Finishing up

Friday- our second and final full day in Shanghai China.  We started the day with a trip to the Jade Buddha Temple.  As Saturday is a Buddhist holy day, the temple area was full of worshippers.  Large cauldrons held fires for worshippers to light incense before bowing and praying before large statues.  The temple also had a number of monks who were officiating and singing Buddhist chants.  Definitely an interesting experience.  

Next we toured a silk factory where we learned how silk is made.  Then we went to the Yu Garden, a small complex of rock gardens, ponds, sitting rooms and gazebos, built in the 1500s.  Right outside that area lies the Temple Market.  We spent about 2 hours at this Bazaar where students were able to try their hand at bargaining for every type of souvenir imaginable.  Next we went to the Bund riverfront walk which affords a spectacular view of the Shanghai skyline.  We ended our day with a dinner at a local restauant.  

This morning we have a little free time to pack and prepare for our very long trip home.  But we still have time for one more experience.  We will be taking the famous Shanghia "mag lev" train to the airport.  This train travels at speeds of 218 Mph and cuts a 30 minute trip to 7 minutes.  We look forward to seeing you soon! 

Adventures in Xi'An

Much of Tuesday was spent languishing in the hotel and airport waiting for the evening flight that replaced our canceled earlier flight.  Fortunately,  we had been able to fit in our morning visit to the Temple of Heaven Park.  Besides taking in the beautiful wooden temples, we were able to get a private Tai Chi lesson from a local  Tai Chi master, who looked to be in her 60s.   The students learned that Tai Chi is not as easy as it looks when the "grandma" slipped into a Kung-Foo-type-split move that put all of them to shame!

Nevertheless, we arrived safely in Xi'An around 9pm.  Dinner at the airport consisted of anything from  Skittles, to mysteriously flavored potato chips, to something disguised as KFC.

Wednesday we woke up bright and early, enjoyed a buffet breakfast, and headed to the bus for our visit to the Terra Cotta Warriors. This was definitely a highlight.  It is hard to describe the vastness of this wonder of the world.  Roughly 725,000 slaves lived and died to create row upon row upon row  (8,000 + total) of intricately detailed warriors. Knowing that each warrior was handcrafted from a live model reminds one that you are looking into the eyes of an actual person who lived 200 years before Jesus.  Knowing that this unbelievable project was launched by one powerful man, who was fearful for his soul in the afterlife, gives one pause for thought during this Holy Week. What peace we are blessed to have because of our Savior.

After lunch and some souvenir shopping we headed back to Xi'An.  On our way back in we stopped at an art gallery for a calligraphy lesson.  It was so interesting to see the Chinese writing "untangled" into its 8 basic strokes and to try our hand at writing a few words on our own, with ink and brush.  By that time it was raining heavily but we still had time for 2 more very soggy stops.  First, we stopped off at the Xi'An city wall which runs about 8 miles long. Then on to the Muslim district, which was something of a bazaar with shops and food market.  That evening after drying out we went to the  Tang Dynasty Dinner and Show.  We enjoyed a multi-course dinner, followed by an elaborate show of traditional music and dance. 

Today we are off to Shanghai!

We arrived safely in Shanghai.  We will blog tomorrow about our first exciting day!

Jack LeGrand

Xi'an

Just wanted to let everyone know we arrived in Xi'an today.

We will report more tomorrow. We are all very tired from our travels and have a busy day which begins very early.

Thanks

Jack

The Great Wall

   

 We started out our day with a trip to the Great Wall.  The Great Wall is just a short 1 hour drive from Beijing. We arrived around 10 am and began our adventure hiking and climbing the wall.  I think we were all surprised at how very steep most of the wall is.  It was definitely a challenge! And going down was just as hard as going up.  Once again, it was absolutely packed with people.  Mostly Chinese, with a few foreign visitors sprinkled in.  It's amazing how many Chinese nationals are out enjoying their historical sites- even on a weekday. 

