Christmas in Shanghai

Ok, part 2 of our busy season.
We had a very different, yet very good Christmas this year. It could have been really sad but having family here really helped a lot.

Twas' the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except for all the grownups bc we had a million presents to wrap still and we were SO tired from having traveled all day coming back from Beijing and getting the kids to bed, but, it was worth it in the end.
Such a pretty sight.
This was what Sophie would wake up to and how she would see it. :)

Christmas morning, we were awoken to the pitter patter of tiny feet running down the stairs and in she burst. Jumping on our bed she exclaimed that Santa had been here, that he had found us all the way in China and that we had to come and see. Then she hopped off our bed and said, "I'm gonna go wake up those guys", pointing to Danny and Jodi's room. We heard her bust in there and repeat everything and thus the morning began.  :)

We went and got Cooper up and, once free to roam, he ran right to the tree and began to immediately play with his new gifts. A water table, 2 new ride-on toys (sorry, downstairs neighbors!), a music table and more.

We opened stockings then sat down for some Christmas breakfast. Homemade egg casserole, made-from-scratch cinnamon rolls and lots of coffee and juice. Couldn't have been better!

After eating, we started in on the presents. There were many winners and a few funny ones.
Here's Claude in his new Chinese silk robe. Sophie had to help him straighten it out so it looked nice. :) Now he can say he owns a robe from Kazakhstan and China! :)

Sophie showing off her new Barbie and the Popstar dress and doll! Her favorite presents. Well, they may have tied with the Lego Friends she got (also known as "girl legos" to her).

Ben, Sophie and Danny had to help Cooper open his secret jumping hot dog present. He really did like it and immediately started trying to chew on the handle thingies. :)

This was what Danny and Jodi had been waiting for- Coop leaning on the hotdog. :)

Donna and Claude got a gag gift from Sophie. They had both been really struggling with using chop sticks so we got them both some kiddie practice chopsticks that had rubber panda bears that kept the two sticks together. They thought it was quite funny as Sophia said, "It's easy, Grandma. These are for kids so you can do it". :)

Coop's school has been working on doing puzzles with him so I thought we'd get him a few to see if he wanted to continue with them at home. He actually liked it and was trying to put the vehicles in the appropriate places. It was really cute. :)

Donna smelling her new scarf?

Sophie trying on Aunt Jodi's new Hunter rain boots. You'll also notice Jodi is wearing her new Chinese silk robe and new scarf. She doesn't always look so coordinated. ;)

Here Soph has just opened a whole box of "Brave" stuff. A Merida doll, the movie, the Leapster game, and the book. Needless to say, she was really excited! Thanks, Uncle Ben and Aunt Michelle!

After presents we had a nice, relaxing day. Ben and Soph started in on the legos while Donna, Danny and I played some Rummikub. We look bored, but I swear we weren't. :) It was just really low key and great.

 Coop even had a nice, relaxing day enjoying some Dora while using Sophie's stack of presents as a pillow.

We had the clubhouse deliver a cooked ham to help us celebrate Christmas and yet not have to cook much. :) While we were setting the table, Cooper got hold of a fork and thought the butter needed to hold it for him. 

Along with our ham, we enjoyed some Chinese sweet potato mash, some glazed carrots and rolls, and even made some raisin sauce to go with the ham. A couple of bottles of wine and we had an awesome meal!

Once the young kids had finally calmed down and gone to bed, the grown kids got out their presents. Here are Ben and Danny playing with their mini helicopters. :)

Overall, a good Christmas filled with family and fun. We were able to Skype with my family and Jodi's family and even Joel, Ben's brother, so we were able to share the day with many of the people we love. The only thing that was missing was being able to go to a Christmas service. I love our home church's Christmas service- hearing the story of Jesus' birth and singing the songs. There was no service here, however, that had anything offered to watch Cooper and we wanted to stay together on this day. We read the Christmas story and thanked our Lord and Savior for his indescribable gift He gave us that day.
Again, a different kind of Christmas, but still a good one.
We hope you all had a great day celebrating our Savior's birth and enjoying each other's company.
God bless you all in this New Year!

