The Great Wall

   

The Great Wall was incredible. A brief history lesson.  The Great Wall is 3900 miles long, that is just the man made wall portion.  If you include other barriers like rivers and trenches, the length from end to end increases to 5500 miles.  For a little perspective, the United States is about 3000 miles wide from east to west.  The Wall took about 2000 years to build, from around 400 BC to about 1600 AD.  Here's a politically charged question for ya.  If the Chinese were able to build a stone wall that is between 15 and 30 ft in height and 15-25 ft in width back in the days when donkeys were hauling, why can't the United States build a border fence?  Just curious.

We could have spent the whole day here but our senior citizen group couldn't stay out in the sun for that long, so we only got a few hours.  When we got to the wall our tour guide told us we needed to buy a tram ticket to get up to the wall.  This happened a lot on the tour.  We would get somewhere and the initial entry fee would be included, but if we wanted to get into the actual temple or palace we had to pay an additional fee.  So frustrating, especially for a cheapskate like me.  This time, I'm afraid I threw a little fit, no thrashing on the ground but a little foot stomping.  In the end the guide pointed in a vague direction, said we had two hours and was gone.

We wandered around until we found an entrance.  During our wanderings we came across a man with a camel.  He had a sign posted next to his camel that said 2 RMB.  Great a picture on a camel for 50 cents.  We put the kids up there, took some pictures and handed the guy a 5 RMB note.  He hands it back and says, 'No, 100 RMB.'  Rich and I point at the sign and say it says 2 and he says that is for a picture next to the sign, the camel is 50.  We throw the 5 kuai at him and go to walk off, suddenly we are surrounded by four camel thugs pulling at our camera and yelling at us in Chinese.  In the end, camelboy said we owed the money because we didn't ask if it was a different price.  Rich retorted with, you owe me 100 kuai because you touched my girl (to put her up on the camel) without asking.  In the end we gave him 10 RMB and called it good.  It was a little scary though, check out the picture, the guy was huge.

After our adventure with the camel, it was on to the wall.

The wall was crazy steep.  Even with the handrail it was hard to get down.  Getting up wasn't too bad.

If I had to guess from this picture how old Rich is, I would say twelve, fourteen max.

Over all, the Great Wall is the coolest thing we have done in China.

Beijing

Cross it off the bucket list, I've seen Mao's body.  As many of you know, I'm a Communist at heart so this was a lifelong dream come true.  For those of you that don't know me well, I'm kidding, my true mantra would be closer to 'Pass the tea'; 'Beck for President'; 'Welcome to Obamanation and extreme taxation' or any other catchy, right-wing, gun-lovin', conservative message. 

Mao has been dead for 33 years and his body is encased in a glass casket in Tienanmen Square.  After standing in line for over two hours we were frisked and quickly shuffled passed a large mound of orange wax in a green uniform.  Mao's bones may have been buried somewhere under the fabric and paint but to me it looked like a bad Madame Tussand's replica.  Rich shed a few tears.

From Tienanmen we crossed the street to the Forbidden City.  That was very cool.  We went to Beijing with a tour group so we didn't get to decide how long we stayed a the various sites.  Rich is the perfect candidate for a tour; he follows directions, stays with the group and doesn't mind following a yellow flag around all day.  I, however, did not love the tour setting, especially the geriatric, Chinese tour setting.  Matt and Lily were the only kids and I was the only foreigner; we got lots of attention from all of the little old ladies in our group.  We were also disciplined for unruly behavior such as jumping, running and climbing; all of which are considered extremely dangerous.

Here is a prime example of completely out of control behavior.  Children scaling walls to the height of their extremely tall (5'6") mother. It is a miracle they survived.

Here's Lily at the Temple of the Sun.  She was finally coaxed down from this unstable, solid granite wall by a group of concerned citizens.  Where is that girl's mother?

This is our oppressive tour guide.  He really was nice, we were just on a tight schedule so that flag was always up and moving.  No time for lallygagging or second looks.  Hurry, hurry lots to see! 

I am so easily entertained.  Matt going cross-eyed is hilarious to me.

These two people are not actors or dressed up to give the city a more authentic feel.  These are their everyday, casual , going to market clothes.  Love it!

Nothing special about this picture, I just love this womans classic Chinese style, the more patterns, the better.

Mia chips in.

Mia has joined the working class to help support her lazy and self indulgent parents.  She doesn't seem to know she is being exploited so where's the harm?

We took Lily to a shoot and the clothing rep saw Mia and asked if they could use her as well.  You betcha!

