Beautiful Beijing

From Beijing

I've been working on a photo album for our trip (my first attempt at a digital album, and I love it!), and I realized I never posted these pictures taken around the city.

We were really expecting LOTS of people and LOTS of traffic, and we were NOT expecting interesting modern architecture! We were very impressed with the looks of Beijing (at least the parts we saw), and there were not the crowds we expected (we understand the government restricted who was allowed in the city). It seemed like Beijing did not want to miss any opportunity to decorate for the Olympics. There were colorful logos and signs everywhere!

Also, if you'd like to read more about the trip and see some great photos, a gal from our trip has a blog you might be interested in - it's fastmamafrog.edublog.org.

From Beijing

From Beijing

From Beijing

From Beijing

From Beijing

From Beijing

From Beijing

More Funny Food Pictures

Here are a few funny shots of Nathan trying the food in China. First, let me point out that none of my kids are very adventurous eaters. It took a lot of convincing to get Nathan to try this dumpling. Note the glass of water in his hand to wash it down - as if he was taking medicine or something!

From funny

It didn't take much convincing to get him to try the crab claw, as he really enjoys seafood, but he couldn't resist hamming it up for the photo!

From funny

Entertainment at the Temple of Heaven

From Temple of Heaven

When we went to the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, it was on a Sunday. There were many local folks there entertaining each other. I thought at first that they were entertaining as a money-making enterprise, but Tom told us that this is just a place they go to express themselves. I never saw a hat out or anything - of course, I'm not sure if this would be allowed anyway in a communist country?

This young couple was dancing -

From Temple of Heaven

This man was singing in very high voice -

From Temple of Heaven

When I asked our guide what the man was singing about he told me, "Long ago in China it was illegal for a girl to be an actor. Men played the girl part. After doing this a long time, men forget that they are men and think they are women. This is what has happened to this man." Not really what I was asking, but it did give me some insight into a few other things we saw.

An accordion player -

From Temple of Heaven

Some sort of martial arts -

From Temple of Heaven

A game between father and son -

From Temple of Heaven

And what was the most entertaining to me - the children -

From Temple of Heaven

And I'm sure we foreigners were a bit entertaining to them, too -

From Temple of Heaven

Did You See Michael Phelps?

This has been by far the most common question we have had since returning. No, we did not see Michael Phelps! That would certainly have been exciting, but I understand that he left Beijing shortly after winning gold medal #8.

The only USA medalist we saw was Raj Bhavsar. He was a gymnast who won team bronze. We saw him while shopping at the USA House, and he posed for a picture with Nathan. Check out those biceps!

From athletes

The only other athletes we saw were all at the Great Wall.

Here is a Canadian rower:

From athletes

Some members of the USA skull team:

From athletes

And a wrestler from the USA:

From athletes

The athletes at the Great Wall all highly recommended taking the toboggan ride down. Panasonic wanted everyone to take the tram down because they were afraid the toboggan was unsafe - this was one of our few disappointments on the trip.

We also saw the entire Spanish olympic team in the Beijing airport the morning we were leaving. We spoke to one of the members of the Spanish men's basketball team (silver medal winners) who plays in the NBA. I didn't know his name - but he was one of the starters, he spoke English well, and he was tall! He had his bouquet of flowers from the medal ceremony in his luggage cart.

From athletes

When we were in the Tokyo airport, we spoke to the family of a member of the men's volleyball team (sister and mom). We have some video of that conversation.

The Golden Arches and the Golden Pavilion

Two things that I've wanted to blog about that really aren't related!

The Golden Arches

From McDonald's

One of the LiHD families asked us to take pictures of a McDonald's in China - including things that were on the menu. Unfortunately, we weren't able to complete this assignment in China. Panasonic took us to some really nice restaurants and we only saw McDonald's from our bus window.

However, we did see McDonald's in Japan. In fact, our taste buds were longing for American food by the time we arrived there. Unfortunately, we had committed to a boycott of McDonald's about a month ago(not because we don't like their food but because we disagree with some of their corporate agenda). Of course, that didn't keep us from going inside and making some pictures.

From McDonald's

From McDonald's

Much as we wanted to eat there, because of the boycott we opted instead for the Japanese version of fast food - Hotto Motto.

