Life just seems to go way too fast!  It's Christmas already!  Can you believe it?  Doesn't really seem like Christmas when it's 70 degrees outside  - although it has been a bit chilly and rainy lately, so I guess that counts as winter in Arizona.   

Since my last posting we've had a couple of exciting things happen - I just got a promotion at work.  Yeah!!!!  My boss promoted me to Regional Marketing Director over our region (AZ, NV, UT, & CO).  It means more traveling for me - but that's okay because you know how I LOVE to travel!  I'm really excited about it actually.  It gives me the opportunity to meet so many people and stretch my creative side (which really needs stretching!).    We'll see how it works out. 

But the VERY best and MOST exciting thing is our new babies!!!!  My sister Rebecca had twins in October (Brenton and Brynlee), and they are THE most precious things.  Take a look.  (I wish I could take them home with me. ) 

So I haven't posted anything for a while - since I got back from China actually.  Just trying to get back into the swing of things.  You'd think after a month that life would be back to normal....and it is - normal is all relative though isn't it?  It took a couple of weeks to get over the jet lag thing - that was brutal!  It wasn't so bad going over but coming back just totally wiped me out.  But, yes I am back on schedule now. 

 

Over the past couple of weeks I've picked up a new hobby I think.  Liz and Kyle got me started on kayaking!  How much fun is that?  We've gone out to Canyon Lake a couple of times, got stuck in the middle of the lake when an unexpected and fiercely violent storm came in.   Wind, lightning, thunder, rain battered us all the way back in!   Did I mention it was a FIERCELY VIOLENT storm?   :)   So here are a couple of pics of me learning how to paddle and not turn over.

Just a few last photos from our last day before we flew out.  We found a nice little park off the river and took a few pics of the scenery.   

This little girl was just the cutest thing - smiling at us.  Of course I had to take a picture! 

So we said our goodbyes to friends we made while in China - like Mr. Wang at the hotel, and our guide Lin.  

I am so glad to be home!  I've loved every minute of being there.  It was well worth it and I'd do it all over again.  But there's nothing like going home at the end of a vacation and getting back to familiar things.    This trip has given me a new appreciation for small things - milk, ice,  a language I can understand, seat belts, and soft beds!  The beds in China are rock hard!  It's like laying down on concrete, seriously.  Lin told us that most Chinese like hard mattresses.......don't know why.  Falling into my own soft bed this morning after 24 hours of traveling was absolutely heavenly!  :)

Okay Bea, just for you I convinced Rachel to be a little adventurous on our last night in Beijing.  We went to the Night Market for dinner last night.  It's official name is the Wang Fushing Street Market, but all the locals affectionately call it the "night market" because it's only open from 5:00-10:00 pm every night.  If you watched any coverage of the Olympics then you saw some of the fascinating stuff they have for sale here.  I have to say that at first I was a little intrigued, but after a few minutes of looking and smelling the "exotic" foods I couldn't handle any more.  We couldn't even make ourselves buy the chicken and rice from a booth here.  We had to go down the street to KFC for dinner.  After looking at the pictures we took you will totally understand!  If you have a weak stomach you may not want to see the pictures.  Fair warning!  :)

The view from here doesn't look so bad does it?  It's not until you get closer and see what's REALLY cooking that you start to get a little squeamish......

For appetizers, from top left to right, how about honey bees, centipedes, starfish and locusts?  Not quite your thing?  How about.......

Scorpions?  There's a variety for your eating pleasure - small ones, big ones, black ones, gold ones....take your pick!   Hmmm.....still not quite your thing?  Well, hold on - we have more!  

The octopus doesn't look too bad -except for the slimy tentacles on the end!  

These hairy little things are sea urchin, which are considered quite a delicacy........yummy!

How about some sea horse instead?  

And I don't even know what this is.....it looks like some worm of some kind.  Use your imagination!  :)  

Just so you wouldn't think I was completely gutless, I did try one thing from the market!  It looked fairly safe.   Fried bananas - tasted like fritters covered in sugar.....not so bad!!  HA!  So there Bea!  :)

     Our time in China is running down.  We fly out tomorrow so this may be my last posting before we leave.  We'll see!  It has been such a great trip.  The Chinese people are very gracious and helpful (even though they may not understand what we're trying to say).  There's the elevator man at our hotel, his name is Wang, and he tries to come up with something funny to tell us every day in his broken English.  It's quite cute.  The bellhops at the hotel see us coming down every morning and run to get us a taxi.  They're so sweet and cute I wish I could take them all home with me!  

     We've met people from all over the world while we've been here.  We had breakfast one day with a couple of women from New York here for vacation; one day we sat with a man from Germany here on business; we met several couples adopting babies - one couple from France, one woman from Maine who brought her little girl with her.  So many stories from so many people.  It's been such a fantastic experience.  

     I only wish I could speak Chinese!  Before we left Los Angeles even the flight attendants thought I was Chinese.  I just get a lot of blank stares like they can't believe I don't speak Chinese.  It's a little difficult trying to explain that I'm Vietnamese, not Chinese, so I just shake my head and say "English".  

     My only regret is that we haven't had a lot of traditional Chinese food while we've been here.  Rachel is pregnant and she can't handle the different dishes.  So it's been a lot of McDonald's and Subway.  Not quite what I envisioned I would be eating in China.  I don't even eat McDonald's when I'm at home!  Oh well.......I'll have to go to a good Chinese restaurant when I get home.  :)  

We attended the Closing Ceremonies for the Paralympics last night.  It was AMAZING!!!!  If you watched any of the Opening or Closing Ceremonies for the Olympics in August then you'll know what I mean.  They really went all out.  I swear there were thousands of dancers!  I took some pictures but they didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped because the lighting wasn't so good for cameras.  But you can maybe get an idea of what it was like.  

