I'm not even sure what I remember at this point, so I'm going to try and keep the next two days of our trip somewhat brief (yes, for all you non-believers out there, I can be brief).
Saturday morning we woke and hurried downstairs to grab a quick, and hopefully filling, breakfast before we headed out to the Wall. We were going to need our energy!
The journey out to the Wall (at least the part we were headed to) was about a 1-1.5 hours drive. On the way out, we stopped first at the jade factory where they had the most amazing sculptures made/carved completely out of jade. The details were amazing.
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| This doesn't look that impressive in the pic, but this was an entire village scene completed over 3 years of carving |
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| the artist did even the tiniest of details in every bit. This is a closeup of one of the miniature temples carved in the sculpture Anyway, after shopping around for a bit, we were off and heading to the Great Wall. We had one small near death experience while on our way. As I previously mentioned, people drive like maniacs in Beijing. This time was no exception when in the smaller laned rural area we were in, a car thought it would be wise to pass a bus by driving into our lane almost causing a head on collision with our van. Fortunately, we had a very experienced driver and he was able to avoid the car, the bus, and even the random things on the side of the road. I'd like to tell you how he did it, but I just had my hand on Reece in his car seat and my eyes closed. I thought it was over for all of us. When we got to the Wall, we were told "go left to the more difficult climb, go right for an easier climb." So what does my husband say? "We are going left!" Mind you, this is a man who does pretty much zero physical activity. He thinks because he looks in shape that he is in shape, but it's all a ruse. I kindly reminded him that he was going to be the one carrying the baby in the carrier while doing the climb, but he wasn't going to let that stop him. I just made sure to have my camera because I knew how this was going to go down :) I'll stop here to take a minute to tell you that it was simply amazing to be out in this mountainous area of China and seeing such history before us. We could look all around and see different parts of the Great Wall and see just how far it keeps going. If we had come to China and only saw/stood on/climbed the Great Wall, it still would've been totally worth it. The other stuff was just bonus, but this, this was why we were here. As we began our climb, my husband received cheers from various folks along the way for climbing with the baby. One Chinese man said "with baby? Go Go Go!" I think Carlos needed this cheering squad because I could tell early on he was wondering what he got himself into. Funny thing about the Wall. They must not have believed in symmetry back then because one step up would be about 12 inches and the next 4 inches. It was interesting, but just had to be that much more careful. We stopped periodically so that we could take pictures…and so Carlos could rest, although he would never ask to rest, so I just threw him the occasional bone and said "wait I want to get pictures." I knew he was hurting :) Carrying Reece up this VERY STEEP wall was climbing with an extra 16 pounds! I'm glad I wasn't doing it! We set our destination point in our sights very early and vowed we would make it. So we climbed and we climbed and we climbed (and paused for pics). Reece slept on the way up of course :) When we got to our goal, we stayed at the tower for a good while just soaking it all in. Absolutely stunning…
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| VERY STEEP! |
After we got back down, we rewarded ourselves as any good American would…with ice cream! We loaded up back into the van and off we went to the Ming Tombs. In between destinations, we stopped to have lunch and all I can say is WOW. It was a feast and the food was sooooo good! We also got a tour of the copper making that goes on in China. It's a very detailed trade!
The Ming Tombs were interesting, but I think at this point of the day since we were all so tired, we were a bit "templed" out. We walked around, learned about the history, but weren't exactly our excited selves at this stop.
We rounded out our Saturday with a stop at a tea shop where we learned Chinese tea drinking customs and tasted a variety of Chinese teas. I'll be honest when I say that I am not a tea drinker. I have tried tea every which way you can imagine. I want to like tea since I know it is good for me, however, I do not. So as you can imagine, for a non-tea drinker this stop was not exactly that exciting. Not wanting to offend anyone though, I participated in this tea drinking party that went on. I held my cup correctly, made the appropriate Chinese tea drinking noises (yes, there are noises), and to my surprise, I actually liked the taste of what was in my mouth! So we kept moving along until we had tried the 5 traditional teas and I really did enjoy all of them. I realized it must be just how pure the tea was and not how we try to make it comparable in the states. While it was good, I still won't become a tea drinker. A little taste was good, a cup would probably be too much for me to handle!
