Beijing Part 2 (Summer Palace & the Great Wall!)

On Sunday, we decided to go to the Summer Palace in the northwestern part of Beijing. We hopped on the metro (super convenient and crazy cheap) and headed there. As usual, it was extremely packed - over 58,000 people were expected to visit there that day. At the entrance, you could already see parts of the temple up on the hill - it was a stunning palace! We couldn't wait to hike up to the top! It was nestled in the hill and there was a walk up to the top...it was a really neat hike because you were walking through rocks and really beautiful palace buildings!  

First view of the Summer Palace

There was a waterway than ran in front and around the palace

A palace at the top of the hill - lots of green and yellow tiles! 

At various spots along the walk around the palace, there were people who sat with a stack of cucumbers and would peel them for you for 1 Yuan (about 15 cents). My dad and I both love cucumbers, so we got some.

The view from the top - such a beautiful place! 

This is another view from the top and it was a little hazy but you can see the water out on the distance...

Ryan & I at the Palace

The majority of the Palace is water so once you get to the top, you walk down to the huge lake below.  We grabbed some lunch and then decided to explore the water. There were a ton of boats on the lake - lots of paddle boats but I decided I wanted to go on the dragon shaped boats...this is China afterall! We got tickets and then got in line - we were first in line and made sure to keep it that way so we could get the best seats! Once our boat got there, we ran on the boat to get the seats with the best view. :)

We stopped at a little food stand by the water to grab some delicious noodles!  Yum! 

Dragon Boat! 

My mom & dad on our dragon boat ride on the lake 

The view from the lake - such a neat place! 

Seventeen Arch Bridge

We decided it was time to head to our next destination for the day, so we got in line for the dragon boat back to where we had started. While in line,  the family in front of us turned around and were so excited to see Americans! The parents immediately started pushing their sons in our direction and they started speaking English to us to practice. This happened to us on several occasions but this one was particularly funny.  The proud look on their parents' face was priceless...we were happy to leave a positive impression of Americans on them. :) 

One of the other funny aspects about the trip was the fact that many Chinese people wore t-shirts that had English phrases on them - they were often phrased in a way that I would never say, but I guess they make sense....while in line, we saw this gem of a t-shirt phrase: "Think Less Stupid More." - Great advice, haha.

We had been riding the subway quite a bit while in China but we never once were able to get a seat but on the way back from the Summer Palace, my mom and dad scored a seat!! 

We took a detour on the way home to see the Olympic Stadium from the 2008 Olympics and that was really neat. I spent my whole life wanting to be in the Olympics and it was really cool to see the place where the games took place. The stadium was really crazy to see in person and Ryan walked around to see some of the US medal winners that were engraved on some of the stones in the area. 

Swimming Results - Michael Phelps won gold in 2008 here in Beijing; it's carved in stone as proof

On the walk back, we had another encounter where we noticed that people were obviously trying to take pictures of their son with us in the background. It was important to us that we are good ambassadors for the US and so we walked over to take a picture with the boy. They were so excited about it! As we did that, Ryan took a picture of the encounter. :) 

That evening, we went to the Legend of Kung Fu show - it was action packed and a great end to a great Sunday in China! 

The Legend of the Kung Fu theatre 

Cast from the show

Ryan & I learning Kung Fu

Monday was Great Wall of China day...Forbidden City & the Great Wall of China were the two places in Beijing that my dad and I had talked about being MOST excited about. I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of POURING rain and I started to get a little worried that it was going to rain during our time on the Great Wall. I fell back asleep and woke up to a cloudy, but non-rainy morning and was relieved that we wouldn't be walking through rain drops our whole day. Travel luck had been granted to us for sure!  Our tour guide came to pick us up and we drove to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall - we had heard that this tended to be less crowded and was a beautiful section of the wall and it certainly was! We were one of the first 10 cars in the parking lot, so we had definitely made a good decision to come early. We got on the cable car and started our trip up to the Great Wall. 

You might not be able to read this but it says that the Dalai Lama rode in this exact cable car! 

This is the view from the cable car - it was very cloudy from the rain as you can tell in this photo...

Family Group shot on the Great Wall - SO COOL! 

During the day, the clouds came in and out - in this picture the clouds were out in full force, but you can see the Great Wall from one of the windows on the Guard Post

Funny Great Wall pics - my mom and dad are standing straight up and down if you can believe it! 

This was a rough walk up this super steep part of the wall but it was fun to do it together! 

Ryan had already headed up the wall - he was the only person at the top of those steps for some time until a group got there before my dad and I did...he was able to get a shot of my dad and I walking up the stairs...the fact that we're so small in the picture should tell you just how high up it is - especially since this was taken when we were at the half way point. I am so proud of all of us because we made it to the very top! :)

My dad's orange shirt makes us easy to spot :) 

We all made it to the top! 

At this look out, the trail continues but there is a sign that says, "NO Visitors Allowed" - our tour guide had told us that you could continue but it's at your own risk. So...Ryan and I decided that we should continue walking for a little bit. My mom and dad stayed at the look out to bask in the glory of making it to the top and relax a bit while we trekked on. It was incredible to keep going because we were the ONLY people on the wall. It was amazing to be on such a marvel of the world together and have no one else around! We also walked on the original steps of the wall which was really cool!

We also took a picture where we are the ones standing straight up...the wall is so steep on this section!  

This is the end of the trail that we walked...

There's the photographer scoping out the Great Wall! 

And here's his Great Shot! :)

Hiking the Great Wall was my favorite part of my time in China...it's just such an incredible experience and the size of it is amazing! I was so happy that we could make those memories as a family! 

Afterwards, our guide took us to a local restaurant nearby and the food was great! We had pork and chestnuts (the chestnuts were grown freshly in the mountains that we had just been hiking around) and then rainbow trout which was caught fresh & grilled up and then we also had some local greens. It was certainly a local meal and it was well deserved after our long hike up all of the stairs on the Great Wall! 

Our friend had told us about a place where they make special pots near the Great Wall, so our tour guide took us there. The tour was really interesting because they put so much time and effort into each of these and they are hand crafted. They put on several layers (seven layers, to be exact) with copper, paint, and gold...they walked us through the whole process - it was really interesting! We ended up taking a pot home ourselves that has a dragon and a phoenix on it which they told us represents a happy marriage. :)

Step 1: Copper Pot

The girls glue on the design with thick copper wiring

After painting them, they put them in the kiln  

The ones on the crate are fresh out of the kiln and the ones on the left have already cooled into their final colors - so beautiful!

Afterwards, we ran into one of the markets in Beijing - it was huge! Seven stories of stalls and stalls of markets. We got a couple of souvenirs and then headed back to our hotel. We spent the rest of the night playing cards in the courtyard which was the perfect end to such a great day! We really enjoyed all of the time we had spent with my parents and were glad we could have some good old fashioned family competition by playing hearts. :)

Sadly, the next morning we had to say good bye to my parents as they headed off to their next Chinese adventure in Jiuzhaigou (they said it was absolutely incredible!) All in all, it was so great to see my parents and even better getting to make fun and exciting memories in China! We headed back home to Korea (it still feels weird to call that home...sometimes I just can't believe that we're living in Asia but it is really a great experience!).

Beijing! (Part 1: Forbidden City & Other Fun!)

When we first learned that we would be moving to Korea, my parents decided that they would meet us in China - we thought that was a great idea because it's a short trip for us (2 hour plane ride) and we would get the chance to have some once in a lifetime adventures together! The weekend after July 4th was the weekend that we chose to meet them. We flew into China and could immediately tell that this was very different from where we live in Korea. It is such a big city and there are SO many people everywhere!

Luckily when we were on the plane, we had made a friend who helped point us in the right direction to our hotel. He took us most of the way there and then we had to go our separate ways...a taxi cab driver immediately came up to us shouting Chinese numbers "I take you to your hotel: 200 Yuan!" and so Ryan did some negotiating and got us a pretty low price, so we hopped in. This guy was driving like a mad man...cutting people off and then he pulled up at an alley and told us that is where our hotel was...we were a little skeptical, but we got out and started walking down the alley...we knew it was part of the hutongs which are alleyways where the old courtyards used to be. Luckily we passed some tourists on the way who assured us that we were going the right way. The hotel was really neat because it was once the home of an Chinese scholar/dignitary - it was almost like being in a museum. They had pictures of the previous owner around and several courtyards when you could sit and relax...it was very relaxing, particularly being in the middle of Beijing in one of the hutongs. (Hotel Website)

The antique Chinese bed in our Wedding Suite at the hotel 

This is the courtyard in our hotel...it was a lot of fun to sit out here and read in the mornings and then we would all play cards in the evenings...it was great! 

Ryan and I walked around for a little bit, grabbed some food and found our way to Tiananmen Square - it was closed off for a military march to go and get the Chinese flag and take it down for the evening. It was particularly crowded because Raul Castro was in town and was participating in several events around that area - they even put up the Cuban flag for him in the square.

Tiananmen Entrance to the Forbidden Palace at night

The soldiers walked over to take down the Chinese flag...