Our Totally Freezing, Toe-Numbing Trip to Beijing :)

Hello again!
It's a new year and we have been so incredibly busy here!! I have a ton to write about so I am going to have to approach it in segments.
Danny (Ben's little brother), his wife, Jodi, and Ben's parents (Donna and Claude) all flew out here on Dec 13 to stay with us for a few weeks and celebrate Christmas with us here.
After hanging out for a few days we decided we wanted to change the previous plans for our trip to Beijing and all go together before Christmas. It was a last minute swap and meant a lot of adjustments. We also needed to go buy a bunch of cold weather items as it looked to be 0 degrees F while we were there! We thought we were prepared enough. Oh, how we were wrong! :)
On Friday, Dec 21st, we packed up and headed to the Hongqiao Railway Station, about 20 minutes from our house. It was supposed to be a 5-hr high speed train ride to Beijing, getting us there at around 3pm. Unfortunately, it took about 6 1/2 hours but we made it.
I made the mistake of not packing enough snacks for the journey and, needless to say, the Chinese food offered for purchase was seriously scary. A packaged meal with super fatty meat in sauce, rice, boiled peanuts, some spicy cabbage thing...ugh. I'm SO not Chinese. :) Not surprisingly, all 3 VP men didn't find it that offensive. Seriously. Actually, all 4- Cooper ate it, too. Ugh...

Donna and Soph on the train powering through some books-

Coop a bit before he (thankfully) fell asleep. You all remember that pic of Coop from "It's a Small World" in Hong Kong Disney? Yeah. That one. Here we are again, only he actually was happy here.

10 minutes later... :) Then he slept for about 30 minutes.

Claude, Jodi and Danny relaxing as we speed along.

Once we finally arrived at the Beijing Railway Station, we immediately hit up the glorious McDonald's we found there and then, once filled up a bit, headed to find some taxis. The taxi que was about 1000 people long so we decided to take the Metro and then hoof it to the Marriott from there. Not too bad but, as we saw a bunch a snow out of the train windows while traveling, we knew it would be cold. And, yes, it was cold. Coooold. :)

 Once in the hotel, Soph was just happy to find a warm place to rest a moment. Even if it's in the lobby. :)

After finding a bit of food for dinner at the hotel, we put the kids to bed. Then, Danny, Jodi, Ben and I got the opportunity to go to the Olympic Village while Donna and Claude rested and listened out for our kiddos.

We grabbed a taxi and got there without any issue. It took a little less than 30 minutes to get there. Our first sight was The Cube. This was where all the water sports took place during the Olympics. It's so pretty all lit up and blue at night. We couldn't go in any of the buildings, which was a serious bummer, but, it was still fun to see everything. But cold. Cooooold. :)

Walking through the Village- the Olympic torch on the right, the rings on the left.

Outside the Bird's Nest. Yes, that is Ben and I under all that gear. :) Oh, I forgot to mention that Mickey Mouse was there that night. Yup. It was about 9pm, totally freezing, and a dude dressed up as Mickey was hanging around the grounds trying to get people to take pictures with him and pay him. There were about a total of 10 people around the grounds that night. Don't think he made much money... :)

Jodi and her "Olympic Pose" by the rings... :)

Now that I'm looking a these pictures a bit better, I think that sign to the left of the "Olympic" probably says- 'do not climb onto the rings'. Oops... This climber was me. Good thing I can't read Chinese... :)

A close-up of the torch. It was actually pretty small! Well, considering...

The village was surrounded by a cement wall that had each winner of every game played chiseled into it. Pretty cool. We walked around it for a while. I kept looking for Michael Phelps. Never found it. :(

On our way out I found a giant snowball and wanted to climb it. So, there you go-

A distant view from a bridge near the Village. We found out that it was no coincidence that one building was square and the other a circle. In China, Earth and Heaven are things that are very seriously taken into consideration for almost everything. Quite often you will see square things (representing Earth) along with round ones (representing Heaven). Very interesting to find this out!

