Tombs, a Wall and Some Duck.

We woke up to yet another smog filled day (the norm we have now learned). We got a personal driver for the day and we were off.....
First stop this little thing known as The Great Wall. Found out its a MYTH that you can see if from outer space!

Second was the Ming Tombs.....we didn't see all 13 of them, just the most famous two. My favorite part was Spirit Path shown here.

Finally dinner at Bianyifang....the birth place of the Beijing Duck (peking duck you may also know it as.....peking means Beijing....the people here sometimes call Beijing-Peking). This resturant opened in 1855. The duck is the best I have ever had. This picture is of the duck cut up and served with thin pancakes/buns/duck sauce/onions and cumbers. You take a pancake put the duck in the sauce place it on the pancake with cucumber and onion, roll it up and eat!

The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square

Today we woke up early and first thing we noticed was the amount of smog in the air! Its so thick it looks almost cloudy! (you will notice this in the pictures-its was hard on our lungs)
We decided to go to The Great Wall tomorrow and hope its clearer then. Our main two events for today..... headed to The Forbidden City, spent 6 hours there, its really the size of a city! Who knew?! After that we went on over and looked at Tiananmen Square area where the "incident" in 1989 took place...can't talk about it or I will get in trouble. (may later though hehehe)

Beijing Olympics-start in AUGUST?!

We made it to Beijing today! Checked into our Marriott (right next to The Forbidden City) and then grabbed a taxi to go see the Olympics Village. WOW they are no where near done building it! It starts this summer...they better pick up the pace.

Not even sure what this will be:

This will be where the Olympic Torch will be lit:
This is done on the outside, its really a very cool building-the smog is so bad that you can't tell much but this is a shiny blue water looking outside-it glows at night they say. This building will hold the Olympic pools:
This final building is the track and field and main events building. Its being called the birds nest for obvious reasons LOL. There is a fence all around the grounds so these pictures were taken through the fence-thats why they are so far away. But this building will look amazing during the Olympics!

How about right here!

Opps I was off a day on my notice. Still in Zhoushan, China today-leave tomorrow.

So for my final Zhoushan picture I just thought I would show you a EVERY day typical safety issue. This is two men working on something in the sewer system, they just opened a manhole and went to work-in the middle of a major street with NO cones/signs/flags...anything to notify drivers they are working there or that there is a big hole in the road!

7.9 Earthquake

Earthquake news article
There was a huge earthquake here in China today. Even though the city next to us did feel it, we being on a island did not! We are all fine and safe. Here is the view from my hotel room to show out nice safe and sound location.

Pain and Pleasure

So we decided to take a mini-vacation from our hotel this weekend. We went to the Sheraton here in town. They have a wonderful gym there and since our current hotel has no gym (or anything else) we worked out till we literally couldn't move. Here is the gym room and a picture of the inside of the ladies locker room (sorry guys no naked girls in this one LOL). The locker room has 8 showers a hot tub and a cold tub, steam room, sauna room plus your locker/bathroom area. Its very nice! There is even a room that you can just sit in and listen to relaxing music (currently Christmas songs-hahahaha and they don't even know thats what they are).

I remember you!

We ran into some close friends of ours today......our shadows!!!! We haven't seen them in months so we thought we better take a picture!

Lost in translation

The local men's underwear (see they are called that on the front of the package)?! Check out the directions on how to wear them..??? Interesting.

Toilet?

Some people have asked me for this picture! Its a picture of a typical toilet in China. (its like this in many other countries as well) Well this is the dirtest one we could find for you! Notice there no toilet paper rolls in the stale you do need to have your own if you want to use some. Here has been the first country with this type of toilet with no sprayer to rinse your bottom.

Cino De Mayo

Happy cino de mayo everyone! Its was a beautiful sunny day here so I thought I would show some of our wonderful flowers off.

Chinese children

Pretty cute kids huh?!

Chinese men

Some of the men here in China.

Party with the Panther

Went to a local club and they were celbrating an international May day? No idea what it was, but they had tons of pink panthers all over, I even got my picture with him!

The party people!

Me and Mr. Pink

KTV

KTV is the local karaoke bars. They take karaoke very serious in Asian countries. Its not like in the states where its an open room and you and a bunch of friends/strangers all sing in front of each other and you have to wait and wait to sing. Nope here your rent out your own private room! You can have food and drinks and your own party, most of us sing so much our throats hurt the next day. So here is the entire crew back in March in our own KTV room. Its got couches and the works, its like hanging out at a nice house.

(there is a huge screen on the wall you can't see in this picture with the words for the songs)

We also bought a little Chinese girl to help us party, she helped with the machine to pick music and she could sing and dance with us. Total cost for the room/drinks/food/girl for all night-$100 total. And we drank plenty...had to, none of us sing well sober LOL.

Hot Pot

This has been my favorite place to eat in China. Its not sweet and sour chicken and spring rolls....I have not actually seen ANY since I got here. Nope this place is called Little Sheep restaurant and its the famous hot pot chain in China. Hot pot is a type of cookings, its very close to a fondue. There is a pot in the middle of the table with a gas stove top under it. The pot is full of whatever spices or flavor you like in a broth. Then you pick the ingredients you want to boil in the pot. So you cook it yourself at the table and everyone eats out of the same pot. You can also order different types of sauces to dip your food in. I get the peanut sauce or garlic sauce.

Here are some of our ingredients:
The menu is completely in Chinese so we just kept going and going to figure out what was what. They let us keep one right on menu and we write in English what is what, and then bring that back with us next time to order again.

Here is the hot pot itself in the middle of the table.

Chinese women

These are some faces with years of laughter and friendship.

And then ones with wisdom and heartache.

Mount Putuo (3/15/08 trip)

Again a China trip we took before the blog. A day trip to Mount Putuo, via ferry boat. Here are the main two sites to see.

Puji Temple
Guan Yin Statue

Shanghai (4/11-4/13/08)

Since I didn't have this page when we did some tourist stuff I am going to do a little catch up. These pictures are from one of our days in Shanghai.

The Yu Garden. It was a great place to walk around, very relaxing and it only took them about 400 years to make it that beautiful.

Longhua Temple and Pagoda (Pagoda is the tall thing in the background) is the oldest and largest monastery in Shanghai. 247 AD

Nanjing Rd at night. This the golden mile of shopping.

Murals

Some of the local artwork on the walls near our hotel.

Royal Hotel-Home in China

Here is the hotel we are currently living at in China. Its hands down the least nicest place we have been, but not bad now that the hot water has been fixed. (if someone knows a blogger trick to turn my photo the right way PLEASE leave a comment and tell me).