China, Part 1

These pictures are in no particular order (mostly because they all got mixed up when I downloaded them off my camera) so this account of the trip is not in chronological order or anything, but I will do my best to remember the good stories. Oh, and check out Caron's blog for her side of the story. She will probably do a better job at telling it than me.

This is the Great Wall. We went there our first day. It ended up being one of my favorite things we did there. We went to the Badaling section and got stuck in a really bad traffic jam on the way there. People were getting out of their cars and just hanging out...or smoking. Most of the men in China smoked. I don't think I ever saw a woman smoking though. We made sure to listen to that Mulan song on the way. In both English and Chinese. It was great.

Anyway, the wall was just really amazing. It went on and on for as far as the eye could see. It's just really amazing to me that they would put forth so much effort to build a huge wall around the country. And honestly it really wasn't that tall...I don't know how it was supposed to keep people out. Maybe that's what the big watch towers were for.

We discovered that the nickname for China is "The Land of a Million Stairs". OK, so maybe that is just our nickname for it, but seriously there were so many stinkin stairs. Because of all the stairs, the people need to be limber in order to get around. They had these funny exercise things in the parks and along the streets. Here are some Chinese grandmas doing their exercises.

This was one of my favorite things to see...everyone would gather in the parks in the morning to do their exercises. We saw everything from line dancing to ballroom dancing to sword practicing and jump roping to ribbon and fan dances to Tai Chi and hackey sack playing and badmitton. Just tons of stuff. And tons of people participating in the stuff. I loved it. We should go to parks more.

This is Longqing Gorge. It was beautiful. I love those steep mountains. We took a lovely boat ride and rode on this huge dragon escalator. We also rented some ancient rowboats and took those for a spin. And there was a small Buddist temple nestled in some of those mountains. And a place to bungee jump and a tightrope that people were doing tricks on bicycles up above the gorge.

Rain or shine, everyone was sure to have their umbrellas handy. They had such pretty umbrellas there. One girl we were talking to said that all the girls want to be as white as possible so they try to keep the sun out. She also said that since every family is only allowed one child and lots of people want boys, there are lots more men than women in China. This makes it hard for Chinese men to get girlfriends. And it makes it easy for the Chinese women to be very picky. Interesting.

I was telling her that in Utah it's completely the opposite. How we have so many girls, but not enough guys to go around. She said maybe I should get a Chinese boyfriend. I told her I was already taken, so then she told Caron the same thing. It was funny.

We didn't see all that many Chinese men with foreigners though. But we did see a fair amount of Chinese women with foreigners. And the Chinese men that we did see with girlfriends were completely ga-ga over their girlfriends. They probably have to be doting to keep them since the girls can be so picky.

We went to a bonsai garden in Suzhou (a town outside of Shanghai). I really loved the gardens there. They were very peaceful, which was a nice break from being swarmed by people all the time.

This is the leaning tower of China, also in Suzhou. It's really called Tiger Hill, but it really is leaning. You can totally tell in the foundation.

Our first night, April and Dane took us out to a Hot Pot restaurant. They have a big pot in the middle of the table and they cook everything right there. It was delicious. My friend April and her husband, Dane, have been living in Beijing for the past 10 months or so, so they knew exactly what we should see and do and eat while we were there. And they let us stay with them...it was so great. And Caron's cousin has been living in Kunshan (outside of Shanghai) for the past year and we stayed with them too. Thanks guys!

That does it for Part 1. Stay tuned for Part 2. (I have no idea how many parts this trip will take up.)

P.S. I just wanted to add that Blogger was blocked in China. Interesting. April said she has to go through some back way through some U.S. server to get in and view blogs. Facebook is also blocked. And so is Wikipedia sometimes when people are searching controversial stuff. I just thought that was so interesting.