Ok, on to the official day 1 in Beijing.
The plan for the day was to start out doing the Great Wall and then hit up the Ming Tombs. A big day, for sure, with lots of walking and lots of riding around in a car. Knowing how cold it was the night before at the Olympic Village, we were a bit concerned for the kids. They did really well through the whole day, though.

We had hired a tourism company to bring us around for the day. SO glad we had! They got us a van and drove us around for the day, organized lunch, and we had a guide that taught us so much. It was about a 1 1/2 hour drive from our hotel to the part of the wall we wanted to go to. You can go to a part of it in Beijing, but it's been very commercialized and is really fake now. We wanted to see parts that were authentic so we had to travel a bit to get there.

Here's a great picture of Donna being helped up a steep incline by her 2 youngest sons. Awww... :)

Very oddly, at the outdoor window to purchase tickets to see the wall, there was a group of ferrell cats. There were about 8 of them and they just hung around the ticket window. Weird....

This was a sign posted as we were about to get on the gondola that brought us up to the wall. I thought it was just a sign for here, but after seeing a lot of Beijing, we realized they were everywhere. They really believe using a cell phone during a storm will increase your likelihood of getting struck by lightening. Ben assured me it does not. :)

Donna and Claude at The Great Wall of China!

Very important... :)

My gorgeous girl on The Great Wall of China. Will she remember this? That she has been here, seen these things...crazy to think.

 Family photo op...

This will make it as my profile pic soon. :) There aren't a lot of pics of me on this trip as I was the photo-taker. Thanks for getting one of me, Ben!

And I will send this to Danny so he can do the same. :)

Just so it's clear- this bit of the wall has been maintained and fixed as needed specifically for visitors. They have not changed it in any way beyond that. As we looked into the distance we could see parts of the wall that were deteriorated and crumbling. It just went on forever, really amazing!

I love this picture. A bunch of us had continued on down the wall but Donna and Claude had stayed back bc it was icy and slippery. I turned around and saw them waaaaaay off in the distance, zoomed in with my camera and clicked. I feel like it did a great job showing the immense scale of it all.

My sista from anotha mista, Jodi. Wrapped up and gorgeous. :)

Cooper won't remember being on the wall, but he did love it while he was on it. He played in the snow on it and ran around. Such a cutie... :)

A hint of the steepness in places. Did you know there's a Great Wall Marathon? Yes, there's a race where people run 26.2 miles on this wall, with all the steps, the ups and downs. Ugh! Add the horrible air quality and it just sounds like a recipe for disaster. :)

Cooper enjoying the area around the base of the wall.

Group photo!

Coop and I hanging in the bus on the way to lunch.

The tour company organized a lunch at a local restaurant by the wall. It was local Chinese food and really good! Gong bao chicken, taro rolls, some pork and beef. Good stuff! Even the kids liked it!

With a full belly and an hour-long ride, Coop decided to cash out for a bit. My sweet boy...

After an hour or so we arrived at the Ming Tombs. So, the Ming Dynasty was one of the Dynasties that ruled China a long time ago. When one of the emperors dies, he and many possessions are buried in a secret location so no one can steal them. When his empress dies, she goes down there with him. This one in particular was very unique bc this emperor had 2 empresses- very unheard of. Turns out his empress never gave him any kids and so the concubine that gave him his first son also became an empress. Baby mama drama way back then!

Here's the outside of the entrance to the area surrounding the tombs. Sheesh, that was a complicated description...

