(We don't think we expect you to read all of this or watch every video. Don't feel obligated since it might get pretty long pretty quickly. This is really for our documentation. You can do a lot of stuff in 24 hours and we want to keep good track of it. Like it says above: Feel Free To Peruse.)
We woke up at 5:45 after a very long night of catch up sleep and headed downstairs for "Western" food for "the breakfast". Once we were fed we went for a little walk/jog along the street outside where we found a very peculiar sight. It looked like a bunch of old Chinese people had gone to the playground to play on bright-colored equipment. Apparently throughout the city they provide parks with "exercise equipment" and people flock to them in their regular clothes early in the morning. "Good for the health" as our tourguide Allen would say. We are going back tomorrow with the camera and hopefully can get a shot of the group of old ladies practicing with thier samari swords.
Our first actual tourist stop was Tian'an Men Square which was a lot bigger than I ever imagined. Allen could not talk about the only history I knew of the place (student riots: "That is in the past"), but it was still cool to walk around. The square is called that because it is in front of the ate to the Foridden city. That gate is called: Tian'an Men. Some pictures and one of the Video we took while there:
We headed through that gate (behind us in the picture) and the three that followed for a tour of the Chinese equivalent to the Whitehouse of past ages.
In the Forbidden City we came across a four star bathroom which Maegan had to check out. Sure enough it was four stars - no toilet paper and smelly, but instead of the ground hole there was an actual "Western toilet" you could sit on. Yipee!
Everyone in our group took a picture of this sign and I am sure we were quite the site for the local chinese..."Uh...maybe they don't have bathroom in USA?" Well, we sure don't have 4 Star ones like this.
The Imperial Garden (Through the second to Last Gate) was the highlight of the Forbidden City and we are hopng to relandscape the backyard to mirror it.
Next came "the lunch" with highlights like fried pumpkin sticks, delicious dishes and a 30 second dance by this girl with a handkerchief. The most in your face, I want a tip event I have ever experienced. The equivilant of a animal baloon maker comming to your table, without asking, and making baloons for all your kids. Then holding out thier hand and asking for money. Anyways, funny.
We then went to the chinese government owned (everything is government owned) pearl place where I bought maegan some pearls. I am so nice. We were given a demonstration of opening an oyster and getting some pearls out of it. Interesting. Much to our suprise there were 24 pearls in this one oyster. Aparantley that is pretty common:
The Temple of Heaven (where we went to next) provided a cultural exhibit of Chinese at leisure that even surpassed the exercise place! Rewathing this does not portay a 10th of culture shock it did in person. The Music, art, games and Elderly Chinese acting like you would not catch most American Elderly if they were sleep walking. If you are going to watch any video on this trip so far, this would be the one. We wish everyone could have experienced this in person:
Brian showed off his Hacky Sack skills before we headed out and to the Acrobat Theater. People were doing amazing tricks and we tried to capture some of it. We recorded about the whole thing but just put a litle bit on there since this blog is getting long enough. The boys should like this one:
We then went to do a little bargaining where Brian bought some $198 dollar knock off ties for $2 a piece and probably still over paid for them. It sure was fun to shop.
Today we are going to the Great Wall of China and the Sacred Way. We will make sure to again take more videos and pictures that you are willing to watch! We have about 3 times as many as what we have posted here.
We love you Lincoln, Truman and Jefferson.
Day 2 Here in Beiging!
Hello From Beijing China: Day 1
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.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...
This is how they insist on watching thier cartoons with thier friend will.
Brian Fishing...Maegan Shopping
The boys and I dropped Brian off at his office around noon so he could enjoy an overnight fly-fishing trip he qualified for. We went to Wheeler Farm (unfortunately the camera was out of battery) and then stopped at Old Navy in Fort Union where I used to always find great deals. We left an hour later with 18 items for less than $40.00. Oh yeah.
A few are maternity, some are gifts and some are for my post-baby bodyI am so looking forward to. Here are about half of my treasures. I thought if I blogged them Brian would be happy:)
Family Pass Along Video
The Red Pages would do good to watch the video below and pay close attention to the title credits and ENDING credits. We just can't wait for part II.
We wanted to be clever without spelling it out. Do we need to?
Part 1
Sorry we haven't posted in a while. We are busy on another project that you should hear about quite soon.
Anyways. Here is the latest edition to our movie collection. We are trying to be as creative as possible. Hope you enjoy and we are looking forward to any responses you may have.
Dash and his other brother, Dash.
Within 30 days these boys have gone from Incredibles, to Power Rangers, to Ninja Turtle groupies.
Boys Trespass Temple Grounds
In our Sunday clothes just before church we went to walk around the Bountiful Temple, which of course is gated on Sunday. Surprisingly, both Truman's and Lincoln's heads fit through the fence and they went up the hill to pose for some pictures. Then it became wrestlemania and we wondered who to call if someone broke their leg and they could not get out. We decided Brian could climb the fence if absolutely necessary.
If you so happen to want any of these picture as your desktop background (or to save a good version of it), right click on any of them and "open link in new window".
A new Browser window will open and it will begin downloading the full version of the picture. After it uploads, right click and choose "set as backdground" or "save link as". The full version of the picture above is our background.
If you just right click on these pictures and "set as background" it will be very poor quality.
Our Family Is Famous!
This all happened over conference weekend. It was on between the Sunday Sessions of conference. Channel 5 was doing a special on the church and its growth in eastern Europe and Russia.
We got at least 3 phone calls telling us that someone we were related to was on TV.
Enjoy.
Triathelete?
Jessica did the full triathlon. Maegan just jumped in at the running part and ran a few miles with her. The video is extremely cheesey.