China Continued

There were so many pictures to wade through from this trip and so hard to choose which ones to share.  Therefore, I have posted some highlights of the trip.  We flew from Xi'an to Guilin and met up with my sister and her family(a more rural village in Southern China).

The famous rice terraces.

As you can see in this picture, they were just starting to flood the rice paddies.

We visited a minority group in a small village where the women never cut their hair.  The way they wear their hair shows their marital and child status.  They were a very friendly people.

 

Here are the ladies combing their hair before carefully pinning it up in a bun during a show.

 For lunch we ordered a "whole chicken." It was brought to our table like this, steamed in bamboo.  Very tasty!

Next, we traveled by boat with the Lintons to another city called Yangshuo.  This area is known for the karst formations.  

 Postcard pretty.

We took a very beautiful bike ride through the karst mountains and the farm fields. 

 I couldn't resist not adding this one.  On our bike ride, we stopped to take a picture in one of the small villages.  The photographer was laughing at Ian because none of the clothes fit him because of his height.  A group of about 20 Chinese people were taking pictures of us as well as we posed.    

While on our bike ride, we soon discovered that the maps in China aren't always accurate.  After an hour or so we found our way into a very small, very rural town with no visible trail.  Thankfully we found a man who spoke a little English.  We hired his son to show us the way back to the main road.  Things were going well until my bike got a flat tire.  Since there was no help for miles, I was trying to balance on the back of Ian's bike while he peddled and I steered my bike with the flat tire with my other hand.  This wasn't working too well as you can imagine.  A very kind man drove by on his motorcycle and after laughing at our plight, offered me a ride back to town.  We mainly communicated through gestures because neither of us spoke the other's language.  But, true to his word, he got me home safely.

Along with my sister Jennie, we decided to take a Chinese cooking class.  Our instructor took us first to a traditional Chinese food market.  

 Lots of seafood to choose from- snails, snakes, frogs, eels, etc.

We decided on a more familiar option of Kung Pao chicken and a vegetable and noodle dish. 

Our second week in China was spent touring Beijing.  Here we are seeing the pandas at the Beijing zoo with nieces Kate and Caroline.  

 The Forbidden City

 Wandering around the Hutongs (old Chinese neighborhoods) with very poor homes and very interesting shops to explore.  

 We couldn't resist a foot and leg massage.

 Touring the olympic sites.

 Obviously very excited about seeing the olympic sites.

 One of our favorite shopping destinations in China was the store HEC.  It is a restaurant supply store and has every kitchen tool and accessory you could dream of.  Jennie and I were stocking up on chopsticks and rice bowls....

...while Ian was exploring bigger possibilities for our kitchen.

 The Temple of Heaven.

A yummy dinner of Peking Duck. A server came to our table and carved the duck in front of us.  Eaten in a crepe with plum sauce, it was delish.

 On the topic of food, I was a little skeptical at first of these crepes made in the street (as you can see from the picture), but one taste and I was sold.

 There are people all over China selling these pineapples on the street.  We thought they were so fun. After buying fruit from this man, he let us video him peeling the pineapple and then kindly showed off the fruit for this picture.  We bought one of the tools from another man on the street for about $1.50 one day so we can do this at home too!

 We enjoyed watching an acrobatics show.  The stunts were so incredible.  Think of 15 women on one bike pedaling in a circle, men jumping through tall hoops, and amazing balancing acts.  I think my fingernails caused permanent damage in Ian's arm from fear that these acrobats would fall during their stunts.

Hiking the Great Wall.

We got to hike much of it with the Lintons.

Enjoying a yummy Chinese dinner on our last night in China with Jennie and Scott.  The dumplings were delicious.

If you have made it this far through the post, way to go.  That about sums up our trip in China.  We had a wonderful time and are thinking about our next big adventure...  

China - Stop One: Xi'an

After completing the So Cal Ragnar, Annie and I headed to Beijing for a two-week stay in China. We made a 12-hour stopover at the the Linton's home to drop off much of our luggage and then took an early morning flight to Xi'an.

The above is a picture of the bus we took from the airport to the Terracotta Warriors. This turned out to be quite the cultural experience as they crammed 40 people in this bus (seating for 16 was available). As we were the only non-locals on the bus, it was like a scene from The Three Amigos when we entered the bus.

The highlight of the day was visiting the Terracotta Warriors. Annie and I were both impressed with the amount of detail on each of the warriors. On the statue below it is possible to see the individual lines for hair that the sculptors placed on the head of this warrior.

We made our way back to Xi'an and made a stop at the Bell Tower and then to our hotel. After spending the better part of the day on our feet, it felt good to sit down and enjoy a meal.

The next morning we took a bullet train to the mountains to conquer Mount Hua Shan. This mountain is dotted with Taoist Temples and there are a number of people who make a pilgrimage there each year to worship. In order to get to the to the different temples we took a gondola and then hiked along the precipitous stairs and trails.

One of the really fascinating aspects about building on the mountain is that everything is brought up by foot. This is quite incredible when you consider the fact that there are multiple hotels and temples scattered throughout the mountain. Here are a couple of locals hauling food and supplies up the mountain.

After a few hours of hiking we finally made it to the top of the South Peak (the highest of the peaks).

We placed a lock on top of the mountain (tradition to take the lock and connect it to the chains along the path - we saw tens of thousands), ate a quick snack, and took a few pictures before heading back down. The rain started to fall and the crowds thickened making the descent a little more precarious. The other issue is that the line for the gondola was about an hour long so we decided to hike down the entire way. In all, we think we hiked about 15,000 stairs. The thought of inexpensive massages gave us hope as we travelled down the last few hundred stairs and reached our bus.

Look for highlights from our adventures to Guilin and Yangshuo in a later posting...