It's official, we are at the end of Joel's 4 week Chinese New Year break. (And the end of the nightly firework displays! Hallelujah! Now we can finally get some decent sleep around here.)
I think we made the most of our time together. Even though it was cold outside and the air was icky a lot of the time, we still stayed busy and had a lot of fun.
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| My handsome boys! |
They have a game that they play here that's a lot like hackey sack (sp?) only it's a feathery thingy that they kick around. Joel saw this game going and happily joined in!
We also took 6 days and went to Xi'an, an ancient capital of China where the Terracotta warriors were found.
We stayed in this great little hostel just inside the city wall. It was small, but clean and nice (and cheap!). When we first got to our room, it was FREEZING! It was snowing outside and the only heat was a little space heater (I wish they would have turned that on before we got in so that our room would have been warm when we arrived but oh well. We survived) and the door had an inch gap underneath that had a frigid draft blowing in (because our room opened to an outdoor courtyard). But, we turned the heater on and stuffed Joel's coat under the door to staunch the flow of air and our room eventually got warm. That first night I wondered what in the world we had done by bringing our 10 month old on this little adventure but every day got better and better. We went with our friend Jen who used to live there and so she was a great tour guide and she was so patient and understanding of the special needs that come when traveling with a baby!
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| Right in front of our hostel was the city wall, woohoo! |
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| This awesome little market was right behind our hostel. They had so many cool things for sale and everything was so much cheaper than in Beijing. |
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| Muslim street- we tried some delicious treats here! They had these peanut butter finger-like things that were so yummy and a sticky, sweet rice treat dunked in a chocolate sauce. |
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| There were SO many of these cute little birds in cages down Muslim street and of course, we had to stop so Will could see them. |
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| Shop on Muslim street |
Probably my favorite part of the whole trip was biking the city wall. Xi'an's city wall is the best preserved of most any city wall in China because of a water drainage system that was installed after it was built. Jen stayed with Will in the hostel while we rented bikes and rode the entire 8.5 miles of uneven, old bricks. We had some sore bums afterwards, but it was well worth the trip!
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned split bottom pants before, but I'm going to revisit the topic. Once kids here can walk, they no longer wear diapers. They just squat whenever they get the urge to go (regardless of where they are at the time!) and the easiest way to facilitate that is to just have crotchless pants for the kids to wear. What makes me laugh about these pictures is the fact that Chinese ladies are always yelling at me because I never bundle Will enough (which is totally not the case, he is usually sweaty whenever I take him out of all his layers) but somehow having a hole in the seat of a kids pants for the cold breeze to blow through is ok. I will never understand.
Will is currently in the biggest size of diapers that my Chinese grocery store carries. Once he grows out of those, I'll probably have to buy diapers at the import store to get a bigger size.
Or we could just buy some split bottom pants and fit right in! (Not really)
Joel is laughing at me while I'm uploading those pictures. He says that all the Chinese people take pictures of Will's face and we're taking pictures of their kids' bums!
And speaking of taking pictures of Will, this trip was no exception! We put Will down on this cool tile for a photo op and before we could even snap a single picture, other babies were photo-bombing our picture with their parents taking pictures.
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| This is right after that little girl hugged him (which was so cute!). He was ok until then. He must have felt accosted by a strange baby and all the people staring and taking pictures. |
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| This is our cute friend Jen who came with us. |
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| Yes, this is in fact, a tower made out of plates. |
And the food.The food! Ah. It was so good in Xi'an.
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| Beijing Duck- ironically much better in Xi'an than any I've tried in Beijing! |
They roast the duck whole in a wood fire oven all day and they bring it to your table and carve it up for you right there. You then take a crepe-like pancake and put julienned spring onion and sauce inside and top it with pieces of duck. It was delicious!
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| Carving our bird |
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| Brunch at the Shangri La hotel. |
We woke up early and headed to Shangri La for brunch and it was one of the most fabulous meals I've ever had. I couldn't believe the choices! It was buffet style and we had homemade yogurt, salads, sandwiches, cheeses, french toast, eggs, fresh squeezed juices, chocolate fountains with fruit, sushi, and Japanese soups. It was well worth the trip (and the money!).
This is Korean BBQ. There is this dish in your table for hot coals and an oiled skillet goes on top. They bring you marinated meats and seasoned vegetables that you cook to your liking right at your table. The eggplant and mushrooms were probably my favorite.
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| This soup was one of Joel's favorite meals. It had lots of lamb, noodles and these yummy bread dumplings. |
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| Cute, huh? |
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When we were walking around the park, we saw another foreign couple. It's funny how foreigners are drawn to each other here, probably because we stick out so badly!We made eye contact across the park and chatted for a while and came to find out that they were LDS, too. It was really cool. The only other foreigners we saw on our whole trip were Mormons. Small world!
By the end of our trip, the weather was gorgeous! It was 60 degrees and
the air was clear and beautiful. We made the trek out to the Terracotta
warriors with little Willie in tow. It was an hour bus ride out of the city and we'd had a few people tell us that
the soldiers were a let down and to not expect too much but we loved
it!! I thought they were so cool. They've had to glue most of them
together because they were found in pieces. They're like life-size
puzzles.
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| These are the works in progress. |
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| I wouldn't even know where to start putting these together! They all look so similar but every soldier is unique, they each have different uniforms and even different hairstyles. |
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| Yep, that is Bill Clinton's face on a Terracotta warrior! |
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| The gorgeous city wall at night |
Things in Beijing are really great, the first tendrils of warmth have finally started to creep into the city and it's a good reminder that winter doesn't last forever.
Will and I are getting antsy to be able to go play outside, hopefully spring makes an appearance soon!
