China 2011

I have to start out with saying I spent like 2 hours working on this post and then I went to publish it and all the pictures were gone...yah I was pretty mad so this is my second try and it better work! I took 2284 pictures (to be exact) and over 10 hours of video so I am warning you this might be a long post.

We just got back from our two week trip to China and all I can say is WOW, what an amazing trip! We
started the trip off in Hong Kong where we spent 3 days playing and 3 days working before heading to Beijing for 6 days of sightseeing and shopping!

The trip started out with a VERY long flight to Hong Kong, the longest we have been on so far, 15 straight hours from San Francisco...YIKES! We checked into our hotel in Hong Kong and we were shocked to see the size of the room. It was two twin size beds with a tiny little walk way to the bathroom, smaller than the hotels in New York. (side note...when Dan booked the rooms on Travelocity it showed pictures of a different hotel that he had stayed at before, so we thought we were staying in a great hotel but that's the fun of traveling, you never know what you are going to get)

The first day in Hong Kong we went to Victoria Peak, it is on the top of the mountain where you can look out over Hong Kong City and across Victoria Harbour to Kowloon.  The weather wasn't great as there were some low hanging clouds, but at least it didn't rain!

These super cute little boys were learning English, so they asked us questions about what we were doing in Hong Kong for their homework.

 We bought this painting thinking the guy had hand painted it.....only to find it later that night for about half the price at the night market being mass produced.

This is the group we traveled with, you will see them in lots of pictures.

Kendall is our boss' daughter, Jodi is our boss' wife, Brad is Jodi's son and Nick is our brother-in-law.

After the Peak we headed to Stanley Market to do a little shopping

                     We enjoyed lunch on the South China Sea....that's the other side of the Pacific Ocean!

We took the ferry over to Kowloon

 Looking back at the Hong Kong skyline

The guys wanted to get suits made so we went back to our friend that made ours last year......a must do if you are ever in HK....they are super cheap and really good quality

The streets of Kowloon

 Shopping at the ladies market

The next day was a little rainy and we spent most the day walking around the city and seeing temples

                                                           Times Square -- Hong Kong

We have never seen the view from Victoria Peak at night so we made it a priority this trip to make it there after dark.  By the way, the view is AMAZING at night!

That night we moved hotels so we could be closer to the convention, our hotel room was much better.


                                        We woke up early so we could go to Giant Buddha

Now it was time to work for a few days

We hired back our friend Isabelle who worked for us last year and Dan had stayed in contact with...it was great to see her again and she brought along her friend Yvonne for some extra help!

Who says we can't have a little fun while working?

 Nick's new girlfriend....(who knew he had a thing for Japanese techno-girls?????)

This carbonated apple drink was AMAZING!

The guy that made the boy's suits dropped them off at our hotel on the last night

After 3 1/2 LONG day's of work we decided we needed a vacation so it was off to Beijing!  Dan had been there before during his graduate program and really liked it so we knew we were in for the adventure of a lifetime!!!  Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, Silk Market (shopping!!!) here we come!!

Beijing was so incredible, I am so grateful for the opportunity to be able to visit such an incredible place. The trip started out with extreme culture shock, I found myself saying many times that all I wanted to do was go home. I had a hard time being there, but I am so glad I was able to go; it opened my eyes to a whole new culture! 

Our ride from the airport 

We went straight to our hotel and they wouldn’t let us check in because it was too early. We decided no problem we will just go walk around for a few hours and come back. Well, when we got back to the hotel they said there was a problem and they didn’t have any rooms for us to stay in. (remember this happened last year in Hong Kong?) We thought, oh great here we go again, we had to move to a different hotel which sucked, but as it turns out they like to give you lots of extras when they have to move you!

Yes this is Dan eating scorpion...GROSS!  Beijing is famous for there exotic foods night market, Donghuamen, which has all sorts of exotic (read disgusting) food to try including, spider, snake, scorpion, beetles, seahorses, silkworm, ostrich....well you get the point.

The next day we met up with our tour guide, Catherine Lu, to experience the city.  Our first stop was Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.

 This is us with Catherine looking over the Forbidden City.

It was freezing cold and I didn't have a coat, my sweet husband let me wear his the whole day.

Tiananmen Square

The next pictures are from the Forbidden City, they all kind of look alike because there are 6 different temples inside the Forbidden City.  The Forbidden City is where the emperors of China lived until the Republic of China was formed in 1911. 

The entrance to the Forbidden City with Chairman Mao's picture hanging over it....he is considered a national hero and was the first leader of the Communist Party in China, coming to power in 1949.

We hiked to the top to get a better view

Dan and I pretending to be the emperor/empress!

After lunch we went to the Hutongs.  The Hutongs are in the old part of Beijing which was really neat to see, some families have lived in the same houses for centuries. We also learned some of the symbolism in Chinese architecture and the meanings behind colors.

This was one of my favorite parts, I loved seeing how they live day in and day out.

 These guys were pedicab operators who were playing games on the side of the road, Pedicabs are the only way to get around the Hutongs since they were built centuries ago and the streets are only wide enough to fit horses through.

Day Two took us out to two different sections of the Great Wall of China!  The experience of a lifetime!  The first section we visited was the Mutianyu section.  It was a little further out of Beijing than Badaling, the most restored and visited section, but was worth the extra trip since there were far less tourists.

The tram on the way to the Great Wall

FINALLY- We made it to the Great Wall!

I had to take a picture to put on the handstands around the world at work...don't let the picture fool you, Dan and Jodi lifted my legs and leaned me against the wall.

 We spent hours hiking the wall, if you look above Dan's head there are some Chinese letters and we hiked past the letters. We are guessing it was 4 or 5 miles and it was mostly straight up but it was worth the hike...the further you get from the start the less restored it becomes, so you get to see exactly how it was when it was built centuries ago!

Dan and Nick standing in one of the guard towers....the guards would have to stay in the towers for 2-3 days at a time to watch for any invaders that might be coming. 

This was the steepest section that we hiked.  It felt like we were going straight up.  It's amazing they were able to build such an enormous project.

 Dan acting like he was taking some of the Great Wall

 This part of the wall was near the top of the mountain, probably our favorite parts, because not many tourists make it up there and it hasn't been restored. You can see the trees growing right out of the middle of the walk way.

This is the 2nd part of the Great Wall that we visited, Huanghuacheng, another one of our favorite parts because no tourists really visit this part. We had to pay a farmer 2 Yuan (like .25 cents US) to cross his property to get to the wall.

 Dan asked Catherine if he could take some of the wall and she told him as long as she didn't see it. Here's Dan joking around with her making it seem like she was taking it.

The next day we went to the Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven and the Acrobat show

The Summer Palace is where the emperor and his family would go to escape the Beijing heat during the summer months.

 Eating lunch- Everyone but me had the Peking Duck so they could try some more local delicacies.  They served the duck with its head still on-GROSS!

Temple of Heaven

We went to see the Chaoyang Acrobat Show- it was spectacular!  Some of the stunts that they do are absolutely jaw-dropping!  I'll post some video later!

The last day we went to the Capital Museum, Lama Temple and 798 art district

Capital Museum

Lama Temple

798

This was one of our friends at the Pearl Market, she was so funny!  The Pearl Market and Silk Markets are must do's if you enjoy shopping!

 Another friend from the Pearl Market, I wanted to buy some shoes from her and everyone was waiting for us so I didn't have time to for her to find my size. As we were leaving she came running down 3 flights of stairs and into the parking lot to sell me the shoes.

I will post some more pictures and video later once I have done some more editing!