Beijing Zoo, Bai Hai Park and Summer Palace

This will be the last post about China. We decided that the boys may get a little bored because of all the walking around Beijing looking at historical things we had been doing and so we decided to take them to the zoo and aquarium at least to get wiggles out and since we were in China, why not make sure that we actually see some Panda Bears. The zoo was just alright, and they did have about four Pandas. But the aquarium that they also had there was a hit it was new and updated. They had a dolphin, seal and whale show (not quite Sea World, but not horrible either) pretty interesting to watch the entire show in Chinese. Isaiah loved watching the jelly fish and just sat there in a daze. The next day we took the boys to the Silk Market and then at night we took the boys to a fun little restaurant. It is a six course meal that you don't know what you are going to be served until you get there. We decided that we would be a little adventurous and try it and hope that fish wasn't on the menu. Well, we all did try some fish and usually shrimp is a hit with the boys but when the eyes were still attached and looking at them, they hardly touched them as well. It was fun and a unique experience. This we all did riding the $.32 subways. The next day we decided to take the boys to the Bai Hai Park. Beautiful, but just a really big walking park. Not as fun for the boys. We also took them to a Confucius Temple pretty but not so fun. In the temple the boys got bombarded by quite a lot of teenage children and the boys were loving that. We then took them to a Chinese acrobatic show that the boys just loved. We were very tired that evening and the boys slept well. Our last day in Beijing we took the boys to the Summer Palace. This by far was the boys' favorite day. The palace grounds were beautiful, but they also had some areas where the boys were able to climb rock stairs into caves and different areas of the palace. It was so large and it took us all day to explore. The boys even found some Chinese soldiers who graciously let our boys take pictures with them. There was a bridge at the palace where there were quite a few people were out with some serious kite flying gear. The boys loved watching one gentleman getting his kite started. As we were about to leave we found a cute little man who had a little calligraphy stand and we had him write each of the boys names out. What a fun time we had.

China Part 2 (Great Wall)

Our second day in China we headed up to the Great Wall at the Mutianyu section of the wall. It is supposed to be the least crowded and we had to convince our driver that this is the area that we wanted to go to. It is quite a distance away, but not as many tourists go there and so that was our choice. Which makes for a longer day for the driver. We were able to take the ski lift up to the top of the mountain and saved ourselves the 40 minute hike to the top. It was such a beautiful day and we chose the perfect day to go. The views were breathtaking and we had a blast exploring the wall. We were told that this section's construction was started in 200 BC. They have just had to maintain it so that the visitors can enjoy it now. There are some areas of the wall that haven't been maintained and so no visitors are allowed to climb. Our section was amazing and to think that there is a marathon on the wall makes me cry for them. They would have to train stairs because half of the wall was stairs and uneven ones at that. The boys had a blast and there were times when we all just had to stop and rest. There were even remnants of old weaponry and where they were able to guard the invaders. We hiked for about 2.5 hours and were definitely pooped by the time we were finished. This day the boys didn't get their photos taken by the Chinese; it was by their mom, and I just couldn't resist, they are just too handsome. We also were able to take an alpine slide ride down to the bottom which was the highlight for the boys. We were also taken out to lunch and to three different factories: the pot factory, silk factory and the pearl factory. We were even taken to the Olympic bird's nest. We had a great day and definitely slept well that night!