Xie Xie, China

We just got back from 8 days in China. We visited Guilin, Xi'an and Beijing. It was a great trip and the Chinese people were absolutely crazy for Matthew - he drew crowds!! Getting there was a little cumbersome. We had to take three little flights, first to Taipei, then Hong Kong and finally to Guilin.

Guilin

A cruise down the Li River near Guilin.
We saw these amazing mountains that just shoot up out of nowhere.
We saw domesticated ducks and cormorants and water buffalo that worked with the fisherman and rice farmers along the river along with the people who live in the villages along the river. The scenery was unbelievable.

Lunch on the river - our first Chinese meal
Matthew was trying to figure out how to use the chopsticks
(don't think we are horrible parents - we didn't know he was going to poke himself in the eye - he just did it right as the picture clicked, so don't judge us too harshly! )

Guilin scenery outside the Reed Flute Cave

Scott tames the cormorants in front of Elephant Trunk Hill in Gulin
The fisherman tie string around their necks to keep them from swallowing fish and use them to catch the fish for them. Eventually the cormorants learn just to catch the fish and bring it back and the string isn't needed anymore.

A typical meal on our trip.
We usually sat at a big round table with a giant lazy susan in the middle. The servers would bring dish after dish after dish and set it on the lazy susan and then we just spin to get what we want. We always had small plates so we had to eat a small portion and then refill again and again. We ate lots of vegetable and a favorite mealtime activity was playing "guess what the dish is" since many of the things looked unfamiliar. We usually had to ask our guide or waitress or eat it first before we could figure it out. One time we thought we were eating cubes of fat, but it ended up just being eggplant.

A park in the center of Guilin

Xi'an

After staying in Guilin a few days we flew to Xi'an,
the ancient capital of China for 12 dynasties and the beginning of the silk road.

A warrior at the Terra Cotta factory
One of the highlights of our trip to Xi'an was visiting the site of the terra cotta warriors - emperor Qin had an army built (thousands of life sized figures out of terra cotta) around 210 BC so he would have an army to fight for him in the afterlife. The figures were then buried and not discovered until 1974. They have already excavated thousands of these ancient warriors and the excavation is still ongoing. There is a factory near by the site that makes the warriors for decorations and for tourists in the same method that they believe was used in the ancient times.

Matthew samples a local specialty of Xi'an, the belt noodle.
It's wide and several feet long and they serve it all tangled up in a ball.

At the Terra Cotta warriors excavation site.
Thousands of warriors were already excavated and restored.

As we walked around the site, which was huge,
Matthew kept waving at all the warriors.

Matthew poses by a Terra Cotta Warrior

A dumpling banquet we enjoyed in Xi'an.
Along with other meat and vegetable dishes, they brought us course after course of dumplings.
It was meat and vegetable (sometimes just vegetable) and different flavorings steamed (and sometimes fried) in a wonton wrapper. The presentation was so creative. They brought some with fish in them that were shapped as goldfish with peas for the eyes. Most of them were shaped like the main ingredient. Little pigs, ducks, chickens, and other things came to our table as little dumplings. There was also a shark fin shape (aaah!) and a walnut shape for one of the dessert dumplings. It was lots of fun.

In front of our Xi'an hotel

At lunch with our Xi'an guide, Susan.

Beijing

After spending a few days in Xi'an we flew to the present day capital and home of the Summer Olympics this year, Beijing. It was also the final stop on our tour.

At Tiananmen Square
You can see Chairman Mao's picture in the background if you look real closely.

The Forbidden City - where the emperors lived.
The whole city was huge and full of symbolism.

We took a pedicab tour of an old neighborhood in Beijing, Hutong Village
Most of Beijing looks modern now, but this village, which had all gray buildings and narrow, maze like streets and alleys connecting it, was one of the last areas showing what most of Beijing looked like 50 years ago (and hundreds of years ago).

A street in the Hutong Village

The "bird's nest" - site of the 2008 Beijing Olympics
I think the opening and closing ceremonies will be held here.

At the Badaling section of the Great Wall of China
At this section the wall dips down into the ravine and then climbs back into the mountains on either side. We parked at the bottom and hiked to the top (the highest point of the wall at this section). It took us a little over an hour to climb it and some points were very steep! Chairman Mao said you are not a true hero unless you walk on the Great Wall - Scott carried Matthew up the whole way, so he gets double hero points.

It was so steep!!

Taking one of many rests along the way

A view from the top!

Resting at the top...we look so tired!

On the way back down
(Matthew was exhausted)

Our Chinese guide in Beijing thought Matthew was a cute and happy baby.
He said Matthew was the reincarnation of the happy Buddha.

At the Summer Palace, a vacation home for the emperors near Beijing.

The longest corridor in the world, really!
At the summer palace.

Relaxing in the hustle and bustle of Wangfujing Street in Beijing near our hotel.
The biggest McDonalds in the world used to be here (a bigger one has now been built somewhere) and the flagship store of the Beijing Olympics merchandise was here along with lots of expensive stores and restaurants. It was the last night of a really exciting trip to a fascinating country.