From McDonald's

They didn't have an English menu, but they did have these pictures to look at:

From McDonald's

In fact, we found that very typical in Japan. They nearly always had pictures on their menu and very often had actual bowls of food to look at in the window. This was very helpful to foreigners. I wish I could say that the pork curry I ended up with was wonderful, but I did find myself wishing for a Big Mac, especially since it was only the equivalent of $2:

From McDonald's

The last morning we were in Japan, Terry said we could forget about the boycott for just once and eat breakfast at the McDonald's that was around the corner from our hotel.

From McDonald's

Here's the breakfast menu:

From McDonald's

The kids had hot cakes,

From McDonald's

and they never tasted so good. Terry and I had McGriddles - yum!

The Golden Pavilion

From Golden Pavilion

I wanted to post some more pictures about interesting things we saw at the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto. We had hoped to learn a lot about Japanese and Chinese culture and beliefs on this trip. One thing that we saw were a lot of superstitions (or what we would call superstitions here - I'm not sure if this is part of actual Buddhist teaching or not). Anyway, there were all sorts of charms for sale at the temple. Some just struck us as a bit humorous. Remember that when something looks like it costs 400 yen, that's equivalent to about $4.00.

For success in study (wonder what the difference is between the $3 option and the $4 option?)-

From Golden Pavilion

To pass an examination (in case you don't think the one above will help?) -

From Golden Pavilion

For making your dreams come true -

From Golden Pavilion

For good health -

From Golden Pavilion

For traffic safety -

From Golden Pavilion

This fortune was sold vending-machine style:

From Golden Pavilion

After you purchased the fortune (see above picture), this is where you put them (assuming it wasn't excellent, pretty good, very good or good, which I must only assume is bad):

From Golden Pavilion

And no, I didn't buy one, I was just sort of staring in amazement.

And lastly (and unrelated), here is one of many pictures that Rebecca took of the beautiful children we saw on our trip:

From Golden Pavilion

Musical Fountain

Here's something you might not have seen in the Olympic coverage. This is a musical fountain at Chaoyang Park - the beach volleyball venue in Beijing. When Noah did a report as a school assignment before we left for the olympics, we discovered that there was a musical fountain there, but we weren't able to find out anymore about it. I told him I'd video it if we saw it, so here it is. I can't tell what the lyrics are, but it does sound oriental. This is in sharp contrast to music they played inside the beach volleyball stadium - it was American rock and roll.

Musical Fountain at Olympics @ Yahoo! Video

Beijing Airport

From Beijing Airport

We had so many things to share when we first arrived in China that I forgot to post these pictures. The new Beijing airport terminal was amazing! We arrived at about 9:15 pm and were surprised to see it so deserted - this was not what we expected at all!

From Beijing Airport

This electronic olympic mascot was near the baggage claim area.

From Beijing Airport

And this picture was taken late on the day we arrived. We were in the elevator on the way to our room and thought the glass ceiling would make a neat shot.

From Beijing Airport

Highlights from Kyoto

Here are a few comments and highlights from our time in Kyoto (which is like Tokyo spelled inside-out).

From Kyoto

One of the things we enjoyed was renting bikes and riding all over town. It was a little scary at times, but all the pedestrians, cars and other bikers got out of the way and we survived!

We rode the bikes to the Golden Pavilion,

From Kyoto

and then to the Imperial Palace where we took a tour.

From Kyoto

You couldn't go in the buildings, but we had a tour guide who taught us a lot. It was interesting that there was far less color used on the buildings than what we saw in China. I thought the gardens were the most impressive sight as the buildings started to all look the same after a while.

From Kyoto

The next day we visited one of the many Buddhist temples in Kyoto.

From Buddhist Temple

Kyoto is supposedly the spiritual capital of Japan, and this was a working temple. The following pictures show a few of the hoops that you have to jump through to get your prayers answered in this belief system.

From Buddhist Temple

From Buddhist Temple

From Buddhist Temple

And here is the Japanese version of voodoo -

From Buddhist Temple

Rebecca and I thought this display was interesting. Apparently when they offer food to the gods, they put bibs on them -

From Buddhist Temple

The highlight of our second day in Kyoto was a visit to a studio where you could be made up as a geisha or samurai. It was hard for Nathan to be extremely convincing as a samurai without facial hair, but Rebecca's transformation was striking. I think these photos show that they had a lot of fun.

From geisha

From geisha

From geisha

From geisha

From geisha

From geisha