Moon Festival

(aka)

Mid-Autumn Festival

 

This is the day you're supposed to admire the Full Moon and devour daintily prepared moon cakes.  It is a special time for families and a romantic occasion for couples. 

 

 

 

 

We celebrated by trying some Chinese moon cakes given to us by a friend - under the glow of the full moon, which you could actually see tonight!  We finished it off with sweet moon pies -- prepackaged goodness style.

 

 

 

This Festival kicks off a week-long national holiday.  The kids are off of school and all of China is on vacation.  Everything here will be crazy busy so we pulled out "The List" and we're heading to ......

 

 

THAILAND!!!

 

So Excited!!  Beach, Elephant rides, beach, kayaking, beach, snorkeling and BEACH :)

 

 





International Day

The kids school had an "International Day" complete with a parade, games, potluck and dancing!  Here are a few pictures from the parade.  The entire school participated pre K - grade 12.  The kids were encouraged to dress in traditional dress from their countries.  Hmmmmm, what to wear for the good ol US of A?

It was so neat to see the many different continents represented at the school!

Asia was separated into South Asia and North Asia because of the number of kids from these regions.  I love these little girls dresses!

It's kindof like playing "Where's Waldo" trying to find my kids.  North America was the largest group.

Ahhh!! There they are!!  All 3 wanted to wear their Texas shirts :)

These are going to be memorable years for them.  Such a great experience!

Temple of Heaven

 

Beijing is full of many ancient sites with rich histories.  We're slowing making our way through them :)  Zak had learned about the "Temple of Heaven" in school so we decided to make this our next weekend sightseeing adventure!

 

 

The Temple of Heaven is actually an extensive ancient garden (273 hectares).  There are many different palaces and buildings inside the walls of the park.  They were used anciently by the emporers to offer sacrifice and pray for good harvests and such.  It was very busy inside but surprisingly you could get a sense of the sacred nature of the garden.

 

 

Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests

I just noticed while posting these pictures that in many of them my kids are sporting the "longhorn" pose.  Yay Texas :)

Inside

 Echo Wall

You're supposed to be able to stand at opposing ends of this wall and hear each other whisper.  This would probably work better before the 500 other friends get there to try the same thing.

No trip would be complete without enjoying the ceremonial ice cream...

 

 

Once we walked outside the walls of the Temple of Heaven park you immediately heard the hum of traffic and the bustle of a big city.  I was amazed at how we were sheltered from that inside the gates.

 

 

What next?  :)

 



Glad to get THAT out of the way...

 

So, probably the single most frightening thing about living in China for me was what healthcare options were available.  My goal before moving here was to make it without ever having to go to the doctor or hospital, and then make our regular visits every six months when we return to the states.  Well, with a family of six I know that's unrealistic, but I can hope, right?

 

 

It didn't take long to make that goal null and void...

 

 

After being here for a week and a half I was loading the dishwasher and broke a plate.  A couple pieces of the broken glass (porcelain?) flew into my EYE!  I got the big chunk out but I couldn't get all of it out and was very nervous because -- IT'S MY EYE!  I slept on it hoping it would magically be better in the morning but it was still very red and irritated, so to the ER we went.  After checking in at the front desk the receptionist politely told us that this was the Emergency Room and that the eye doctor wasn't open on weekends (something about glass and eye in the same sentence?).  Haha, my confidence is not real high at this point, I'm ready to hop the next flight stateside :)

 

 

My confidence was restored after getting an American doctor who did all the things that we had "read online" that a doctor should do in this situation :)  All is well.  I still have 20/20 and as far as I can tell, all the glass is gone!

