CHINA-Week 2

I finally have a few minutes to blog about week 2 of our recent trip to China. Enjoy!

Day 8
This day was our last in Beijing. We wanted to see the Great Wall so we joined a tour group at our hotel for this outing.
Our first stop was at the Spirit Way. This is a ornate road leading to a Chinese tomb of a major dignitary (Ming Tombs). The spirit way is lined on both sides by a succession of statues and pillars The statues along the spirit way depict real and mythical animals, as well as civilian and military officials.

Next stop was the Great Wall. We went to the section called Mutianyu, its a lesser known area of the wall. Mutianyu is one of the best-preserved parts of the Great Wall, this section used to serve as the northern barrier defending the capital and the imperial tombs. This section began its consturction in the mid 6th century. It's much older than the other popular tourist spot. The Mutianyu Great Wall has the largest construction scale and best quality among all sections of Great Wall.
We started with a cable car ride up to the starting point of our climb. It was an insane climb. Only 3 kilometers up and then 3 kilometers down, but the pictures do not do justice on showing how steep and uneven it was. It was a long climb, but we made it to the top and it was worth it, absolutely beautiful.

We had some other stops on the tour as well. We went to a Jade Factory. It was the factory where all the Olympic medals were made. We also stopped at Dr. Tea, the largest tea shop in Beijing. And I almost forgot, on our way back to the hotel we saw this little boy peeing in the park. I was laughing historically. A few feet down the road we saw an old man peeing in the street, I did not laugh quite as much...


After this incredibly long day we hopped on a plane and went back to Shanghai. I wish I would of gotten a picture, but I was so tired when we got back, but the amount of taxis at the airport was unbelievable! There was not an end to the line of taxis (at least that I could see).

Day 9
We were exhausted this day, and I had gotten sick. So we spent the day sleeping and playing with the kids. Justin went to the little park that is in the complex that Jerod and Ann live in and got some really cute pictures of the kids.

Day 10
Saturday rolled around again so we got to go on an excursion with Jerod since he did not have to work. He took us to Zhu Jia Jiao. This is a little water town just about an hour away from there home. It was pretty fun, we took a boat ride and then walked back along the streets lined with shops. This was probably the smelliest place we visited on our trip.

Day 11
Justin really wanted to go to the urban planning museum in Peoples Square. So that turned our to be our Sunday outing. The museum was actually really cool. They have a HUGE model of shanghai, and a bunch of other models of the airport and gardens and sewers, and tons of other things. I got a little bored after a while, but Justin was entertained.

After the museum we went on a walk around the French Concession. This was a foreign concession from 1849 until 1946. Despite all the re development in Shanghai, this section has a very distinct character. There is also a very pretty park, Fuxing Park, in the middle of the concession.

Day 12
Our fist stop of the day was the Jade Buddha Temple. This temple was a lot more crowded then the other temple we visited. The first one we visted had much more of a temple feeling to it, to the point where we felt awkward being there, but the Jade Buddha temple was not as awkward, there were still worshipers, but it was much more touristy.

We then went to the Bund again, but this time at night. It was much more beautiful and interesting at night. We took a boat cruise on the Huangpu River and got some really neat pictures. This was probably one of my favorite things that we got to do.

Day 13
This was our last real day to do anything in Shanghai, but we were really tired after being out late the night before. We decided to go to the Zoo. The Shanghai Zoo is extremely close to Jerod and Ann's house. Also on the plus side it was really cheap! about 5 US dollars to get in.
We saw lots of fun animals, like pandas, cause you cannot go to China and not see a panda! They also had dogs at the zoo. It was actually really sad to see the dogs in the cages. But all in all it was a fun trip to the zoo.

Day 14
Last day! We went to the airport pretty early, and I was very ready to go home. We flew to LA, luckily the flight was a lot shorted thanks to tail winds. LA's airport is under construction so that was kind of a pain. But for all the (new) 90210 fans, I swear I saw Navid (Michael Steger) getting on our plane to SLC. But I don't know if it really was or not.
And finally, we made it home!! Yea!

Thanks for reading about our trip!

Garden?

While living in a Condo, the one thing that I have missed the most is being able to have a vegetable garden. So this year I have remedied the situation(maybe). I ordered the middle pot off of amazon it is for growing plants upside down(tomatoes, cucumbers, etc). When that arrived on Thursday I headed over to the trusty J&L to purchase some plants and another planter for a herb garden.

So I ended up planting in the funky contraption 2 tomatoes (growing downward) and 2 cucumber plants (growing upward). In one pot I planted 3 bell peppers, and a cherry tomato. In the last pot I planted some herbs (oregano, parsley, cilantro, thyme) and planted some seeds for some lettuce leafs.

The concern I have is that living close to a brick wall of the strip mall behind the condo I'm worried that the pots won't get enough sun for the tomatoes and cucumbers. I'm also concerned about spacing, but truthfully I don't care if we have a huge harvest. I just want enough to make some salsa, have tomatoes and cucumbers for some sandwiches and enjoy 'fresh' vegetables.

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RSL Concacaf

So over a month ago Jake and I went to the RSL CONCACAF final match. I'll spare you the details of what that means, if you don't know, but basically its a big deal. We got there early and found that our seats were on the top row of the upper deck right up against the canopy. We had a great time and Jake had brought a backpack full of streamers to throw. He had found streamers so large that I am quite sure that he beamed some folks in the lower level as they would not have unwound completely.

There were so many streamers thrown on the field it was awesome

We (RSL) ended up losing the game and thus taking second place in the tournament, it was quite a letdown as we had been playing so well and had a large advantage with some goals we had scored the week before in Costa Rica.

CHINA-Week 1

I apologize in advance, this blog post will be long. I will however try and keep it as interesting as I can.
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