Beijing, China: Beijing Ming City Wall Ruin Park

We took the bullet train back to Beijing to catch our flight the next day.  We didn't know when we made this trip that we should have just flown home from Xi'an, but instead we took the train again.  It wouldn't have been so bad if we had the bullet train, but our tour didn't tell us that we had the train that stopped at every single stop, and it took about 7 hours to get back to Beijing.  We didn't get in until about 1 am.  The kids were tired, crying and us adults were pretty annoyed.  At first we were super worried we were on the wrong train since it kept stopping.  Out train to Xi'an only stopped once or twice, but this one seemed to stop every ten minutes or so.  We talked to a few people and found out this is not a direct train, and we would be on it for a long time.

Brian picked us up and we went straight to our hotel.  We all slept in and got some good sleep.  After the kids ate breakfast they all started begging to go swimming at the hotel pool.  The reason we picked this hotel was because it did have an indoor pool.  We went down to the pool and found out that swim caps were required and we didn't bring any.  They had a sign with a cap for $2, so we grabbed four caps and gave them $8 and started walking away.  The hotel employee then starts calling after us in rapid Chinese, and after hand gestures, pointing and a calculator, we guessed that they didn't have $2 caps or were just trying to get more money out of us, and only had $8 cap and we needed to pay him $24 more dollars. After dealing with that fiasco, and feeling like we were totally taken advantage of, we finally got in the pool.  

All the kids except for Monster could swim, so they were jumping and splashing and playing Marco Polo all over the pool. The kids started to get their own spectators and one by one the Chinese hotel employees started gathering by the pool.  I guess it's not normal for kids to know how to swim, because they were in amazement at the kids just swimming all over the pool on their own.

While we were having fun, a 20 year old looking girl came into the pool with a life vest and kick board and leg float and was slowly trying to get around in the pool.  She seemed to be having swim lessons from someone, and we couldn't help but giggle because she had so many floats on her.

We got out of the pool, packed up our luggage and met Brian and our van driver.  While we were driving around Beijing we kept passing by a beautiful park with an old looking wall. We found out from Brian that it is the old Beijing City Wall.  The trees were so pretty and the wall was so neat looking that we convinced him to pick us up early for our flight and make a quick stop at the park.  So we piled in the van and went to visit our last stop in China, the Beijing Ming City Wall Ruin Park.

Our favorite thing about the park was the tree blossoms. There were blossoms everywhere and in every color.  We wanted to get close and get some pictures, but Brian said we were not allowed on the grass and can only see them from a distance.

The park caught our eyes because the beautiful wall.  We learned that it is 550 years old and is the longest and best preserved section on the city's Mong Dynasty city wall.

I know I already mentioned the flowers, but there were a few that we got close to.  It was just so pretty.

In true Brian fashion, we were hurried along back to the van to drive to the airport.  We took one last ride together and talked about how amazing this trip to China has been.  I am glad our visas are good for ten years, because I definitely want to come back.  This was one of my favorite trips.

Beijing, China: Summer Palace

We went to the Summer Palace today.  It was a great thing that we all had our rain jackets, because it rained the entire time we were walking around these beautiful grounds.  We entered in at the East Palace Gate and as soon as we walked into the Summer Palace grounds, we were greeted by a bronze lion and beautiful cherry blossoms tree in bloom.  

The Summer Palace is like the Forbidden City, in the sense that once you walk in, you commit to seeing the entire things because it is a one-way road.  And like the Forbidden City, it was gigantic and required so much walking from the kids.  However, unlike the Forbidden City, everyone loved everything about the Summer Palace.  It was beautifully stunning and kept up so well throughout the entire thing.  Even with the rain, we were in good spirits and loved the Summer Palace in all its beauty.  I must warn you though, it is much cooler at the Summer Palace then in Beijing.  We were all so very cold, and the kids wished they had more then just a rain jacket to keep the warm, we just weren't expecting it to be so much colder.

We started by walking through a few courtyards and gardens.  The flowers were abundant and the colors of the buildings were rich and colorful.  We walked through the Renshou Hall, or the Benevolence and Longevity Hall and the Dehe Court, or the Virtuous Harmony Court.  When we got to the Leshou, or the Happiness in Longevity House courtyard, we just fell in love with the pillars and surrounding colors. How can someone not love this place, especially with the names of all these buildings and courtyards.

