Beijing, Part 2

As I sit here writing today's blog, I am reminded about how big our baby is getting! She is kicking me in the side! (She is NOT gentle! HA!)

I will finish up with Ben's last few days in China. We spent the last week in Beijing, came back to HK on Saturday night, went to church on Sunday and he left on Monday morning.

The last week in Beijing, we took Sunday off of touring and found a church. The church was for expats (Beijing Baptist) and met in a hotel. Ben met a friend at church and we ended up staying for a fellowship lunch that they were having that day.

The next day, we went to the Great Wall. We took a chair lift up to the wall. Ben and the tour guide were in front of John Paul and me.

It was rather surreal to be walking on this wall that was built so many years ago! The "tourist" part was re-built 600 years ago, but we walked past the "do not go beyond this point" sign to explore a little bit of the older section that hadn't been re-built. Here are some pictures and a video that Ben took with my phone:

To go back down the mountain, we rode the alpine slide.

After the Great Wall, we stopped for lunch at a Chinese restaurant. It was delicious! We each ordered a dish and then shared them. Ben chose donkey! It was too spicy for me, but he liked it!

After lunch, we visited the Summer Palace. This is where the emperor would go to relax during the summer.

We rode on a dragon boat from one end of the palace to the other.

Yes, that is Ben picking the dragon's nose...

A rather strangely dressed man we saw at the palace!

On our way back to the hotel, we drove by the place where the olympics were held. Unfortunately, it was pretty foggy, so we didn't see it very well.

That evening, John Paul, Ben and I enjoyed going to the Chinese Acrobat show. It was amazing!

Our last day in Beijing, we went to a couple of museums.

Getting back to the hotel during rush hour was ridiculous! The picture below is walking from one train to another (we had to transfer trains to get home). The line moved so slowly that it barely moved! Eventually, though, we made it back!

From Beijing, we took the bullet train one hour south and then took a taxi for an hour and a half to a little village to visit some friends who teach english there. I have been friends/penpals with Ruth since we were about 14 years old, so it was so great to see her, her husband and their 6 kids! We stayed with them from Wednesday until Saturday. Some of our best memories from our trip came from our visit with them!

This is "little Ben" - so Benjamin became "Big Ben!" He was like the big brother to the four boys in the apartment!

This is Riah. She LOVED "Uncle John Paul!" One day, ater hanging on him and then playing with his ring, she said, "Can you take your ring off?" She was so cute!

And yes, she liked me too! :)

There were some pretty intense games of chess and ping pong!

We had a private room in a restaurant near their apartment and had Chinese "Hot Pot" together! It was delicious!

Of course, during the meal, Benjamin played some games with the boys and continued his Chinese lessons! He learned all his numbers and quite a few phrases! He was able to communicate with our taxi driver on the way home!

This is Ben's first time holding a baby (besides the one without a diaper that I put in his arms in Beijing). He wasn't too sure about it....but hopefully he'll be ready when his niece comes to see him in a few months!

We loved being able to go to school with Yusef and assist him in teaching a few of his english classes.

All of the kids in Yusef's class have english names that they've chosen which they use when they're in english class. (Some of them had to be reminded of what their names were!)

During one of the breaks between classes, the principle took us on a tour of the campus. When he found out I was a pianist, he brought us to a room and had three of his students who take piano come and perform for us while he served us tea!  Most of the kids are society orphans and live at the school. They have parents, but most of the parents are working in the city to earn more money while the kids live in the village. Every two weeks, many of them go to their grandparent's house to visit during the weekend.

Ruth and Yusef don't have a car, so going out was quite a production! Wherever we went, we had quite a following! Even at the stop light, people would come up to ask questions to Ruth and Yusef (in Chinese), such as "Why are you here?" "How much do you make a month?" "Why do you have so many kids?" "Are you tired with so many kids?" HA! It was quite funny!

In China, families are limited to only one child. If they get pregnant with a second, they are either forced to have an abortion or to pay a huge fine. This is very sad. It also causes problems within the families because it develops spoiled children when there are two parents and four grandparents all doting on one child.

It was sad to say goodbye! When we left on Saturday morning, we went in the hour and a half taxi ride to the train station. This was one of the most scary rides of my life! The driving in China is rather frightening! You know those two yellow lines in the middle of the rode? Well, apparently they are just for a suggestion in China! Oh, and blinkers? You don't need them. Just use your horn. A LOT.

After missing the train (we didn't realize it was Buddha's birthday and traffic would be so bad in the city), we caught the next train and finally made it back to Beijing where we had another 2 hour taxi ride to the airport (again, because of the holiday). But, we made our flight on time!