The doorway of the dead. Every tomb area has one. The idea is that you go around it when entering the area and go through it when leaving the area. That way, you won't get stuck with those that have already gone. When you go through it when leaving you enter the land of the living again, leaving the dead behind. Such odd customs... It was pretty, though. :)

Loved this sign and saw it around the grounds a lot. It reads- "Luxuriant grassland. Please don't trample". Hahahahaha! Gotta love it. :)

Ok, inside the tombs. We went down about 100ft, all stairs, carrying Cooper in his stroller...good thing Ben and I have been working out. :) The outside area had a slot in the cement floor where people throw money. That was it.
The next room held the throne of the emperor and these 5 containers that had stuff in them that meant something at the time. Can't remember what was in them...internal organs, maybe? Don't quote me, but I think it was something weird like that. :)

These were replicas of the 25 boxes discovered in the tombs that held the jewels and goods that would keep the emperor and empresses wealthy in the next life.

When the Chinese discovered the tombs, they piled something like 100 layers of bricks on top of it to prevent theft. Here is part of our group under a few of those layers.

 

Coop and I next to the gigantic metal doors that were something like 1000 lbs or something. They were really heavy, that's all I remember. :)

Sophie found a snow bunny on a tree that had partially melted. :)

This was looking back at the exit of the tombs. Very picturesque.

Another fun sign- Yes, please do not cross.....the area that has no where to go, bc it's a brick wall...

You may have ones that are dressed, but no naked ones, please. Thank you.

On the way out, there were these stone animals with these weird smiles that showed their teeth under their curled snouts. Danny wanted to give one a smooch.

Sophie making her way back into the world of the living. Females must step over the threshold with their right foot first, males must pass through with their left foot first. Ok...

Just as we were about to leave I saw this tree. Very appropriately named a Dragon's Claw tree.

 

That night we ate dinner at one of the hotel's restaurants- Hawka. Ah-mah-zing Pad Thai! Best I've ever had in my life. So good, we went back the next night for more bc we couldn't imagine eating anything else. I know. We're weird. But we also know what we like. :)

 

On to day 2. The plan for this day was to hit up Tienanmen's Square, the Forbidden City and then the Summer Palace. Looking at the thermostat that morning, it said something like 0 degrees F with 25 mph winds. Hmmm. We definitely did not have the gear for this type of weather.

Poor Coop only had his Converse hightops and Soph had some boots that were old and not very well insulated. That was our downfall.

Since we had hired our tour guide back again for this day, we packed up as much gear as we had, including a few blankets in the hope of just wrapping Coop into the stroller to keep him warm. Off we went.

 

Here is the outside of the Forbidden City as we drove past it. Nice big picture of Mao, lots of gates and grandeur...



 



Ok, the van drops us off at Tienanmen's Square. A fairly big event happened here several years back- if you're not sure what it was, ask a friend, they'll tell you.
The wind was crazy here in this vast, wide open space.
That's Sophia under all that. Only her eyes showing and even then she would complain about how they felt like they were freezing. I should have taken that as a sign and just taken them back to the hotel then...

Walking all bundled up into the Forbidden City- see how the flags are totally sideways?

Poor buddy has to just stand there in the freezing cold, doing nothing. I actually did feel bad for him.

Cooper was starting to complain about the wind in his face so we tried pulling him backwards to keep him out of the wind. Here we are just entering the second of , like, 5 gates. They each had a huge, open area and then another gate, and repeat and repeat and repeat.

When we were at the middle of the city, we could no longer take the children crying about being cold. Our guide found a souvenir shop that was heated so we wrangled our way into there to try and warm everyone up. We struggled to get the kid's feet warm at all- they were just ice blocks and Soph couldn't get control of herself so we made the decision to bring them home then. The bad part was getting out the fastest way.

We were in the dead center of the city and it was massive. Our only real choice was to keep going and get through the city as fast as possible. So off we went. The minute we went outside, the kids started at it again, but we had to just keep going.
Not a great way to "see" the Forbidden City, rushing through it.

Coop didn't want to be held, didn't want to be in the stroller, so we took turns wrestling him through the city. But look, I certainly did get a few pics of the pretty gates, too! :)

Ben wrestling Coop. Oh, and a really pretty gate!

