Bluestone Family

Forbidden City

This post is actually coming to you a few days late.

It has been challenging to find time for blog entires after a full day of touring every day.  The fact that the blog was exceeding 50 views every day was good reason to continue. We also liked the idea of creating a continuing record of the trip.

While we are leaving in just a day, I will continue to post for a few days to include some really great street scenes that we have of the three cities we visited (Beijing, Xian and Guangzhou). These photos will be more about modern China and its people than about historic sites.

The photo above is of the Forbidden City.  Check Wikipedia for a good discussion of its history.

It served many emperors as a home, government center and ceremonial place.

It is ABSOLUTELY HUGE! Almost 200 acres of stone paved courtyards and buildings surrounded by walls. We were continually blown away by the scale of things.

The top photo is of the central building.

The photo directly above is of our group walking across Tiananmen Square (which is just outside the entrance to the Forbidden City.  The square is probably best known for being the site of the famous protest in 1989 when the brave man stood in front of the tank.  It appeared he "won" - but is reported to have never been seen since).

On one side of the square is the Chinese equivalent of our Capital building (it is, of course, huge). On the other sides are the forbidden city, Mao's tomb and finally a new museum about China that is being built (in time for the Olympics).

The photo to the right is one of the more unexpected and funny things (and it happened over and over agaIn).  People would want to photograph us.

In this case, everyone had assembled and this guy jumped right in front of me to take their picture.

Other times we were politely asked if they could photograph us and it was normal to have them throw their arm over our shoulder and act like best buddies.

Rachel was the most attention getting. Yesterday a bunch of waitresses wanted to brush her hair.  Rachel kindly agreed and they were thrilled!  Go figure.

That's it from China.  Check back over the next few days.  By Tuesday or Wednesday I will try to post a bunch more photographs.

Thanks for sharing our journey with us!

Laurie, Marc, Abraham & Rachel

Patrolling The Xian Wall...

What a wonderful time we had riding around the wall in Xian.

Our tour guide picked us up after breakfast and took us to the east gate where we climbed up a long flight of steps to the top of the wall (about 40 feet off the ground).

There we rented bicycles (Rachel & Daddy on a tandem, Mommy and Abe on singles). 

The photo you see at the right is of the path around the top of the wall.  It is easily wide enough for two big trucks to drive side by side.

The wall itself forms a rectangle around the old city of Xian.  It is approximately 3.5 miles long by 1.5 miles wide for a total distance of 10 miles around.

At each corner is a guardhouse type structure and in the approximate middle of each side is a main entrance.

We took about 1.5 hours to circumnavigate the wall making frequent stops to enjoy the view (which consisted of everything from run-down neighborhoods and bus stations to watching an outdoor opera performance.

The photo at the right is a typical street scene taken from the top of the wall.

Throughout China you would see hundreds of people scurrying from place to place. Crossing the street wherever they feel like it. Certainly not looking before they walk into the street.

Yes - the fog you see is pollution.  As much as we enjoyed Xian, we all got the distinct feeling that we were being slowly poisoned by the air.

After finishing our bicycle ride, we drove to the airport and boarded our flight back to Guangzhou.

It is a two hour flight.

We were happy to get back to a place with more breathable air and a broader variety of food.

Tonight we all enjoyed an Italian buffet featuring pasta, veal and other dishes.  It was the first time we had anything but traditional chinese food in a week.

We're looking forward to a great day tomorrow and then it's time to fly back to Los Angeles.

Xian

CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE

We're in Xian today.

Xian is in northwest China and was the earliest capital of China (before Beijing).

Today it is a modern city that also serves as home to many historic sites.

Pictured to the right is our group in front of the bell tower. The bell tower is located exactly in the middle of the old city. 

The old city is surrounded by a wall built 600 years ago. It is in near perfect condition and tomorrow we will be riding bicycles on the top of the wall around the entire perimeter (10 miles).

The bell tower was used to wake the residents of the city each morning.

