A Rock Star (in China)

Our trip to China was...interesting.  Although we had a lot of fun, it was very eye opening, especially regarding cultural differences.

The main issue is that we were traveling with a cute, blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl, and apparently many Chinese people have not seen too many girls who look like Caitlyn.  Everywhere we went people took out their cameras and phones to take pictures, walked up to her to try to touch her (usually her hair), and even asked if they could hold her to take a picture with them (we politely declined).  It was perhaps endearing at first, yet downright disturbing and annoying after awhile.  Going out anywhere became an ordeal, as it felt like we always had to stay on guard to stop people from trying to touch her.  (Who knows what all of these people are going to do with her picture!)  I nicknamed her "Rock Star," as it really felt like we were traveling with a famous person.  I joked that I was her bodyguard.

We also found Beijing to be fairly dirty and sadly poor (especially in the hutong alley neighborhoods we explored), and the smog was terrible.

That said, we had many interesting experiences and ate some delicious food during our trip to China.  Here are some highlights:

We had duck several times, and it was always delicious.  The best was our last meal in Beijing, at Da Dong Roast Duck Restaurant.  We had the name and address of this restaurant written on a piece of paper in Chinese, and we walked around for about 45 minutes showing it to people to try to find it!  It was well worth it, though, as the duck was amazing!  We also had some great dim sum.

Above is some of the food offered at the Night Market, including scorpions, sheep testicles, and snake.  We didn't try any of them.

The highlight of the trip was hiking the Great Wall of China.  We went to the Mutianyu area, which is a little less visited.  It turned into a beautiful day and we had a great time.  The Great Wall is really long!  Caitlyn was very proud of the "I Climbed the Great Wall" t-shirt we bought for her (her Mom has the same shirt from years ago!).  Although we took a chair lift up the mountain to reach the Great Wall, we took the toboggan slide down.  That was a lot of fun!

(I hiked like this for much of the walk!)  

As part of our day-long tour to the Great Wall, we went to a small village nearby.  The best part was visiting an old woman's back yard to learn about her life.  (Our tour guide saw the open door to the yard and ventured inside to see if anyone was around.)  She was very generous in telling us about how she lives.  The differences between a poor, Chinese village and America are stark.  As just one example, notice the outdoor "kitchen" in the background of this picture:

We also spent time exploring the main sites in Beijing, including the Lama Temple...

...Tiananmen Square...

...the Forbidden City...

...the Olympic facilities (that's the "bird's nest" in the background of the first picture below)...

...and the zoo to see some pandas!

We also spent a few hours in both the Silk Market and the Pearl Market, bargaining for silk ties and scarves, shoes, and jewelry.  I was a tough negotiator, so we had some great deals!  I bought Caitlyn her first piece of jewelry, a pearl necklace.  I figured that a rock star needs some bling!

As a final note, I learned one more important fact about China:  unfortunately, Chinese parents don't teach their kids when they go to the beach that if they dig really deep they'll reach America.  Oh well.