As we left the courtyard, we walked through a small doorway and turned a corner to see the top of the beautiful Buddha Temple on the Summer Palace property in the distance. The top of the temple just rose up straight out of the trees. It seemed so far away and we really started to get a feeling for how huge the property was.  Our tour guide, Brian, told us that usually the crowds at the Summer Palace are just as bad as the Forbidden City.  I guess the rain scared all the tourist away, and I am so glad it did, because we loved the Summer Palace and we were able to really see the beauty of it.  I know that if it was filled with people there is no way we could have felt and seen the charm of the palace.

We then took the long walk through the beautiful long corridors.  Each paintings on the beams were completely and totally different.  They were painted with precise detail.  There were so many beams, and I just couldn't believe the work that went into this long beautiful walk.  We found ourselves slowing down so we could really take in all the paintings and colors.  Even the floor had a beautiful pattern of flower laid in the tiles.

The long corridors walk along the Kunming Lake provided a beautiful and covered walk accompanied by a ton of trees.  We came at the perfect time, because all the trees were in bloom, and the blooms were a gorgeous rich two-toned pink color.  I couldn't stop staring at the blooms with how vibrant they were.

We walked by the huge Payiun Gate which looked out into the Lake. It was one of the prettiest gates I have seen.  Across from the Payium Gate was the entrance to the Temple of Buddhist Virtue.  Brian was rushing us along, as usual, but Bri and I really wanted to see the temple, so Kevin and Jason took the kids to get ice cream and Brian hurried us along to see the temple.

I'm so glad we had the chance to go into the temple, because it was probably one of the prettiest Buddhist temples I have seen.  The architecture and the vibrant colors were gorgeous.  The roof was the golden color of royalty.

We had to walk up so many stairs to get to the main temple.  As we were walking up the stairs we could see a cluster of buildings to our right and the Bronze Pavilion to our left.

One of my favorite parts of the temple was the corridors in the main area before the worshiping hall, they were just like the long corridors we had just walked through, except the paintings were in better condition.  There weren't many people at all that walked all the way up the stairs, so we pretty much had the temple to ourselves.  If Brian wasn't making us sprint through the entire thing, I probably could have spend more then an hour just at the temple.

We pretty much had to run down the stairs to keep up with Brian, and we caught up with the Kevin, Jason and the kids.  We were rushed so fast that some of the kids were still working on their smoothies and ice creams. We continued down the long corridor and made out way to the Qingyan Boat, or Marble Boat.  We were told this was were the royalty would have their tea parties.  The entire boat is made from marble.

We made our way to the Half-Wall Bridge and enjoyed the beautiful landscape and flowers before exiting out of the West Palace Gate.  Bri and I both agreed that we wish we had more time here, there was so much to see, and it would have been wonderful to slow down and just take in the beauty.  So much detail was put into the Summer Palace, from the paintings on every beam, to the flowers laid in the tile on the floor, to the flowers and beautiful trees in the landscape.  Everything was welcoming, calming, and charming.  I would definitely come back to the Summer Palace in heart beat.

The Great Wall of China

Let's all be honest here, today was the entire reason we came to China, to see the Great Wall of China.  The Great Wall did not disappoint, if anything it left me more in awe after I left.  Our tour had us on the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall.  I had done some research before we came and it is said that the Mutianyu section is the most child friendly section to do with kids.  We started the tour by going up just a few stairs to wait in line to ride the ski lift up to the wall.

They only allow three people per ski lift, so Kevin went with Monster and I went with Little A.  Little Monster was cold and so very mad, so he screamed the entire ride up to the wall.  

We got off the ski lift and turned right, to start walking the wall to the right of the ski lift.  We could see tower after tower in the distance going in both directions.  The wall was longer and larger then I had ever even imagined, this section alone is a little over 7,300 feet long.  We learned that this section of the wall was originally built in the mid-6th century and then during the Ming Dynasty, construction of the present wall began and was built over the previous wall.  In 1569, it was rebuilt and until today most of the parts are still preserved.  This section of the wall is the best quality among all the sections of the Great Wall.  It really did look pretty.