To Rich and I's credit we are teaching English once a week, Rich is doing some engineering drawings for an Austin firm and I am working on an export endeavor. It's random but it keeps us fed.

Yeah, A friend for Matt!

Matt has had a hard time adjusting to China.  He is a social kid and there is no 'social' here.  Unless you count nine hours of homework a night as engaging.  We have been unable to find any nine year old boys for him to hang out with...until now and suddenly China is not so bad. 

We met Jayden through a friend at church and he and Matt clicked.  We get them together as much as possible.  Which isn't super easy since he is two metro transfers and a taxi ride away.  But if that's what it takes, so be it.

To impress Jayden, Matt is saving his money for this outfit.

Looka Looka, Cheapa Cheapa

Here's what we've been up to....

Matt's day with dad. They went to the Bund; which is on the west bank of the Huangpu River.

Then to wrap up their day, they went and looked at dead animals.

Good times.

We went to a water town called Zhou Zhuang. When Rich described what a water town was he used Venice as a comparison. It was no Venice, but it was nice. It was green, the air was clear and I could stretch out both arms without taking out another human being. When we pulled into town Mia looked around and asked if we were still in China. I replied yes, to which she responded, 'wow, it isn't even very crappy.'

This is still one of the weirdest things to me, strangers that want to take pictures with my kids. It happens everywhere, I don't get it. Of course I think they're adorable but why would you want pictures with some kids you don't know?

This is the oldest lady I've ever met, she is 96. That is really old!

You can buy a fish to honor your ancestors and place it in the pond.  That is a lot of hungary ancestors.

Everywhere you went the peddlers try to lure you over to there stand by saying, 'looka looka, cheapa cheapa'.

Biggest news of the day...Piper poops in the potty!  We started potty training six months ago and have had on again off again success. When she hit her third birthday and was still dropping a load in her drawers I decided to use the 'Kristen Hilton Method'. Here's the scene. Piper peeing on her special red potty whenever I sit her on it but refusing to poop, even though it has been three days. Having decided we are done with diapers I pull her underwear up and wait for her to go and hide (after awhile she didn't even bother hiding). Telltale sign the deed was done, she would say, 'I'm not stinky.' I would then ask, 'Piper, did you poop in your pants?' The girl, without any hesitation, would say ‘no’. So I let her walk around with her hot little nugget until she would ask me to change her. We would then go in the bathroom where she had to clean herself, and her underwear up. I thought after doing it once she would never want to do it again so she would use the toilet. Nope, instead she got quite proficient at it. Finally, after a week of this she got tired of it and said 'I don't want stinky pants; I want to go poops on my little potty.' Halleluiah! We've been going clean and strong for four days. Let’s hope it sticks. Thanks Kristen, I owe you one.

I miss my grandma.

It has been raining so much here I desperatly miss blue skies and color.  I wish I could have gone to the Tulip Festival with Amy and my Grandma Shaw.  Amy was telling me how beautiful it was and what a good time she had with our grandmother.  I miss my Grandma Shaw and wish I could have gone with them.  Instead, I found a picture of it online, printed it out and stuck it on our window.  It is a poor substitute but will have to do. 

Carvin' it up with Matt.

We have been trying to get the kids involved in some sort of sports league or team. Not happening. The Chinese don't embrace sports for kids; after school and weekends are for studying, tutors and homework. The kids that play sports are the ones that have little to no academic ability. The amount of pressure put on kids to excel in school is ridiculous.

Our friends enrolled a tutor to help their daughter get ahead in math. Well so did all of the other parents. Now, instead of being ahead, she is just keeping up and the few kids in the class that don't have a private tutor are falling behind.

Kids here arrive at school at 7:30 and are dismissed at 4:30. They leave school, go into a corner shop, buy an armful of crap and eat it while they walk home. Once they get home they eat another snack their grandparents have prepared and sit down to do homework until dinner. After dinner they sit back down and study some more. These kids are smart but they are also fat. Still they idea of implementing a little physical activity into their schedules is nonexistent.

That was a bit of a tangent. Point is it has been hard to find activities for the kids that don't involve quadratic equations.

So, when we found out a guy, Tyler, at church is in the X-games and he gives skateboarding lessons we jumped on board. (Get the very clever pun?) Matt had his first lesson on Friday and it was pretty sweet. Matt thinks Tyler is awesome. I think he's great because he tells me what every mother wants to hear, 'Your son is a natural. He must get his innate skill and grace from you.' Of course, where else!?

That last one isn't Matt.