 

 

 

This was the good arm

 

 

And if THAT wasn't traumatic enough, not even two weeks after that I woke up with BOTH of my forearms swollen huge, red, itchy with red lines traveling up my arms.  I'm thinking spider bite or something poisonous.  Off to the ER we go again.  The Chinese doctor didn't think it was a bite - he said "you were inside right? not camping or anything?"  Yeah, but spiders can come into houses duh.  I'm thinking, just give me the antibiotics so I can get rid of this blood poisoning before I die!!  The Chinese are very cautious about prescribing antibiotics and try to avoid it.  So I start tearing up when he tells me he thinks it's an allergic reaction to something because I haven't changed anything - soap, detergent, nothing.  He gave me a couple antihistamines and said call me if it gets worse.  Ugh.  Guess what?  It was better the next day. 

 

Glad to get that out of the way!  The hospitals are fine.  There are a couple that cater to foreigners and practice Western medicine and most employees speak English, so I think we'll be fine - but I'm still hoping we nEveR go back :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guilin & Yangshuo

Guilin

Guangxi Autonomous Region

 

 

Our first out-of-city excursion -- so exciting!!!

 

 

 

The kids had a three-day weekend because of a teacher prep day so we started at the top of our list of "places to see" and headed out to a gorgeous area in Southern China.  We started in the town of Guilin and began our journey on a boat ride down the Li River and ended in the town of Yangshuo.

 



The journey took about 4 hours.  We ate, we played, and we experienced this gorgeous area. Check out the scenery.  This is why the area is so well known...

 

 

 

Fun stuff along the way.  Not sure what these people are finding in the river, but we would see them when the water was shallow picking things out of the rocks.




 At one point we were just chilling down stairs and this guy appears on the edge of our boat. He was selling souvenirs. Another guy was selling fruit. Once they were finished they hopped back on their little raft and made their way to the next boat where they would tie up their raft to the boat, hop on and try to sell their stuff :)

The limestone mountains jut out all over - it's such unique scenery.  Very glad we got to see it!

Here are just a couple of the many water buffalo we saw.  The local farmers use them to plow their fields.

The Chinese money 20 Yuan bill has a picture from this river.  We passed the same spot!

Look how busy the river is!  So many tour boats and rafts!

Yangshuo

Once we arrived in Yangshuo of course to get into town you have to walk through the pit of people trying to sell you stuff .  There was some very cool, cheap stuff mixed in with the junk :)

The first activity on our list was to ride bikes through the countryside.  The boys really wanted Dad to ride this triple seater :)  Dad was thrilled.  I can't tell you how long I've tried to get him to ride a tandem bike with me and it's never happened.  And after this experience I doubt it ever will ;)

I thought this bike would be perfect for the three of us.  It has a little seat and handle bars in front for Jake.  Boy was I wrong!!  The position it forced me to pedal in was very awkward, good thing we only rode 10 MILES!!  And of course it was during nap time so small fry was lulled to sleep by my gentle peddling :)  I had to hold him on the seat with one arm while kicking his limp legs with each peddle, and trying to steer this awkward bike with flat tires... fun times :)

Beautiful countryside and many rice fields along the way.

 

 

 

 We stopped to see a 2,000 year old Banyan Tree, made famous by some Chinese love story movie.

The kids became more of an attraction than the tree.  They are sitting on the fence in their little china man hats while a crowd forms around them taking turns posing with them for pictures...fun times.

 

 

 

 

West Street in the evening.  So much activity! (and a KFC!  Chinese people love their KFC!)

 

That evening in Yangshuo we saw a show called "Impressions Liu Sanjie"  The show was created by the man who also directed the opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics.  Six hundred performers put on a great show on the Li River with the peaks illuminated in the background.  I *think* it was about the same love story the movie at the banyan tree was about :)

Shopping in Yangshuo

We really enjoyed the town Yangshuo the best.  Back in Guilin we went to Reed Flute Cave.  This cave put Timpanogos Cave to shame :)  Many stalactites and stalagmites illuminated in beautiful colors, and the cave was HUGE.  Like football field huge inside!

Inside the Crystal Palace of the Dragon King.  This huge room was used as an air raid shelter during wars.

 

 

 

We had a great time!!  Can't wait to plan our next excursion!!