We sure miss our boys. We left them with Jeff, Courtney and Hinkley what seemed like just a few hours ago. Abby was soon to arrive to fill in as referee and last we heard she was still planning on making it.
We really don't have much ability to communicate outside of this blog as phone calls cost approximatley $1.2 Million per button dialed.
We are in Beijing for the next 4 days and then we travel to some other parts. If we do it correctly, you will be able to follow us along this journey through our blog. HOpefully those of you with the boys will also sign on so our litle guys can see what we are up to.
We left SLC at 8:40pm Friday Night to Los Angeles. In LA, we changed from Southwest to Air China and were quickly glad that we had a 4 hour layover as AirChina was as slow as any state run government airline that you could imagine. Alas we checked in, went through the proverbial strip search and boarded the 747 for a 12 hour 20 minute flight to Beijing. Putting to use our tax return and buying an ipod (actually a zune) was helpfuly entertaining.
Almost immediatley after landing we met our Tour Guide who took us to the Chinese Version of Fast Food Breakfast where we ate this:
Immediatley after that we went to see the Summer Palace (A 75 square mile lot that served as a summer home for the emporers during the Ching Dynasty). We were celebrities there and it is actually pretty difficult to explain why. According to our guide, most of the people there were from southern China (Beijing and the Summer Palce is in the North of China). Basically, from what we were told, people in Southern China don't get out much and seeing handful of Fair Skins walking within touching distance sort of gave us the, what I later refered to as, the Cortez effect. Maegan and I were probably photographed 50 times. Many were daring enough to come and ask "Take Photo?"...which could be interpreted as: "Can I have my friends take a photo of me and you so I can show my family that I met someone famous."
Our response: "Well...of course."
At the summer palace there is this thing called the Long Corridor. The name kind of gives away what it is, but it is pretty impressive. We post it here to show you some of the Summer Palace, and to show you people asking us for pictures.
Xiexie (pronouced shishi) means thank you. You hear us say it once in this video.
Here is another short video of us at the Summer Garden. Notice the girls behind Maegan just getting up the courage for the sentence: "Take Photo?". It was like this all day long to the extent that I started to avoid potential papparazzi type moments.
Here are a few more pictures. Maegan is in front of the famous Chinese Peach Trees. (So famous you have never heard of them, right?) And I am in front of the largest single Rock in China. Apparantley, if you pour water on top of this rock, it will come out evenly from each of the holes. I say propoganda, but what do I know?
After all that fun, we went to see the Panda's at the zoo. We are confident that Lincoln, Truman and Jefferson will love this one. Nice zoo but it seems a little barbaric. Unlike American Zoos, these things don't realy accomidate any desire the animals may have for privacy. Nice for little kids but a little unfortunate for animal rights activists.
Also, since I am the equivilant of a Giant over here, as I was holding up the camera over eveyone's head and pointing it down on the Pandas, about 15 Chinese standing in the crowd around me (who were still not up to the window yet) were all very excited that my camera monitor was showing them a good view of the Panda from the back row. You can nearly hear some quick chinese chatter when I get the Bear in view. The translation was something like: This big oafs camera can see it...just look there.
After the zoo, we went to Lunch where we at this:
(Yes Those are Fish Heads, two of them. Click on it to get a bigger picture)
Then they let us go home early so we could catch up on some sleep. Since it seems like 4 in the morning and it is really only mid afternoon.
Talk to you tomorrow. We Love you Lincoln, Truman and Jefferson. Thank you to all of you who are helping us out with this adventure of ours. Tomorrow is the Temple of Heaven and this think called the Great Wall of China. We'll be sure to leave some notes tomorrow.
B&M From China.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment