The Great Wall of China at Mutianyu

It's hard to know where to start in describing our experience with the Great Wall. One can get caught up in the data points - like the fact that it stretches the same distance as a flight spanning the Pacific Ocean from Los Angeles to Tokyo (5,500 miles). It took centuries, plus the lives of millions of laborers, to build this wall. At its height, more than 1 million soldiers were used to guard the Wall. The construction is even more impressive when you realize that the wall basically lines the contours of these rugged mountains, no matter how steep. And at times there was some very steep hiking.

We started out our hike among a throng of other hikers, which at times can be really frustrating. But luckily the more you hike, the more solitude you find, which I think is the best way to experience the Great Wall. It's worth it to see the empty walkways and cool, dark guard towers in relative peace and quiet. Off the beaten path, you can see the wall in its original, unrestored state, being overrun by nature. Trees, shrubs and plants have busted through the Wall, leaving behind only small hiking paths in its slowly crumbling state. It was nature taking over one of man's most amazing creations - which makes for an interesting parable when you stop and think about it.

The biggest worry was the kids...specifically Anthon. He can be very sensitive about walking too much. But we found out on this trip that so long as you tell him stories, he'll do anything. He'll go anywhere...and there will be no complaining. He walked 70% of the way there and back...that's a lot of up and down for a 3 year old. A total champ. Poor Shelley, though, had to tell the same three or four stories probably 20 times each. Ella had it easy. She was in the backpack and took a number of naps along the way. Our guide, Flame, carried her a good chunk of the way. I had it relatively easy too. I was charged with taking pictures and video. I took over 400 pictures over the course of the day. Don't worry, if you click on these pictures it will take you to a gallery of shots from that day that have been winnowed down to something below 40 shots.

As always, I took some video and have it uploaded to Youtube below.

The Summer Palace

If you spend any time in Beijing and read about its history, one thing becomes abundantly clear - the imperial family didn't spend much time out and about with the common folk. I'm sure that's the case with most royal families. But there are large tracks of land that was dedicated solely for the use of the emperor and empress, the summer palace being one of them. To further my point, a lot of the landscaping done around the palace, from its large lake to its Venice-like canals, were made as replications of existing famous Chinese sites. My point? I don't know how much the royal family, or their handlers, got around much. One has to chuckle knowing that after the original palace grounds were ransacked, the money to rebuild the grounds was taken from the money that would have gone into building a navy.

There are three things that make this a must see in Beijing. First is that this is every bit as much as gathering spot for locals as it is a tourist spot for foreigners and tourist groups. Locals can buy a month or year long pass to enter at the price it costs for us to get in for a day. You'll see these people in large groups Chinese line dancing. We're talking a hundred people all lined up dancing away. Others are doing group jump rope, kicking Chinese hacky sacks, which looks like a cross between a western hacky sack with a badminton shuttle cock, or by doing some rhythmic exercises with a ball and paddle.

The second interesting thing about The Summer Palace is seeing how this place was ransacked in the early part of the 20th century. Western powers trying to quelch a nationalistic uprising ransacked much of the palace, even destroying walls adorned with Buddhist statues. You could see heads of these statues lopped off. The higher you got, however, the more the heads were spared. I guess even marauders have certain height limitations.

Finally, I think the best part about being at The Summer Palace was renting a boat and floating around the lake seeing the entirety of the estate. During this time of year the many willow trees were drooping down into the water and their cottony blossoms were wafting in the air creating a really dreamlike state of serenity. It was really quite a nice feeling as we were floating calmly along the canals and lakes of The Summer Palace.

We spent our first full day here and it was a wonderful introduction to the city. Click on the pictures to see more from the gallery. The video captures nicely, I think, the three great things about this place: the people, the lake and the Buddhist statues. At the end you can see a pretty funny video of people gathering around like paparazzi taking pictures of Ella and how Anthon responds to being grabbed.

Ahh, the life of a panda!

We spent one morning at the Beijing Zoo. The place was so crowded that we felt like the whole city decided to join us. It was Golden Week - a week of national holidays, so everyone had the day off. Seeing the large panda exhibit was definitely the main draw.