 The next morning, my parents got to the hotel and it was so wonderful to see them! They had already had some adventures in China because they had spent the past few days in X'ian seeing the Terra Cotta warriors so they filled us in what a great time they had in China so far. Both my dad and I have always wanted to see the Forbidden City so we decided to head there first as it wasn't too far from our hotel. We hopped on the subway and headed that way. It turns out we were not the only ones that had this bright idea...it was incredibly crowded with lots and lots of people! We got tickets and went inside! It is such an impressive place and much bigger than I ever imagined! We ended up walking around the Forbidden City for 5 hours! It was awesome! Such a great day! 

My mom, dad & I inside the Forbidden Palace

Male Lion at the entrance of one of the palace steps...

One of the thrones in the Palace

Wall of the Nine Dragons

One of the 9 Dragons on one of the walls

Momma Lion - notice the little cub under her foot; they say the female lion is always on the right side because women are always right! :) 

One thing that happened continuously during our time in China is that people would do 1 of 2 things: they would either try and take a picture with us in the background or come up to us and ask if we could take a picture with them. I turned around while viewing some of the Imperial Palace treasures to see this: Ryan was asked to take a picture with this girl. It was too funny!

Here's another where this woman had asked me to take a picture with her son. You'll see more of these throughout the China posts...it was just too funny! 

My family shares my love of dumplings, so my mom had already researched some of the best places to go. It turned out there was one near our hotel so we went there for dinner on our first night. It wasn't particularly fancy and we were the only foreigners who came into the restaurant, but they had one English menu that they let us look at and we picked out some dumplings. They came out piping hot and  they were one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted. Our two favorites were lamp & cilantro and then pork and mushroom. I don't know if I will ever be able to eat dumplings anywhere else again because these were so incredible!

They don't look fancy but they were divine! 

So happy to have my dumplings! After a long day of sightseeing, they were well deserved! :) 

The next day, my mom and I had a cooking class scheduled for the afternoon so we decided to do some morning activities all together and then my mom and I would go to the cooking class and my dad and Ryan would go to the military museum. Our hotel was great because it was very central to a lot of the different places that we wanted to see - we looked at the map and got on the subway for a short ride and go out at the Yonghe Temple (also called theLama Temple)- it's a Tibetan Buddhist monastery that is said to be one of the most important monstaries. We knew we were going the right direction because there were people selling incense on the street. They were quite large bundles of incense and we didn't understand why until we got into the temple - it's huge! It was really interesting to walk through - I had never seen people making offerings to Buddha before - at each Buddha, they had to leave 3 sticks of incense as an offering and there were also several people who were lighting it and saying prayers in front of the various temples. 

First building in the Temple

Buddha Statue

Buddhists with incense as an offering 

Bright Blue statue - notice the crown of skulls

Another Buddha statue

Dad & I in front of the Temple

They also had the largest Buddha carved out of a single tree  (26m) - it was even in the Guinness Book of World Records! It was a great experience to see how important the Buddhists temples are to people.

26m Buddha carved from a single tree! It's even in the Guinness Book of World Records!

Afterwards, we walked over to the Confucius temple across the road. This was much quieter than the Buddhist temple but it was fun to walk around. We watched the show that they had for a little while and they we walked through the stone tablets. The atmosphere of each of the temples was very different but we enjoyed seeing both.

Ryan & I with Confucius :)

The Temple

Stone Scroll

Dance Performance 

Confucius Scholar statues

Ryan and my dad headed to the Military Museum...

...while my mom and I went to a Chinese market tour and cooking class. It was awesome! The market tour was great because they walked us around and showed us some of the spices and vegetables that we likely hadn't seen before and the best way to use them in your cooking.

Spices at the Market! 

Some of the fresh veggies

Afterwards, we went to the cooking class and we learned how to make 3 dim sum dishes - a chicken/noodle dish, chicken & sticky rice in Lotus leaves, and then the sticky rice balls with sesame seeds on the outside and red bean paste in the middle. It was really fun to make them ourselves and they were absolutely delicious!

Sticky rice balls with red bean paste in the middle - SO DELICIOUS! 

Since we had already had quite a bit of dinner in the cooking class, we weren't super hungry, so we decided to check out the night market. They had some skewers of meat and then also all kinds of crazy treats such as scorpions, star fish, squid, etc. My dad, Ryan, and I tried scorpions. It actually didn't taste that bad...basically like popcorn because they fry it so much, haha.

Entrance to the Night Market

Look closely - there are starfish, snakes, lizards, grubs, scorpions, centipedes and seahorses

Scorpions - we bought a skewer of them! There were 3 so...

Ryan was the brave one who took the first scorpion! 

I snagged the second...Yummm!! 

And Dad finished off the last one! 

It was quite the adventure and a very unique experience! It was a great few days so far in China and there was still more great memories to be made! Check out Part 2 to hear about our trip to the Summer Palace & Great Wall! (I will upload it once I finish writing it - soon!) :)