an immense amount of patience!!
During our week in China we took in several shows in the evening - ones that are considered the shows that the area was famous for having. We saw a Kung Fun story, we saw an acrobatic show and then our last night in Xi'an we saw Tang dynasty show while enjoying a dumpling banquet. Although we had had many dumplings during our time in China, we had never seen ones made with such intricate designs. Some of them were delicious while others were definitely less appetizing - for instance we learned that Red Bean basically tastes like dirt! Everyone tried some new things though and had a few laughs as well.
Despite 8 days of traveling together and doing a lot of cultural touring without much time to just play, the kids still had a lot of fun and we hopefully made some wonderful memories .... and we still managed to hold hands (most of the time)!