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| Tea drinking |
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| Reece making friends at the tea house |
Off to bed we went after another long/late day! One more day to go!
I can keep Sunday brief since there wasn't much activity. Sunday morning we had free so Carlos and I put Reece in his stroller and just went for a walk around the area of our hotel. There were some interesting sights to be seen just being immersed in the local culture.
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| Playground near the hotel…interesting... |
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| Too many cars, no place to park, so why not park on the sidewalk? This was rather annoying. |
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| A very popular mode of transportation in China. Bicycles everywhere! |
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| and they haul EVERYTHING on these bicycles! |
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| a lot of housing area of Beijing don't have private bathrooms, but rather share a bathroom located somewhere in the neighborhood After we returned from our leisurely stroll, we loaded up and went out to the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace was the "vacation home" so to say of the "Dragon Lady" otherwise known as the Empress. I guess you could say it was her personal resort. The Summer Palace covered a large space of land surrounded by Kunming Lake.
  
 Dragon boats on Kunming Lake
On the morning of our departure, I took a few last photos…
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| He is so proud of himself :) Our tour guide Lily had a hard time saying goodbye to Reece. She just loved spending time with him!   And of course, at the Beijing airport I had to get my Starbucks since we are deprived in Guam! I'm not ashamed to admit I went twice in the 4 hours we waited for our plane. But this was out of stupidity on my part. The first time I ordered my beverage of choice I said to the lady "tall, skim caramel macchiato." Then as she was making it, I realized I said "tall." Really?? No 'Bucks in a year and I ordered the smallest size? What was wrong with me? So that's why I went back. To make up for what another year of no 'Bucks is going to do to me :) So now that I've reached the end and we all returned safely (I'm going to spare you the details of the flight home. It was uneventful for the most part. Reece slept, but only if I was holding him, but he slept and that's all that matters) I want to share with you how I/we survived this trip. There are a few products that made our lives sooooooooooooo much easier during our time in China since we were go-go-go all day, every day (disclaimer: I am not being paid to endorse these products, although if the companies would like to pay me, I wouldn't complain). The first was Plum Organics Baby Food. The baby food is in these squeeze pouches instead of glass baby jars. MUCH easier for travel and disposal and less mess! Less mess because the next product, the Boon Spoon, goes with the Plum Organics food by twisting off the cap to the pouch and attaching these plastic spoons onto the end of the squeeze pouch creating this awesome closed feeding system. Just squeeze the pouch and the food squirts onto the spoon via the neck of the spoon. Insert the spoon in the baby's mouth and voila! No jars to scrape, no spillage…totally awesome. And they come in a convenient pack of two (which is what we needed during our days so we didn't repeat a dirty spoon) and they have a travel case to keep things even cleaner! Genius! The last product that saved us…more on the grand scheme of not having gross, messy laundry to pack…were the Bibsters disposable bibs. Since sad to say most of Reece's solid feedings occurred while we were in route from one place to the next and he was in his car seat, these Bibsters kept his clothes nice and clean. They cover quite the surface area! And when we were all done feeding him, off came the bib and tossed into the next available trash can. No dried food/crusty/nasty bibs to take back to the hotel and pack in our suitcases to take home and wash. Aaaaaahhhh…it's amazing how simple products can make life so good. When it comes to the babies, it's the easy things that matter!    So there you have it, China all wrapped up in 1+ months :) This means if I ever travel again (which we will), I probably shouldn't start blogging about it or I may never finish. Hope you enjoyed and for any of you traveling in the future with babies…see my recs above for a hassle-free time! |
