Travel to Beijing

One of the perks of coming to Shanghai was having the ability to travel Asia. We've started small, with places near our home, and have been fortunate enough to have a few visitors already come who've made the exploring that much more enjoyable. Recently, friends from Minneapolis flew in for a few days of touring. Not sure I've laughed this hard in a long time! Love those Hovick's!

The first few days were around Shanghai with fake markets, YuYuan Garden, and a night out on the town...none of which really worked out in our favor. To say the least, we made good stories with every outing we took!

The fake market ended with difficulty in getting a cab home -- go figure!! This time it was because of a 6' canvas painting that I bought (which was very well worth it, but wouldn't fit into ANY car in China!) With Jarin at the office that day, Jared somehow flagged down a van with taxi written on the side. Come to find out it was a delivery truck, and we had a make "a stop" before he could take us home! I sat in the front, following our path on my GPS, realizing we were not heading in the right direction. But, with no common language between me and the driver, we were stuck at his mercy. So much for getting us to the school to pick up my daughter in time! I quickly typed "fast" into my iTranslate app, and learned that "kuai" made him get some fire under his ass. Still, poor Alayna sat in the office until we made it there to get her. In the meantime, Paisley was holding on tight to Brooke and Jared in the rear of this shady ol' get-up.

 
Being the great tour guides that we are, Jarin and I arranged our ayi to watch the little bambinos one night while we led our buds to a favorite spot on top of the Bund for pre-dinner drinks. The view from New Heights was so great that we spent too much time there, and had trouble finding a restaurant nearby that served food past 9 p.m. Well, we did find one, but the menu looked awful... we ended up walking out on them after being seated and then called down to our fall-back, New York Pizza, for a late night delivery. (Hey, Jared and Brooke... glad you could come around the world for NY pizza!)

We spent one day in Zhujiajiao, an ancient water town created during the Ming and Qing dynasties. What a blast! We didn't even indulge in the tourist museum traps they had set up, but instead had more fun walking the cobblestone streets, riding in the gondola, and of course trying our fashion and flavor in some traditional Chinese.

 

 

As you can presumably guess, we were the center of attention in this town! Between our boys who acted as though they were kids again, to our adorable Miss P, who caught the eye of every local, we had a few crowds around us most of the time. Oh, and did I mention there was a 90 min bus ride to get there, where our four seats somehow were elevated, facing the rear of the bus. It was at that point that our little one managed to pull down the emergency hammer creating a screaming buzzer for everyone to stare even harder... talk about embarrassing!

The majority of our time with Jared and Brooke was devoted to Beijing. We did so much in the few days that we had, I don't know how B did it being 7 months pregnant! First came the Forbidden City and Tian'anmen Square, where we enjoyed a fantastic lunch at a small Oasis Cafe. Oddly enough, this area was also where Alayna reached one of her biggest accomplishments yet in China. She used a squatter!! She was a little embarrassed, but daddy was proud!

 

With Jared as our tour guide (ah-hum) we did make it into the gates of this massive structure known as Forbidden City, where for about 500 years it was home to many emperors. It spans about 180 acres and holds some very impressive architecture which took over 14 years to build.

 

 
It wouldn't be Beijing without the Great Wall of China! We took the cable car to the top of the Mutianyu section (made famous from Michelle Obama's visit) and hiked about 8 towers. Even with the pollution at 224 on the day we went, it was still beautiful!

 

 

 

 

As you can tell, everyone enjoyed the climbs! Paisley was a trooper and independent as usual. Jarin was quite the daredevil and encouraged Cade and Layna to walk the walls of the wall on numerous occasions. I tried to capture lots of pictures, but most of the time I was praying that no one would die. On the way down, us smart ones took the cable car back for a quiet ride and rested at the country store for a cold beer and ice cream. Those other three crazies decided the toboggan ride down would be best. Apparently, this was ultimately the best part of the whole trip.

Finally, in Beijing, we bellied up to the table for the infamous Peking Duck -- a delicacy in this part of the world. I was rather sure I'd be foregoing dinner this night, but one had to be in awe of the presentation. The chef wheeled out the duck and butchered it before our eyes. (You could still see the duck's eye!)  It was served with pancakes and loads of toppings and tasty sides. We all enjoyed the fest, and Cade was even pretty surprised that he ate 5 pancakes full of duck!

 

As you can gather, with this slim selection from the hundreds of photos I've taken, our travel is something of envy. I feel so fortunate to have these experiences, and more so that we are providing them for our children. Here's to the many more trips, explorations, and journeys we are about to endeavor.