As we walked the stairs, the kids were excited to be on the Great Wall of China, and we were lucky that they didn't complain.  I am so glad we did this with friends, because it was walking with friends that kept the kids going. I learned that this section of the wall is about 15 feet wide.  It was definitely wider then I was expecting to see.  Kevin and I had talked about wanting to do the Great Wall of China Marathon, and after seeing the wall and walking on it, I am glad we never did that marathon, it would have been awful.

As we passed the first tower, tower number 5, we noticed they had a little rooms in the tower.  The doors were a gorgeous wood door which were not original doors, but it was still cool to see them. We were not allowed in all the rooms, but we were able to walk through the towers.  This section of the wall has the most watchtowers then any other section of the wall.  In all, the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall has 22 watch towers.

We came to our first large watchtower, the Zhengguan Tai, which is Tower 4 and we walked all the way to the top to the tower lookout.  The view was spectacular.  The sky was a little hazy, so we couldn't see super clear, but we could tell that the wall just keeps going through the mountains.  It made all of us reflect on the lives of those that had to built this treacherous wall.  They were up in the mountains in the cold, walking by foot and having to fight hunger, thirst and the elements.  Many died, and were just buried straight into the walls. It was humbling and sacred to be walking on these walls. More then 90% of this area of the wall is forest and wild.

Kevin was ready to turn around and call it a day, but I wanted to go as far as possible.  I was super happy when Jason and Brianne Walker said they were going to go as far as this wall allows, which is three more towers.  Since I said I wanted to go, and all the girls also wanted to continue, Kevin consented to join us.  It was after this first tower that the stairs started to get super crazy steep.  At some points I made Little A scoot down on her bum.

We were not allowed to bring the hiking backpack, so Kevin and I took turns holding Monster or holding his hand while he walked.  We played a stair game where we would call the super huge deep stairs 'daddy stairs', the medium steep stairs 'mommy stairs' and the little stairs that were super close 'monster stairs'.  When there were tiny stairs we would let Monster walk by himself and hold our hands, but when they were daddy stairs we had to hold him.  This helped him get super excited about the stairs, especially when they were his size and we let him walk on his own.

The views out of the Great Wall were spectacular.  They had these little dips in the wall where you could look out over the mountains. These dips are called crenellated parapets and they are on both the outer and inner parts of the wall for this section.  We learned that this is very rare feature for the Great Wall, and served the purpose of being able to fire shots at the enemy on both sides.  There were some gorgeous Cherry Trees in bloom and flowers and many wild vegetation all around.  The wall added charm to the landscape.  It was almost as if they had become one over time.

We passed two more towers and finally made it to the last tower open to the public on the Mutianyu Wall, the Dajiao Building, or Tower 1.  The top part of the tower was closed, preventing anyone from going further down the wall.  When you looked out the window, you could see that the wall continued going as far as the eye could see.  We took time to rest our sore legs, and eat a snack. The kids were playing hand clapping and chanting games and just sitting and sharing snacks.  They were still in great spirits and happy to be on this historical wall.

After gaining energy, we started our way back to the ski lift.  We still took our time and enjoyed every aspect of the Wall.  There wasn't anything that didn't seem enchanting about it.

We noticed that there were sections of the wall near the towers that opened up to the ground.  This was where the China army would have access to the wall.  Most of the areas were roped off and had signs indicating not to enter.  We found one outside access that was not blocked off (so much) off the Zhengguan Tai and made our way to the outside of the wall.  We all had spent the last few hours walking on the wall, and we wanted to see the wall in all its glory and grandeur. We laid our bags next to the no trespassing sign, and stepped just a few steps to the right to get a picture next to the wall.  It was so much taller then I had imagined at about 26 feet high.

We finished walking the last of the wall and made it to the ski lift.  For our tour, we were excited to book the toboggan ride down the mountain.  All the tour guides were very much against us doing the toboggan and we were asked multiple times if we were sure we wanted to do it, of course we were!  All of us, and especially all the kids were looking forward to the toboggan ride down the Great Wall of China mountain!  The toboggan ride did not disappoint, we all had such a thrill going down the mountain.  Children under 8 years old are required to ride with a parent, so Monster rode with me and Little A rode with Kevin.  Monster was so adorable while we were going down, he kept whooping and yelling with joy.  He also kept grabbing the speed stick and trying to push it to make the toboggan go faster.  He had the time of his life, and I did too just watching him.