Upon seeing how these bears live their lives lazily lounging around all day, I'm flabbergasted that there aren't any major religious movements that believe the highest form of reincarnation is that of a giant panda. These guys have THE life. What would make it perfect would be a big screen TV and 24 hours sports broadcasting. What's so great about their perceived life isn't so much that they sleep and eat all day. But it's the way they do it. They look so brazenly lazy...mocking us with the life of leisure. They spread out, get comfortable, kick their feet back, life's good and they can't be bothered. I mean, what could be better than that?

Then of course you have a billion plus people spending their day off at a zoo, clamoring to look at these animals when we in all actuality should be emulating them in the comfort of our own homes! But the crowds pushed and yelled and it was one giant mess of people old and young. Who were the lesser creatures in this example? Yet all the commotion didn't phase these bears. They were chilling out, eating bamboo and looking like they are just the sleepiest, most content animals ever. I'll be honest, I had a lot of envy in my heart that morning.

If anyone knows of how I can be reincarnated as a panda bear, please let me know. Thanks.

Ella turns one

Our little Ella has turned one, and Shelley and I are left wondering where the time has gone. Ella would have come into this world a few minutes earlier than she did had the doctor not been stuck in traffic and instructed the nursing staff to keep the baby from being delivered. But what started out as a nightmare experience for Shelley has resulted in us being able to raise a really sweet little girl.

At her one year mark, Ella is on the cusp of standing and walking all on her own. She can handle a few seconds of standing on her own before she falls over. She loves her shoes and uses the stroller as her personal walker as much as we use it for her carriage. She's developing quite a loud voice and exhibits random moments of extreme volume in the most unfortunate of places: airplanes, church, inside of cars and during family prayer where her loud voice really reverberates. She has learned one word from Anthon, "Don't," which sounds more like Homer Simpson's "D'oh." She says it quite often and at times can come across emphatically. She can follow a few songs with simple hand gestures and will even supply a few words here and there to songs that she loves. She's just in a great learning phase.

We celebrated her first birthday in Beijing during our trip. We found a local bakery, bought the only small cake they had, only to find that Ella had no interested in it at all, and wanted nothing to do with the peaches or the cake. But we sang and celebrated nevertheless. A pre-birthday celebration took place with Shelley's family when they were visiting us a few weeks back. Ella devoured her chocolate cupcake - it must be a chocolate thing.

We feel blessed to have such a cute young little girl in our lives. She brings a bit more of a feminine balance to the family, which is helpful considering Anthon is 100% boy. Anthon's a great big brother and is adored by Ella who seems to have a special smile and laugh reserved only for him.

Click on the pictures to see a small gallery of shots of Ella from her first birthday. As always, I've posted a video of her "party."

Come one, come all to see the foreigners!

For as much as we've come to see China - its culture, historical sites and wonderful food - there is part of me that believes one of the experiences of coming here is being seen by the Chinese.

When we're out in public, without fail, we're stared at, pointed at, talked about, and stopped by kids, parents and teenagers asking for photos. It's dangerous for us to stop too long in any one spot or else the hordes come out of the woodwork. So, we could be disciplining one of our children and we'll have 5-6 people watching us. Talk about the pressure to keep your composure! I feel like a celebrity being following around by a TMZ.com camera. And for as nice as the people have been to us, they are extremely forward. We're used to the more reserved style of the Japanese who definitely respect one's personal space! The men and women we've encountered in Beijing have no problem coming up to touch, grab, tickle or try to hold our kids. Anthon, who hates being touched by strangers, is at his wits end. He handles it by making his hand into a gun and shooting people. Ella, on the other hand, seems to really enjoy the attention, which led Shelley and me to wonder whether or not Ella gets enough attention at home!

It's an odd interaction. They don't speak English. We don't speak Chinese. We say the few words we know in each others' language and then we sort of turn our attention inward and stop truly interacting. We talk about them and they, I'm sure, talk about us. We become like two infants parallel playing but with no real interaction outside of a few smiles and gestures. For us it's all a very strange and new experience. But one we're quickly becoming used to.