Well, we made it to the van and the kids and I were dropped off back at the hotel. I was sad to miss the rest of the day but they really became much happier tiny humans when they got warm. We got some lunch at the hotel and spent the afternoon watching a bit of Dora on the IPad (thank you, Steve Jobs) and going for a quick dip in the hot tub.

After dropping us off, the rest of the group headed to a local restaurant to get a bit of lunch before heading to the Summer Palace.
Here we have some duck they ate. For your consideration, they included the heads (those 2 things on the far right). Mmmm... not really sorry I missed that. :)

Ben took this picture of a sign he saw outside of the Summer Palace. Think about it. Think about it.... yup. Makes perfect sense, right? :)

Most of the group, outside the Palace. Chilly day!

This was called The Long Hallway. Clearly explaining itself, I will move on....

A view from the Palace onto the grounds below. Very pretty! The lake was totally frozen over.

This was from down below looking back up at where they just were in the previous picture.

Look! A marble boat! A cement ship! A stone canoe? A brick kayak? Sorry, inside joke... :) It really was a boat made of marble. It was used for entertaining, not floating.

Back at the homestead Marriott, Soph was hamming it up in the lobby, taking pictures with the locals, waiting for everyone to arrive back.

On our last morning Ben stayed back at the hotel with the kids (because it was still SUPER cold out) and the rest of us headed out to the Temple of Heaven. This was an odd place that was actually pretty close to our hotel. Surrounding the temple was a huge park that seemed like a retirement community. There were groups upon groups of retired elderly people hanging out, playing hacky sack (see below), playing card games, doing yoga and tai chi, dancing and more. Donna and Claude were almost sucked in... :)

In the distance you can see the Temple of Heaven. To get there we had to walk past all the retirees. To the right was this long hallway that had a railing where groups would sit and play cards and gamble. There were dozens of groups, all having a great time. Remember, this was at about 930 in the morning in 15-20 degree weather!! These people were committed. :)

This was inside the hallway at the end nearing the entrance to the temple. The colors were just gorgeous! It's all painted on wood. I just loved the blue...

We made it! A long walk to get here but here is the Temple of Heaven. Thus named bc it was a place where emperors worshipped Heaven, not bc it reminded anyone of heaven or anything.
What you're looking at here are 3 levels of walkways and then the temple at the top. It was quite big, actually, with several surrounding buildings.

Inside the main temple were stone calves all lined up along each wall. Hmmm... ok....I believe they were used as offerings?

Here's Danny as we were walking down the steps on the other side of the temple going towards one of the side buildings.

This was something I found interesting. Hope you can read it ok.

The door...

Another view of the temple

Inside one of the side buildings. In here was the description of how the emperors performed the act of worshiping heaven.

The ceiling of the main temple. So pretty, right?

Some of the surrounding area

On the way out, we happened upon a random group of people dancing. There were actually several of these in the park surrounding the temple. A few people would start dancing with a boombox, and then random people would just join in and catch on to the dance and off they'd go. It was pretty impressive how easily people could pick up on the dance.

 

 

After we had seen the temple we headed back to the hotel, grabbed our stuff (and Ben and the kids, of course), and headed to the railway station for our 5-hr journey home. We grabbed some snacks and lunch at the station and boarded the train.



 

The ride home was long and stressful as Cooper was very tired but wouldn't sleep. He was loud and crazy and very, very active so there were no fun pics on the way home. :) We did get there in 5 hours, thankfully, and then got home without too much drama.

 

It was soooo good to be home in "warm" Shanghai. 40 degrees never felt so warm!

 

Overall, a fun trip, with a few bumps, but I think we saw all the things I've been wanting to see there. And saw the pics of the place I missed. :)

So, that was Beijing!

Now I'll start working on the Christmas blog and try to get that up soon.

 

Hope you all had great holiday celebrations and created some good memories. We're looking forward to being in some of them next year! ;)