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.