It's a Hard Knock Life

I tell you, to think I have to look at this view everyday for four months. School life is so hard... :)

We Were Told You Have to Have Peking Duck in Beijing...

What they forgot to tell us was that one duck is enough food for about one person.  Of course, if you like to eat all the fat, and the head of the duck there might have been enough food, but we sat there waiting, and waiting for the rest of the meat...  Nope that's was it.  It was delicious though!

We Climbed Up and Down the Great Wall

Ok, so we actually took a lift up and then took the toboggan down, but still, we walked on the Great Wall.  And let me tell you that was no easy feat.  With the slopes, stairs and intense heat we couldn't imagine how soldiers wearing heavy armor made it up here.  

We all agreed that the toboggan was by far the best way to come down a mountain.  It was like a bobsled, where you can control your own speed, but with no ice.  Way too fun!

Ok, so I could live at the Summer Palace

Forget the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace is the place to be.  Not only does it have its own lake (where we decided it would be fun and faster to get a pedal boat and "bike" across it.  Even with furious pedaling from the 3 of us we barely moved and in a hour we were only able to make across the width of the lake and back instead of the length of it where we would have seen more) but it has buildings and walkways and beautiful bridges and landscaping everywhere.  In the words of Meg Ryan from the movie French Kiss, "Beautiful, gorgeous, wish you were here" or in my case "wish I was living here"...

The guy in the picture who is making art on the sidewalk was neat to watch.  He had attached a bottle filled with water to his self-made paint brush and "painted" with water.  So, he could just keep on painting new things as his old art work would dry up.  He was really pretty good.

The Last Emperor's Forbidden City

After watching the movie "The Last Emperor" it was pretty neat to see the Forbidden City in real life.  

I couldn't imagine actually living there though.  It was huge, but didn't have a homey atmosphere that might have made the place seem livable. Plus if the emperor was never allowed to leave the city... not cool!

Dumpling anyone?

Well, we have yet to try dumplings (dim sum).  Fred was going to take us to a place that had them yesterday but I think we all are still recovering from the meal in Lijiang.  But this place, located on a walking street near our hotel, is supposed to be the best place in Shanghai for pork dumplings.  Maybe someday I will come back and try one here...

Meet Fred, our friend and tour guide

So today we entered what Dad said would be the best city in China.  And what was even more exciting was that Dad was to plan what we would do each day in this city.  I mean he claimed he did extensive research and was even going present the information to us... Wait a minute.   We are still waiting to hear his info and itinerary.  Looks like our friend Fred, Mom's friend's friend's son, is our last hope if we want to know where to go.  

Fortunately, Fred was great and knew all the spots in Shanghai to take us to.  Shopping, foot massages, and great eats, made a great day today.  

The Scene of the Crime...

This is the restaurant where it all went down, or should I say almost came up.  

The story:

Whenever we had lunch in one of the small villages on the way to some scenic site, it was customary for us to sit down at the table and for Edward or Jack to order for us some plates they thought we would want.  So far, the plan seemed to have worked. The chicken and vegetable dishes tasted good and as long as I didn't have to see the kitchen I was ok.

But, for our last village lunch in Lijiang on the way to the Tiger Leaping Gorge, we stopped at this wonderful restaurant.  

As luck would have it, our hosts wanted to make sure that we had ingredients that we would like and so, they invited us back to the kitchen to pick what we wanted ourselves.  Well, when we got back there, the sight of the dirt, the bugs flying around the produce, and a whiff of the aroma sent us and our stomachs for a loop.  As Dad's friend Elwood said, "It made our stomachs say 'Howdy'." After that, Dad made it known that it was going to be western food from then on.  Maybe in Shanghai we all will recover and once again try the beloved food of the Chinese.  Well maybe not.

Tiger Leaping Gorge

So today it was off to Tiger Leaping Gorge.  

The water was incredibly powerful. WOW!

The Park and then on to Snow Mountain

Though it was raining today, we made it to snow mountain and the park with no problem.  

The park was a peaceful oasis and had its own musical group performing. Dad offered his musical services for their next performance. Unfortunately, we had to leave before he had time to perform.

The Snow Mountain view was gorgeous.  

Fun story: When we got off the lift coming down from the mountain, it seemed as if 50 people came down at the same time.  Have you ever noticed that when Asians see someone taking a picture, the entire group wants to take the same picture over and over again until everyone has the exact same picture on his or her own camera?  Well, when Mom got off the lift and stopped to take a scenic picture, the four of us almost got trampled by this big group who all felt they should have her same picture.  

Then, as we were trying to get past the group and away from the crowd to go down the stairs, a man in the group started to speak to Mom and me in English (it is amazing how many people in China are able to speak English) about where we were from.  When he found out that we were from the US, he asked if he could have a picture with us.  We said "sure"... Whoops, just like that a line formed and before we knew it we were the center of the next 50 pictures.  Fun times. 

We also got glimpse of the "snack food" offered at Snow Mountain.  Yum?

More from Old Town

Jack took us to the top of the hill to view all of the old town.  On the way we saw some interesting things...

The pictographs are apparently old Naxi writing.  

Jack explained that the fish hanging from the house meant wealth and and luckiness for those living within the house.  

Dad met some friends who were very eager to have a picture with him.  Dad was convinced that they thought he was, you know, a famous actor or something.  I'm telling you, it must be the hair.

And then we finally got to see over all of Old Town Lijiang...

Old Town of Lijiang

We went to the Old Town of Lijiang today!  

Watched a game of chinese checkers and had fun reading the signs...

Lijiang is soooo pretty

The view from the hotel is beautiful.  Snow Mountain is somewhere out there covered by the clouds.  

Meet Jack (our Guide) and Chief Nockahoma (our Driver)

So now we are in Lijiang and we have a new guide, Jack (the little guy who wanted to marry a strong Naxi woman.  It is said that if you marry a Naxi woman, it is like getting 7 horses.  Jack seemed to like that idea...)  Our driver, a Native Naxi Chinese man was quickly nicknamed Chief Nockahoma by Dad.  I think Jack told us his real name at the beginning, but the Chief seemed to like his this new name and so he became Chief Nockahoma or just "Chief" for short.  Though the Chief didn't speak much English he and Dad seemed to connect.  Was it when the chief began to sing his native music in the car and Dad joined in on the singing?  Or did the connection happen when Dad rode in the front seat and had a clear view of the Chief's driving/passing skills (He would drive in the middle of the road for long distances and then  pass someone even when another car was coming right at us.)?