Chinese Hospital

Here are two pictures from our visit to the hospital in Chengdu. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures in the ambulance but it was a lot like our ambulances inside. The actual vehicle from the outside looked a lot like a station wagon.

Back Home

After 5 1/2 weeks (10 days for Shawn), we arrived in Atlanta last night around 10:00 p.m. We ended up staying up till 12 doing some unpacking but with 5 suitcases packed full, we made little progress ;)
As I reflect on this trip, I cannot thank Shawn, my mom, my dad, Mrs. Robertson and Joni for encouraging me to stay in the beginning when I wanted to come home. This trip has been the best experience of my life so far. I will miss the people I came in contact with and the friends that I left behind. I had so much fun living with my host family, teaching a classroom of 40-50 fun, energetic students and learning about a culture I knew so little about. I enjoyed the experience and would love to go back one day. Thank you for following my blog. I had fun writing to all my friends and family and hope I get an opportunity to share my pictures and stories with you in person.

Summer Palace, Lunch at HuTong and Peking Duck

Today was another fun day. Both Shawn and I were very sore from climbing the Great Wall so we were a little slower walking around the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace was a beautiful garden surrounding a lake where emperors would spend their summers. After the Summer Palace, we headed off to HuTong to have lunch and a tour. HuTong is basically Old Beijing located in the middle of the city. Beijing is a city created by a series of rings (think 6 increasing larger 285's). HuTong is in the middle and there are the orginal houses of Beijing, some 600-700 years old. The government has not allowed buildings to be built inside the 2nd ring tall than a certain height, so from two time towers located in the middle of the HuTong, you can see the old town of Beijing and in the distance, all the new, tall buildings. Before the tour, we had lunch. It was the BEST lunch at the home of a local family. Apparently, they cook for people on tours in their home. The food was so good! We then took a fast tour (too fast) in a tricycle of the HuTong town and went into the Drum Tower (in the old days, drums were beat to tell the hour at night) and the Bell Tower (which we didn't go into) kept the hours during the day.

We visited one more place as our last stop on our tour of Beijing, YongHe Palace. There we learned a lot about the history of Buddha. There are 3 main Buddhas (no big stomachs): Past, Present and Future Buddha. The fat, big bellied Buddha we've all seen is called "Laughing Buddha" and he is connected to Future Buddha. There are also Buddha's for many other things (a blue, green, and white one for north, east and south and a female Buddha for women). Buddism is one of the most popular religions in China followed by Christianity.

For our last dinner in China, we had Peking duck. Apparently, everyone who comes to China has to have Peking Duck. It was fun to watch a man cut it in front of us and it was good, but our home-cooked meal earlier for lunch was better by far.

Busy in Beijing (Entrance to Forbidden City, Great Wall, Walk Way to Ding Tomb)

Leaving Chengdu and Coming to Beijing

Sorry it's been so long since our last post. Once we got to Beijing, our days became much longer. We are getting up at 6 a.m. to start our tours around 8 a.m. and not getting home till close to 8 p.m. so there is little time to blog. We left Chengdu on Wednesday after spending the previous day at JinLi Street and visiting WuFu's Temple (two pictures above). Tuesday night we went back to Vanka to have dinner at Ou and Sonnia's house. Sonnia was working so Ou fixed us an amazing dinner. Chengdu men are very good at cleaning and cooking ... start that trend in America? We got to Beijing Wednesday afternoon and were picked up by our tour guide and driver. They were very sweet so we were excited to begin our tour the next day. We spent the evening with Sara's cousin Sunny. She was so sweet and she is the same age as me and teaches primary school. We had a lot in common and had a wonderful dinner together. Our 1st tour started on Thursday. We visited the the Forbidden City, Heaven Temple and saw a show that evening (Peking Opera). It was a ton of walking and by the end of the show, we were exhausted. Yesterday we went to the Great Wall. We went to a section that was less visited so it wasn't too crowded. Shawn and I walked the entire section (about 6 miles). We then visited the Ding Tomb (an emperor who ruled during the Ming Dynasty) which contained a huge underground palace built for his final resting place. It was so interesting and the pictures we put up are only a tiny piece of what we saw.

Panda's on Sunday and Kids on Monday

Sunday morning we got up bright and early and went to the Panda research center. Once again, Sarah was very sweet and gave us a guided tour of the area. I think Shawn really enjoyed it and I enjoyed learning even more about the Panda and China. After the Pandas, we were both very tired from our stomach ales the previous day so Shawn went to bed around 3 p.m. and I messed with souvenirs and packing until 9 p.m. when I went to bed.

Monday morning we both woke up feeling much better. We headed off to the lab school to see where I had spent most of my days while in China. Shawn met my primary school teachers as well as my middle school teachers. He saw many students and saw that we weren't kidding when we said "Hello" was the word of the day. Shawn was very popular with the kids and everyone wanted their picture taken with him. During the afternoon, we went to a popular shopping street and enjoyed it but couldn't find a cab back to the city for the life of us! We ended up taking a tricycle back to town to meet some friends. We had originally made reservations for dinner and a show at a tea house but traffic was so bad that we had to change our plans and find somewhere for dinner around town. The friends we met were girls I had met at English corner. Nancy and Agnus were excellent English speakers and we really enjoyed eating with them and walking around afterwards. Thankfully, we picked a good eating spot and Shawn was able to taste some wonderful Chengdu snacks and other popular dishes! After dinner, we walked to a newly built water-park in the middle of the city and watched beautiful fountains spray water according the music played. I had never seen anything like it in my life. It was a wonderful day.

Climbing Mountains and Ordering Food

After a rough start to our vacation in China, Shawn and I both woke up feeling better. We had some breakfast at the hotel and at 9 a.m. on the dot, a green car pulled up in front of the hotel to take Shawn and I to climb the mountain. Our ride was set up by a wonderful Chinese friend named Alice who found someone to drive us there and back for half of what it would have cost using a travel agent. We got to mountain around 11:00 a.m. and started climbing. Now, I had climbed this mountain my first weekend in China which is why I knew about it ... what I didn't know is that when we climbed it, we only climbed it half-way up! Shawn and I climbed 3 hours and made it to the top! It was beautiful and well worth the work-out. We even had lunch at the top and ordered ourselves some tomato and egg, tofu, rice and chicken soup (really just broth that you drink as your beverage). At 5 p.m., our green car picked us up and we headed home. Shawn feel asleep in the car :)

We got back to the hotel and decided to go eat at a restaurant I had been to with my host family. I had saved a business card from the place so we showed it to the cab driver and were off. We ate there because the menu had pictures (a big plus when you can't read Chinese). We ordered Chinese sandwiches (much like Moo Shu Pancakes but healthier, they are on the rack in front of Shawn), some green vegetable, Chinese fried dessert sticks (actually really good) and then something we didn't know but the waitress suggested (you can see it in the picture-the yellow stuff in the plate). Big mistake (the yellow stuff)! Whatever it was looked interesting but didn't taste all that great, we think it was some kind of cooked egg/jelly thing. We tried to eat as much of it as we could but looking back, we should have just passed on the item. Because later Shawn was in the bathroom for more than half the night and I had an upset stomach during the day today ... so much for showing Shawn how great Chinese food is! I've been a lousy tour guide in that department! But the food on the Mountain was excellent and we're hoping for better luck tomorrow ;)