     On the way back into Beijing we stopped at a tea shop for a demonstration of a Chinese tea ceremony.  We enjoyed an assortment of teas, as well as time to browse the shop. We continued our busy day with a quick stop at the site of the Olympic Park.  We saw, close up,  the iconic Birds Nest stadium,  Water Cube, and the giant hotel complex in the shape of a dragon.

     While everything is beautiful,  we will have a new appreciation for the clean air we enjoy at home, after spending a third day under smoggy, hazy skies that obscure the sun on a daily basis.

     Finally, we took an exciting ride in a caravan of rickshaws to our dinner experience.  The ride afforded us an inside look at a neighborhood we might never have a chance to see again. In this "Hutong" neighborhood, narrow paths carve out a neighborhood of multi-family houses which share a courtyard and communal bathroom.  At the end of our mini-tour we enjoyed a home cooked meal in the home of a local family.  It was delicious meal, prepared by a most gracious cook, in a kitchen about the size of a powder room.  After thanking our hosts, we walked past the historic drum and bell tours, boarded our bus, and continued  back to our hotel for some much needed rest.

Day #1 - Tianamane Square

Long travel day before and breakfast came very early.  It didn't really matter though as many were up in the night adjusting to the time change.  After breakfast we boarded the tour bus and went to Tianamane square.

This square is very large and is the location where one of the most famous images occurred when the Chinese government used armed forces to shut down student protesters who wanted democracy. It was a bit surreal standing in the place where people stood in front of government vehicles to protest.

In Tianamane Square

The peoples monument is there as an iconic reminder about the incident.  The square is the center of the city and is surrounded by many government buildings such as the national museum of China. There were tens of thousands in line to see General Mao's tomb.

After the square we walked into the forbidden city.  This place was forbidden to the locals and we learned how different levels of people entered through different gates to the city.  It is the place that housed 24 different Emporers in a 600 year time span.  The city was very large and every turn produced more buildings and rooms. It was something like 9000 different rooms throughout the city.  We learned a lot of information about the dragon lady. (As well as many stories) from our guide Xin.

We stopped at a local mall for lunch where the students had the opportunity to choose their food. Some were adventurous and others settled for KFC, Burger King, McDonalds, Subway, etc.

After lunch we went to see the summer palace. This was a place called lake of the mountain and was used as the summer home for the dragon lady and her son.  The place is very beautiful. We walked quite a bit along the waterfront and then took a dragon boat ride back across the lake.

We ended our day with a traditional Beijing Peking duck dinner.

Devotions back at the hotel as we spent time together talking about Palm Sunday and sharing together.

We have another busy day tomorrow as we will visit the Great Wall.

Thanks

Jack

We made it!

We have arrived!

We have successfully arrived at our hotel, but everyone is quite tired from a very long trip.

We will have dinner at the hotel and then a very busy day tomorrow.

Thank you for your prayers!

LeGrand

Technical Difficulties

Maybe not a huge surprise, but blogging in China is turning out to be rather difficult.  Although they have the technology, they are rather guarded about free speech.  Therefore future posts may be a bit sporadic.  But do not fear, the trip itself is going very well.

Waiting at Toronto Airport

We are at a stop over in Toronto. We are using our time relaxing, eating, and using the free internet.

We hope to board our flight to Beijing in a couple hours.

The time has arrived!

The waiting is over as we get ready to depart for our trip together to China.  Mrs. Hernandez is going to try to keep this blog updated with our experiences together.  We will post as we have the opportunity.  This will also be dependent on the availability of wifi at our hotels.

It is very exciting anticipating our time together. 

We will begin loading tomorrow at 5:30 am.

We will leave tomorrow at 5:45 am.

We have a yellow bus and also will be taking a school van (Thank You Mr. Snoeyink).

Don't forget your passports.

See you all tomorrow!

COUNTDOWN

COUNTDOWN.....2 days to departure.

Pack light-- 5:30 am in front of bus garage on Friday morning.