I was reminded again that I was pregnant on the flight home. I got nauseous and asked for an air-sickness bag. Well, 20 minutes later, the flight attendant brought me a little, tiny bag with holes (it was a duty-free shopping bag!). Well, I had more than that bag could hold! Unfortunately, while running to the bathroom, I threw up on three people. I hid in the bathroom an extra long time, and when I came out, those people had been moved to different seats and there were newspapers laying all over the seats and floor. When the plane finally landed, I walked out with my head hanging very low!

After church on Sunday, we went out with some of our friends for lunch and had dim sum. Then, on Monday, it was time for Ben to leave. I cried and begged him to stay longer, but he was ready to be home with his family....and dog, Beau! It was hard to walk past his empty bedroom in our apartment for many days after that! We miss having him here and bring up little things that happened while he was here all the time.

Now we are looking forward to when Mom comes to visit us in August! Please pray that we can time her trip to be here when Baby Clough is born.

Beijing, Part 1

Hello again!

Wow! Time passes so fast. It's hard to believe Ben left us over a month ago!

But, I can't pass up the opportunity to put up pictures from our trip to Beijing. It was such a great trip!

John Paul, Ben and I took the three hour flight up to Beijing. We were in Beijing for five days and a little village south of Beijing for three days.

We first went to Tiananmen Square. We were stopped many, many times with people asking to take their picture with us. Finally, we had people standing in line pose with us. Our tour guide finally stopped them and told them that we were there to tour and couldn't take anymore pictures. Here is a picture of us with some random people who wanted our picture:

This happened wherever we went. Finally, we were able to get a picture with just the three of us! (This is standing in Tiananmen Square with the Forbidden City behind us).

As we walked through Tiananmen Square, we saw a huge line of people (2-3 hours long) waiting to see Chairman Mao's body. His body has been preserved. Below is just one part of that long line.

This is a picture of us with our tour guide, Linda:

The Forbidden City was next. It was amazing to see how huge this place was! It kept going and going!

There are so many details to this place. Everything from the colors and what they represent to the number of knobs on the doors.

We could look inside some of the buildings. We couldn't go inside, but we could stand outside and look inside over a gate. However, I didn't see inside many of these. I was afraid of hurting the baby! People would push and shove to get up to the gate to see inside, and it didn't matter if you were there or not! John Paul almost got knocked over a couple times. The funny thing is, the little older women were the worst ones! They looked so little and fragile, but would step on you and elbow their way in with such force that you would leave with bruises!

This is a female lion. How can you tell? She has a baby cub under her paw!

We gave in a few times to take pictures with a few people. In the picture below, this baby was shoved into my arms to have a picture with me. However, he was pretty heavy so I quickly passed him onto Ben. Well, as I did so, I felt his bottom...as in....the skin! He had a slit in his pants and no diaper. This is very common in China. When the babies have to go to the bathroom, the parents (or grandparents as is often the case) just lift up the child and let them "go" through the opening in the pants. I was wise, however, and didn't tell Ben about my findings until AFTER the picture! He was NOT happy with me! HA! :)

As we walked throught he forbidden city, there was an older Chinese lady who was worried about Ben. She couldn't speak english, so she kept rubbing his arms. It was a little chilly that day, and Ben had forgotten to bring a sweatshirt, so this grandmotherly-type lady started warming him up with her hands! She then told our tour guide, in Chinese, to get him some warmer clothes! Ben was ok until she started trying to warm up his legs too! Ha! Poor Ben!

Isn't this just a cute couple?! :)

Next, we visited a Hutong village. We rode in a rickshaw to a family home where we ate lunch.

After lunch, we went to the Drum Tower where we saw a demonstration of the drum ceremony. They used to use the drums to tell the village what time it was.

The stairs going up the tower were VERY steep.

After lunch and the drum ceremony, we went to a tea house where we had a tea ceremony and a lady showed us the "proper" way to drink tea. We tried some delicious tea!

From the tea house, we headed over to the Temple of Heaven.

In the garden area, we were able to hear a couple of choirs, watch some people playing instruments and see some people playing mahjong and other games.

Throughout our stay in Beijing, we enjoyed John Paul's "gold" membership at Marriott - and the executive lounge! :)

On John Paul's birthday, they put a little birthday cake in our room for him!

John Paul and Ben enjoyed swimming in the pool almost every night.

There was a lot of this:

                                                             And some of this:

Which lead to this:

(This bruise got a LOT bigger during the week - and there was a matching one on John Paul's back too!)

With all of our touring and walking, we felt dead tired every night:

(He really did have a bed - his own queen bed, in fact! He was just playing during this picture). Funny thing about Ben, though, is that he hated to have the maids make his bed. He says he can't sleep in a nicely made bed! So every night, he would mess up his bed before laying in it to sleep! Silly boy!


Well, that's part one. Stay tuned for part two: the Great Wall, visiting our friends, and the acrobat show!