First was the parade of flags - they didn't have the athletes parade, which was kind of disappointing.  We were hoping to see Rachel's husband.

Here are just a few pictures from the program. 

Thousands of dancers on the ground......or maybe it was just 

hundreds, but it seemed like thousands........

People flying through the air........

The final song to extinguish the flame.  Unfortunately we were just underneath the torch so I coudn't get a picture of that......

.....and Fireworks!!!

                        And that was the end of a long day............ I think I'll sleep for two days straight when I get back! 

Guess where we were this morning?  We spent all morning hiking the Great Wall, well part of it anyway.  It's a beautiful area in the mountains about 40 minutes outside of Beijing.   The Great Wall is about 3000 miles long all the way across China and only 10% of it is still standing.  It took over 200 years to build the whole thing!  Lin says that the people who died building the wall were buried inside it - so they call it the "longest cemetary" in China.  Kinda morbid isn't it?  

     

As you can see it is very steep so I didn't attempt to go very far.  Yes, I am getting lazy in my old age, I admit it.  I seriously thought about attempting it, but after hearing that it takes two hours to climb to the top I had to re-think that. 

I did make it up to the first level, though.  If I ever reached the top I don't think I would have been coming back down.  Rachel said it was too bad they didn't have a banister to slide down.  Wouldn't that be a ride?   Since it was a holiday today there were SO many people at the wall.  Some you really had to wonder what they were thinking because I saw women in skirts and high heels climbing the Great Wall.  Ouch!!  

The rest of the afternoon we spent at the Summer Palace.  It's 700 acres of lake and gardens, for the Emperor only of course.   I could have spent all day there - it was so gorgeous and peaceful.  I can see why the Emperor chose all the best places for himself!  Lin told us that the last Emperor was only a child when he came into power so his mother was the one who actually ruled the country.  She placed him under house arrest in one part of the palace for the rest of his life.  So no matter how beautiful, a prison is still a prison I suppose.  How sad!

Madness and Mayhem today

It's a three day holiday in China this weekend - the Autumn Moon Festival is taking place (whatever that all entails) and everyone is out playing tourist.  We spent the day at Ti'anamen Square and the Forbidden City, and it felt like everyone else in China spent the day there as well.  People everywhere!   And they all looked the same!  Like thousands of little black ants crawling all over the square.....

Rachel and I are standing in front of the gate to the Forbidden City where  the emporers lived.  The Forbidden City is about 100 acres of courtyards and buildings.  It's said to have 10,000 rooms inside the Forbidden City.  Our tour guide, Lin, said they consider a room to be any area that is surrounded by four pillars in each corner - so they could be huge reception rooms or tiny little closets.  It's said that a baby born in the palace could sleep in a different room every night and they would be 27 years old by the time they slept in every room.  I'd hate to clean that house!

On the gate into the Forbidden City are these gold knobs that you rub for good luck.  Some have been rubbed so much that the gold has worn off. 

The detail and architecture of these buildings are so beautiful and absolutely amazing.  Especially when you consider that all the detail work was done by hand hundreds of years ago.  The Forbidden City took 14 years to build.  They are in the process of renovating the whole Forbidden City and it is estimated to take 16 years to finish the renovations.  Talk about your extreme home makeover! 

Look at the scope of this place - it's HUGE!!!!!  How would you like to walk this place all day, every day.  It took us about two hours to get from one end to the other.  At that rate I think I'd have to find a new room to sleep in every night because there's no way I'd make it back and forth every day!

......Not to mention the stairs!  Back in the day there was no such thing as wheelchair accessible but today there is - you just have to be inventive.  The Chinese people are very resourceful - but it was SO not a good day to wear a skirt! 

So we FINALLY make it to the Inner Palace (I think the Chinese had a good strategy to hide the Emporer in the middle of 100 acres because the enemy would get tired of storming courtyard after courtyard and they'd quit before they ever get to the Emporer!) and found the Imperial Gardens.  This is a beautiful pagoda in the middle of lots of gnarled old Cypress trees (many being hundreds of years old) where the Emporer and his family would drink tea and play chess.  Wouldn't you love to have a place like this just to drink tea?  

We found the cutest little boy playing hide-and-seek in the garden.

This is on the outside wall of the Forbidden City.  So GORGEOUS isn't it?

Our next stop was the Temple of Heaven.  The Emporer was the only one allowed to enter the temple.  It seems like a waste to me since he only went to the temple twice a year to pray to the gods for the change of the seasons.

One of the many corridors leading up to the temple itself.  I LOVE the detail in the ceilings and pillars.

The temple itself has no nails holding it together.  There is one giant pillar in the middle made from one tree trunk and then all the other pillars fan out from the middle.  They were so ingenious!

To cap off our FABULOUS day, we had dinner with the Marines at the US Embassy tonight!  How fun is that?  The Marines had invited the Archery team and their families (and friends who just happen to be traveling with the families) to the embassy for a BBQ.  It was so totally casual and fun!  We were supposed to meet the Archery team at the embassy - even though we had no idea where we were going!  The cab driver dropped us off at the end of a street where all the buildings had barbed wire fencing and guards at every entrance.  Talk about intimidating! There we were - two American girls who not only had no idea where we were going but couldn't communicate with any of the guards because the guards didn't speak English.  (We were only asked for our passports three times by Chinese guards.)  After a while you totally start to feel like you're being watched because there are security cameras on all the buildings.  We were never so glad to find a building flying the US flag!  Unfortunately the guard on duty there was Chinese and didn't speak English either.  How can the US Embassy not have a guard who speaks English?!  Lucky for us a Marine was just getting off duty and came out and took us to where we we needed to be.  I've never been so happy to find someone who actually speaks English!  :)