Beijing

In October, China has a holiday like our 4th of July, National Day.  Except it is for a whole week, called Golden Week.  Levin had most of the week off of work and the kids had the entire week off from school.  Brandon and I took the opportunity to travel to Beijing to visit my brother who lives there with his family.

It wasn't the best time to travel in China because in case you didn't know, there are a lot of Chinese people, and when the entire country has the week off, they travel.

We knew getting to the Forbidden City would be too crowded, so Randy drove me to a park where we climbed up a hill to the top with a small Buddha temple and we over looked into the Forbidden City.  You can tell from the picture that the pollution was pretty high that day.

Randy had a mask and one for me, but I didn't wear it too terribly much because I didn't have one for Brandon and somehow that made me feel guilty - like we should ruin our lungs together. It was a really nice view all the same although the pictures don't do it justice.

The Buddha statue was in this building here.  Guangzhou is such a new city - that I feel like it isn't as "Chinese" at all as Beijing so even seeing things like this made me feel so much more like Wow, I live in China!  It was a cool feeling.

Next we went to the Summer Palace.  This picture below makes it not look that crowded, but it was sooo crowded.

The river.  According to Randy not long ago you'd only see one or two boats, but now it is a way to earn money that others have caught on to and there were several boats.

This I took  just to show some of the beautiful art - Chinese art - that I don't see so much of in Guangzhou.  I was literally just holding up my phone to quickly snap pictures because there were so many people.  That and we had a lot to see because my trip wasn't very long.

This is the street outside the Summer Palace.  We miraculously got good parking, but still had to walk a tiny bit.  These short buildings here remind me so much more of what I imagine Chinese houses to look like in the novels I've read.

He took me to eat at a delicious restaurant called Din Tai Fung.  There is one in Guangzhou, but rumor has it they have been disenfranchised from the one in Beijing because they kept trying to add their Guangzhou flair to the menu.  Guangzhou is famous for their food and their food snobbery.  I actually haven't been to too many Chinese restuarants since moving here. This one was delightful.

A good little sport most of the time when we were out.  He started being grumpy when we were at Randy's home, but maybe that is because of all the moving about and constant waking up of his naps when it was time to get out at a new thing to see.  Two weeks later he's still grumpy, so I'm not sure what happened.  Maybe it was something we ate. Just kidding.

All the food was good, but this Bing Mangua was my favorite . . maybe . . it was all sooo good.  I plan to get to the one in Guangzhou soon.

Next we went to a Confucian temple.  Wikipedia says this was built in 1302 and is the second largest,the largest being in Confucias' hometown of Qufu.  I really liked it.  It was really large.

Next we went to a Buddhist temple.  I'd heard about the burning of incense, but I didn't realize it was in big metal drums like this.

There were too different styles of Buddha statues there.  This one below is the thin Buddha, more Indian style, and next door was the "fat Buddha" we traditionally think of when we picture Buddha - maybe from statues in Chinese restaurants.

We had to sit in traffic a long time to make this happen, but we drove past the Forbidden City just so I could see it better.  You can see how the air cleaned up by late afternoon compared to earlier that morning.  Across the street is Tienanmen Square, but I didn't get a good picture of that.  Traffic cleared up right as we got to the interesting stuff so we were going faster.

Sometimes when people do selfless things for me, I realize how much more selfless I need to be.  Randy stayed outside in the car with Brandon while I went to a Chinese Acrobat show.  I only had my phone and am not a great picture taker, but this act here, was my favorite.  The man hopped down these stairs on one hand, and then just as we're all impressed he hopped all the way back up.  I loved it!  After that we drove back to their home in the suburbs.

A different day we went to see the Great Wall of China.  We rode a ski lift up to the top.  I was wearing Brandon and I have to say, I felt a little uneasy.  It seemed a tad bit rickety but maybe because I was wearing Brandon so my center of gravity was slightly off or something, but it took all my nerves just to snap this picture and the rest of the ride I tried to figure out what I could do to save myself if the chair started breaking.

Randy and his oldest daughter Emma were my tour guides this day.  The Great Wall was crowded because of the holiday, but still very walkable.

To get down we could take the ski lift or a slide.  When we bought our tickets we made sure I could take the baby with me on the slide and the guy assured us we could.  When we got there though the guy said no.  But there was no way I was talking that scary ski lift down.  So Randy argued with teh guy and he said, okay then be careful.  As I was getting in he told Brandon that I was a "no goodie Mama" and showed me how when I pulled on the break I would hit Brandon's face on the break and he dang near did it!  Of course I didn't slam on the break that hard ever going down and I told the guy I'd go slow, "man man" down.  Luckily the people in front of me went slowly too so I wasn't holding up the whole line although I think Emma was a little disappointed at the speed we were going and I am sure the people behind her thought it was my fault, but oh well.  I didn't dare try to take any pictures after they already thought I was being so dangerous.
I had such a good time and the morning before I left I was feeling stressed out about the "grind of daily living" so it was the perfect time to take a vacation and seeing Randy, his wife Cherrie and family were perfect too as well as the sights. I had fun bowling with them and eating ice cream.  And talking with Randy and Cherrie about the joys and not so fun things of parenting.
 It was great seeing what their life in China is like and how it compares to our life.  In some ways I feel like they could be two separate countries.  They have a house, we have an apartment, they have a large grocery store really close by where they can get pretty much anything, I have to go out shopping or order groceries online, they have touristy things to do . . . we don't have so much, I had to wear a jacket there and I'm still wearing shorts here.
It was great to get to miss my other kids too and I was so glad Levin gave me those 4 days away.

Oh, and one other thing I got to do was try Peking Duck.  Randy had asked me if I wanted to try it and I said sure.  Then their friends invited them to go.  Cherrie doesn't care for it, so I went in her place.  The "friends" ended up being the FAS employee there that Levin and I know - Levin worked with him our first year back in DC before he started language training.  SO it was fun to talk to Abe and his family.  The Peking Duck was completely different than I expected, but not bad tasting.  It was just more . . . plain I guess than I expected.  I don't need to eat it again, but I wouldn't turn it down and could enjoy it if I had it again.  Something "interesting" is that they cut the duck meat off the bones to serve it to you, but I guess they still think the bones are yours so they boil them for you and give you that - OR you can request them fried which is what Abe did.
The rest of our meal was other things that were pretty authentic Chinese . . nothing to write home about . . . or blog about.  ha ha, but the first thing they brought out were just whole cucumbers and a sauce to dip them in.  It seemed strange, but was actually not bad.  I didn't get a picture, but I stole this one from Google Images.  Apparently it varies from place to place, and this is not exactly what ours looked like, but pretty close.  The duck has a thick layer of fat and skin which Abe taught us to dip in sugar, then the meat, and a sauce and few "fillers" you put in what I would call a tortilla. Maybe I'm just hungry, but it actually sounds pretty good right now.  Maybe I'll eat it again sooner than I thought.

Levin has been to farm that raised ducks for peking duck.  Unfortunately, the picture is on his Blackberry and I don't have it here, but when I googled an image for it - it took my appetite for Peking Duck away.  Maybe best not to think about that.