China Tour

On Sunday, Aaron and I got back from China!  We did a 9 day trip to Beijing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai, and X'ian.  It was so much fun and quite the cultural experience.  What made the trip especially fun was our tour group.  We were lucky to get such a fun group of individuals.  They weren't at all stodgy like we thought they'd be.  Of course, we took about 700 pictures so I'll give you the shortened version of the trip.  :)

 

 

The Great Wall of China

Before the long hike up.....  You can't tell here because Aaron is in short-sleeves but it was freezing.  Everyone was looking at Aaron like he was crazy!!  The Chinese people would look at him and laugh.

 

 

When you make it to the top of the Great Wall, you're called a Hero.  So here is our Hero picture!  It was a lot of steps.....

 

 

Beijing Olympics Buildings

 

 The Bird's Nest

 

 The Cube

 

Jade Factory

Street Market

 Aaron tried the scorpion and the snake.  There were also centipedes, tarantulas, silk worms, and starfish.  I passed.

 Something obviously gets lost in the translation....

We had no idea what this shirt meant, but we loved it!!

This cracked me up.  In the cold weather, they duck-taped gloves/mitts to their motorcycles to keep warm rather than wearing gloves.  Almost all of them had this!

 

Tiananmen Square

 

 Okay.  These guards were not friendly.  Aaron took this picture right after I tried to ask the guard to take a picture with me.  He just made a gesture for me to leave.  I turned around very confused....

 

 First culture shock in China: the restrooms.  Apparently, their restrooms are rated with stars like hotels. I believe one star for each: stall, toilet seat, toilet paper, soap, and I think the last one was cleanliness. This was by far the worst bathroom although most of them were squat-style.  I nicknamed this restroom the "horse stall".  And you could see the person next to you by the way.  We were all laughing and asking each other to take our picture.  The Chinese women probably thought we were so weird.

 

Yes, Sheila.  I found something worse than a porta-potty!

 

 

Forbidden City



 These guys were the only ones in our group from Sacramento.  "Justin" (Steven),  "Kevin" (Thien), Nam, and Tony.  They were hilarious!!  In the back is Nelson from Guatemala.

 

The Crane.  How appropriate.

 

 

The boys in the group

 



The girls in the group

 

Panda Zoo

 

Welcome to Panda!  No China Tour would be complete without going to the zoo.

 

 

Summer Palace

 

 The Summer Palace was actually very close to the Forbidden City.  We liked it so much better though because it was by the water.  It was gorgeous!

 

 Trying to catch the beautiful sunset....

 

 I LOVE this picture!

 

 

 

 

Suzhou:  Venice of the East

One of the poets called this city the "Venice of the East" and it just kind of stuck.

 

 Aaron blending in with the "common folk"

 

One of the things I loved about China was that you'd be walking down a street and all of a sudden, you'd see something like this.  The architecture was incredible!

 

 

Lingering Gardens

 

 Our "Engagement shot" until Luis and Thuy got in there.  :)

 

 

 Like I said......a fun group.  Luis, Gabriel, and Aaron

 

 Beautiful round doorways

 

 Gabriel, Luis, and Aaron

 

Angie, Sophia, me, and Thuy

 

 

Silk Factory

 

 Aaron with a silkworm

 

 This was the funniest mannequin!

 

Yes; there was a Crest scarf!  So funny!

 

 

West Lake:  Hangzhou

 

 

 

 

Green Tea Village

The Green Tea Village was located up in the mountains of Hangzhou.  It was very peaceful and beautiful.

 

 Another day, another dolla'.  Thuy, Angie, and me picking the tea leaves.

 

We had way too much fun with these pictures.  This is one of like 20 pictures we took and they got crazier.  In the end, someone threw gum at Thuy.  It was like being in a photobooth with props. Good times!

 

 Here was the building where they explained the benefits of green tea and gave us some fresh samples to try.  It was disgusting!  I nicknamed it green bean water, but people in our group were chugging it!

 

 

 

Shanghai: The Bund

The highlight of our trip was definitely Shanghai.  It looked like New York on the Bund (or what I think New York looks like.  Still haven't made it over there).  And Old Street was what you picture China to look like.  It was amazing!!

 

 

 

 

Shanghai:  Old Street

Old Street had the best shopping!!  Aaron teased me because I did not get to do a ton of shopping on the trip and this is the one place I wish we would have had more time.  It was really neat!

 

 

 

 X'ian: Terra Cotta Warriors

These sculptured warriors were found in the 1970's by a couple of farmers when they were digging for a well.  The army of sculptures was created by the first emperor of China.  It is interesting to note that all of their faces are different and there are over 6,000 of them.  We got to meet and shake hands with one of the farmers who discovered them.  The area is also an active archeological site which was really cool to see.

 

 

 

Hmm.  One of these things is not like the other.....

 

X'ian:  Ancient Wall 

The Ancient Wall was built in the Ming Dynasty, I believe.  It was a beautiful wall: not as elaborate as the Great Wall, but still interesting.

 

 On top of the wall.  It looks like a street; it was so wide.

 

 We had to hurry and take this shot.  They don't mess around in China.

 

 

 

X'ian: Wild Goose Pagoda

The Wild Goose Pagoda was a Buddhist temple.  We had the nicest guide take us around and teach us about Buddhism.