The wall was closed every night by raising the drawbridges over the moat (yes - for real - there is a wall and a moat 10 miles around a city).

The purpose of the wall was largely to keep the "commoners" out. It was never used militarily.

We have all been noticing how different it is than being home.

People drive like lunatics despite being constantly supervised by police (shown at right).

They don't honk horns - they just change lanes without any concern at all for the presence of other cars or pedestrians.

The whole country is also extremely polluted. Walking the streets is not much better than deep breathing in the loading zone of a bus terminal.

The highlight of Friday was a visit to the outskirts of Xian to visit the Tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang (the first emperor of Unified China).

What makes this tomb different from any other tomb is that the emperor (when he was 12 years old) decided that he would like his tomb to be protected by an army of 8000 soldiers.

Although he originally favored the idea of burying alive 8000 real soldiers, he eventually settled on the idea of constructing enormous underground chambers housing 8000 life-size terra cotta warriors.

As you can see by the photo to the left, there were multiple pits as long as a football field.

The tomb, unbelievably,  was not discovered until 1974 when some farmers digging a well came across a clay warrior head.

Now, it is one of the largest historic sites in all of China.

Pictured at the right is a picture of Wendy and Paul.

They are friends of ours that are on the trip with us.

They don't have a blog so we thought it would be cool if their friends could log on and see a picture of them.

Tomorrow we will be flying back to Gwangzhou.  We'll have a little more than a day to explore there before boarding our flight back to California on Sunday night at 9:00pm.

We hope everyone enjoyed a very happy Thanksgiving!

Laurie, Marc, Rachel & Abraham

The Great Wall!

The highlight of Wednesday (and maybe of the entire trip) was the great wall.

We traveled about 40 miles from the hotel to the wall.

When we pulled up in our bus it was clear that the wall was an unbelievable structure.

Once you start walking up however you can;t even believe its scale or the set of challenges that must have been present for the people that built it and patrolled it.

We started our walk at the main gate to Beijing.  We then walked approximately 1.5 miles with an elevation gain of about 900 feet.

The photo above shows approximately 1/6 of the total climb we accomplished.

The photo at left shows a similar distance.

Abraham, Tai and I decided that we wanted to race up the wall. We made it up the first two sections before deciding we were nuts.

(It should be reported that Tai soundly defeated my best effort.  Abraham at the end was crawling up the wall on all fours but made it on his own power - of which I was very proud).  It should also be noted that NO ONE else was stupid enough to race up the wall.  Only us.

After racing the first two sections, we stopped and waited for Bob, WeiHong, MeiLei and Rachel.

Eventually, we all made it to the end of the section (the peak is the end.  The rest of the wall in that area is gone, the stone having been stolen by local residents to build houses).

After a brief rest and a great feeling off accomplishment, we headed down.

We had a wonderful time at the Great Wall and I hope that someday everyone can visit.

Day Two

It is Tuesday morning in Beijing and we just woke up from a great sleep at the Nikko New Century Hotel (it's 8:00am here on Tuesday - in St. Louis it is 6:00pm Monday).

Yesterday we woke up in Guangzho and flew to Beijing. We then visited the Summer Palace and were blown away by the size and the level to which the rulers papmpered themselves. We had a great buffet for dinner and got to bed early.

Today we're off to the Forbidden City. The kids will hopefully write some posts later about the places we went today. Marc, Laurie, Abe & Rachel

Here are some more photos from Guangzho below...

This is the street outside the restaurant where we had dinner.  It is a very vibrant area with a lot of energy.

Chinese people enjoy their restaurants very loud. In fact, it is common to have a large plasma screen TV blasting sound at high volume levels.  That is very different from home where restaurants tend to be quiet.

I thought this picture (below) was really funny because it is of a banner advertising an exhibit about "Scenes of the American West"

Many of the places we have visited are not "tourist sites" designed for foreign tourists - but rather for Chinese tourists or even residents.

