Justin and I recently took a trip to China. It was AMAZING!! You may be wondering "why China?"
Well, Justin's brother Jerod and his family have been living there for the past few years. So we thought we would take the opportunity to go and see them for a couple of weeks.
DAY 1 and 2
The flight over was around 13 hours. I'll just say that it was way too long, and really bad food.
We got to the airport late at night, and then had to take an hour car ride to get to Jerod's home in Shanghai.
We were pretty exhausted, so the first day we just played with the kids.
DAY 3
Then the sight seeing began on Saturday. We had the driver take us to Shzhou.
We first went to Tiger Hill. Legend states that a white tiger appeared on the hill to guard it following the burial of King Helu. This is also the sight of the Yunyan pagoda, that leans around 7 feet. The entire garden surrounding the pagoda was beautiful.
Our next stop was the Humble Administrators Garden. This is the largest garden in Shzhou, and considered the finest in southern China. It was very beautiful, and very large. We had 3 children with us, it was fun to watch the Chinese take pictures of them, and come up to us and try and ask if they could have there pictures taken with them.
We then went to the Shzhou Silk Museum, and Shuang Ta, or the twin pagodas.
The Silk Museum was pretty cool. The highlight was the live silk worms that the kids enjoyed looking it. They also had a lot of great silk clothing on display.
Shuang Ta, built in 982 AD. are twin pagodas. Twin pagodas are quite rare in China. They are usually found in India. These are also the tallest twin pagodas in China.
Day 4
Sunday we started out by going to church. Church was fun, it was held in a conference room above a BMW dealership, and the attached office building next to it.
We then jumped on the metro, and went to People's Square to check out the Shanghai Museum.
After much walking around and wondering how we actually get to the Museum, we finally found it. The Museum was awesome, with different exhibits including
Chinese Bronzes
Ancient Chinese Sculpture
Chinese Ceramics
Chinese Calligraphy
Ancient Chinese Seals
Chinese Painting
Chinese Ethnic Minorities' Arts and Crafts
Ancient Chinese Jade
Chinese Ming and Qing Furniture
Ancient Chinese Currencies
DAY 5
We decided to go to the Bund and to the Yu Gardens.
The Bund runs along the western bank of the Huangpu River. There are dozens of historical European style buildings. There is nothing else like it in Shanghai.
Right down the street from the Bund is the Yu Garden, centered in the middle of old town. This was probably my favorite garden that we were able to walk through. It was a lot smaller then the Humble Administrators Garden that we saw previously, but much more beautiful (in my opinion). Some of my favorite pictures came from this garden. The garden was built in 1559 AD. It was damaged again and again through the years due to wars. It was rebuilt again and again, but restored to how it is now in the 1960's.
Day 6
Day six was very full. We started early and headed to the airport to make our way to Beijing.
We jumped on the subway and went to the Forbidden City.
This is one of the places I have longed to see for a very long time. It was not quite what I expected it to be, but still amazing, with so much history. I had previously read a lot about the last empress that had lived there, so It was really cool to see all the history connected with her.
The downside about China is that everything closes at 6pm, and everywhere you go it so huge that it takes up your whole day. So we were only able to see the forbidden city our first day in Beijing.
We did discover a mall just around the corner from our hotel, so we ate most of our meals there for the days that we were in Beijing.
DAY 7
We continued with our tours of the emperor and empress' homes by going to the Summer Palace on the outskirts of Beijing.
Three quarters of the palace is Kunming Lake, it is entirely man made. The excavated dirt was used to make Longevity Hill. The last Empress Dowanger Cixi used money reserved for the Chinese Navy to rebuild the Summer place in the late 1800's and early 1900's.
We climbed the steps up Logevity Hill to the palace of the Fragrance of the Buddha. It was a very long climb.
We also walked over a magnificent bridge to the South Lake Island and took a boat ride back to the main land. Besides waiting in a very long line for the boat ride, it was pretty cool.
Even though we were very exhausted, we decided to go to the Temple of Heaven as well on this day. The Temple of Heaven is actually a complex of temples and one really large alter. It is where the emperor would travel to once a year to pray for a good Harvest. He would pray at, go figure, the Temple of Good Harvest. The Temple of Heaven complex is 4X larger than the Forbidden City. It is mostly gardens, Which look more like a park, but it was really cool. We walked probably half way around it just trying to find the entrance, and then we walked forever after we left trying to find the subway. So needless to say we slept really good that night, we were very very tired.
Congrats! You made it to the end of week 1. Coming soon, Week 2
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