Category Archives: Gratuitous Photo Post

As you have heard me complain about – a lot – this past winter was a loooong one. It started in October and ended about a week ago, when suddenly the leaves sprouted in the trees again and the temperatures jumped from the 40s to the 70s.  Needless to say, everyone’s in a good mood.  In fact, the weather is so nice that Travis and I rode in a rickshaw to dinner last weekend – something I swore I would never do.

I bet they wish they’d used a rickshaw.

Something else I swore I would never do here was ride a bike.  But here we are (and I LOVE IT!).

But I digress.  Today was a particularly lovely spring day because it is international Labour Day and we all had the day off.  We started out at a loss for what to do with ourselves, but thankfully our good friends suggested that we meet at one of our favorite parks – Ritan Park – to explore.  It was lovely.

We explored the “tunnels.”

Enjoyed lakeside snacks:

And took in the scenery . . .

(note the Chinese and Cyrillic on the building)

. . . athletic competitions . . .

(in this case badminton)

. . . music . . .

(in this case a trumpet)

. . . and the bouncy castle!

Sadly, we forgot to bring our fish!

Now, as we sit here enjoying our gin and tonics and open windows, we need you to keep your fingers crossed that the weather AND air quality stay as perfect as they’ve been – at least for a few more weeks!!  Thank you!

Our clean air days have become fewer and father between, but over the past month or so we’ve managed to get out and do some exploring around town. We spent some time in the hutongs, where we were perplexed by the number of abandoned bicycles.

I have 6 more photos like this.

We even made it to our favorite hutong hangout – Great Leap Brewery!

No one was more excited about this than Naomi.

On President’s Day the kids had school so Travis and I went to Tiananmen Square and a touristy neighborhood called Qingmen to explore.

Starbucks. Obviously.

Wetvac-ing the sidewalk. Again, obviously.

We’ve spent time visiting a few parks around town.

Most of the parks have rides!

Making friends wherever she goes.

We even made it up to the Great Wall!  But this is the only picture I got.

Pretty cool, though.

Of course, seeing this burning truck is all Naomi remembers about the visit.

All of this walking around gave us an opportunity to witness China’s excellent security standards:

Sidewalks look like this in America, right?

Yes, he is standing on the very rock he is jackhammering.

So, despite my lack of posts recently, you can see the adventure continues!

Last week, at the end of Golden Week, we spent the night in a traditional courtyard home near the Great Wall again.  This home turned out to be a little more *traditional* than the last one we stayed in, but it was still lovely, and such a great experience.

The house (technically houses) was beautiful, but what’s missing from the pictures is the smell.  It is pear season in the hills, and apparently pears bring stink bugs, which bring stink.  Thankfully all of the windows in the house had screens, so it was quickly aired out without allowing other bugs to come in.

This was taken at the entrance, looking at the living room – the second house is in the background.

The house was actually two houses separated by a courtyard.  The main house had a bedroom with twin beds, a kitchen and a living room surrounding a fireplace.

Entryway

Living room

Living room with fire and people

The second house had a queen bed and the kids slept in sleeping bags on the floor.

We had fun sitting outside in the courtyard while the kids ran around.

We had amazing views of the Wall, which would have been even more amazing had the air quality been better.

The entire ridge is Wall!

The neighborhood was pretty interesting too:

On Monday we headed up to the Wall, and the views were terrible because of the air quality, but there were very few people there, and the lack of crowds was a definite bonus!

We also got to get a glimpse of the fall colors!

We even got a nice photo of everyone!

We’re planning to head back up there to stay in a third house in November.  Can’t wait to do it again!

More pictures are posted on Flickr!

The first week of October is known in China as “Golden Week.”  It coincides with the National holiday, and it’s traditionally a week of heavy travel throughout China.  Apparently, due to the beautiful weather (thank you, cloud seeders!) and the fact that the PRC lifted tolls on the toll roads throughout the country, this Golden Week was one of the busiest ever, and we managed to experience it first hand.

We kicked off on Tuesday morning to experience the Forbidden City, and, as it turns out, so did 182,000 other people.  October 2nd was officially the busiest day ever there, and as soon as we saw the crowds we escaped as quickly as possible.

I hope that ambulance doesn’t need to get anywhere!

We decided to try our luck again on Friday, in the hopes that the visitors had returned to the provinces. We started at the Summer Palace, and it was crowded, but thankfully nothing like we’d experienced Tuesday.

It was also really, really beautiful.

We came across a couple of musical performances that we all enjoyed watching – Naomi especially.

I posted videos of the music and Naomi’s dancing on YouTube.  She had a BLAST.

We followed up with lunch at a Beijing University staple – Tube Station Pizza – where the kids had fun playing with the foosball table.

We then spent the afternoon in the Botanical Gardens, which were relatively empty, and lovely and quiet.

Graffiti Botanical Garden Style.  (I hope it’s not too offensive!)

Bees!

On our way home we decided to try to see Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City again.  We made it to Tiananmen, but the Forbidden City was still too crowded – plus, we were exhausted!

We’re still recovering, but it was a lovely Golden Week all around!

This past weekend we rented a house just below the Great Wall and spent the night there with a group of friends.  The house we rented was amazing. So amazing that I spent so much time admiring it and being blown away by it that by the time I realized I needed to take pictures our stuff was already all over the place!

This was the hallway outside of the kitchen:

This was the statue that scared everyone in the middle of the night:

We arrived in the village of Mutianyu shortly after a massive rainstorm had flooded local village streets, but on the bright side also cleared up the air tremendously.  I cannot overstate how beautiful the air/weather were while we were up there.  We spent almost all of our time outside in our courtyard.

Will played baseball the *entire* time.

We were living right with the locals!

The house on the left had the kitchen and living room on the 1st floor, another living room and bedroom on the 2nd floor down and another bedroom another floor down. The house on the right had two bedrooms and the house Naomi is standing on had a beautiful library and a grill and views of the Wall from the patio.

The next morning we had breakfast at the restaurant and the kids showed their utmost respect in front of the Wall.

They also enjoyed exploring the grounds around the restaurant.

After breakfast we went up to the Wall and WE COULD SEE THE BEIJING SKYLINE!  No one believes us, but look! Really. Click on the picture. You’ll see Will and Naomi’s favorite building – the CCTV tower, aka the “pants building.”

Here is a link to a bunch more pictures on Flickr!