We have seen very, very few Americans.

We thought the photograph to the left was funny because China is a place where people enjoy far less freedom than we have in the United States.

While there is broad economic freedom, everything else is pretty much defined by the government right down to how many kids you're allowed to have.

The idea of an "Institute of Standardization" was just amusing to us.

The tower pictured to the right was built hundreds of years ago at a high point overlooking Guangzho and facing towards the sea.

It was intended as a lookout for approaching enemies.

Today it overlooks a soccer stadium and a city full of high rise buildings.

Day 1... With Photos...

Here we are on the plane ride to China. The flight took almost 15 hours!

The airplane had really cool video displays that showed our alitude and speed. Notice how cold it is at 35,000 feet.

The display also showed our route.  We had thought the plane would take off and fly directly across the ocean.  Instead, we flew along the California coast up to Oregon & Washington.  Then over Alaska, Russia and down into China.

We were very happy to land after 15 hours in a plane although we all felt like it went by quickly thanks to lots of sleep.  We deplaned away from the terminal and took a bus to the immigrations area.

After clearing customs, we boarded a bus that we had chartered just for our group.  The bus took us into Guangzho. We were all impressed by a very modern road system and lots of tall buildings and commercial activity.  Our host told us that most of this development has occurred in the last 10 years. 

The first thing we did was check into our hotel.  Here are the kids in the lobby of the Garden Hotel in Guangzho.  It was one of the first big hotels to open in the city.

After checking in, we walked a few blocks to a different hotel where we enjoyed a wonderful, traditional chinese brunch.  We were joined by the family of one of our friends.  It was a multi-generational gathering and was essentially a reunion of our friend (who was born in China, but is now a US citizen having lived here for about 20 years) and her sisters and mother.

This was a real traditional lunch featuring all kinds of stuff that you won't see at PF Changs.

I'm not really sure what was on the table, but it all tasted very good.

Abraham and Rachel made some new friends.  Although communication was a little tough, kids get past that quickly and figure out how to play.

Rachel also had a great time.  The feeling of this gathering was very much like a shabbat dinner.  We felt really honored to be a part of it.

We did a lot more on Day 1.  But it's late and we're tired.  More tomorrow.  Thanks for checking in.

Marc

We're Here!

We arrived in China (Guangzhou) this morning (Sunday) and are very excited to be here.

We took many pictures and will get them onto the blog hopefully tomorrow.  Right now were focused on showering (first time since Friday in St. Louis) and getting ready for dinner.

Clearing customs and negotiating a foreign airport were easy; to date our biggest challenge of this adventure has been getting out of St Louis.  American Airlines canceled our flight 15 hours before departure and rescheduled us on three different flights to LAX:  Abe flying solo through Chicago, Rachel and Laurie connecting via Dallas, and Marc flying non-stop to Los Angeles in first class.  That wasn't going to happen.  Marc spent too much time on the phone with American getting us all on the same flight; the kids and I ended up in the back row, with a view of the engine, wedged next to two 300 pound passengers....but we had the better experience. Marc did offer me the first class seat but I declined because he had an article to write.  Good thing too because even though Marc was in first class, with his choice of breakfast and beverage, he was also seated next to a first class social deviant.  This guy had the entire first class section upset, the flight attendants apologizing, and wondering where's an air marshal when you need one.  The highlight was when he tossed his napkin three times into Marc's face and told him "I hope you die."  Charming.  But Marc did manage to get his article written and he sent it off once we landed in LA.

We were in Los Angeles with twelve hours before our flight to China....so we went to Disneyland.  It was a lovely afternoon,  holiday decorations were being installed, and it wasn't too crowded.  The Haunted Mansion was decorated as "The Nighmare Before Christmas' (ala the Tim Burton movie) which is worth seeing.  Our plan was to run around Abe and Rachel as much as possible so they would be exhausted and more apt to sleep during the 15 hour flight to Guangzhou!

Gotta go...     More later...

Laurie