Happy New Year from China

Writing a new year’s blog post when we are on the kind of adventure that we are on is complicated.  Every time we transition to a new site we are ending one chapter and beginning another. Each new site we see, culture we experience, language we hear, person we meet is an opportunity for challenge and renewal. Each day is its own kind of resolution.  So instead of trying to sum up our year before this adventure is even over, I thought I’d catch you up on our time in mainland China since Greg’s post about Christmas in Shanghai.

On December 26^th we woke bright and early to catch our flight to Xi’an (home of the Terra Cotta Warriors). The atrocious air quality delayed our flight such that we were unable to make it to the Provincial Museum, but we still enjoyed a walk on top of the old city wall and a great dumpling dinner.  After dinner, Greg and I left the kids in their hotel room and ventured out to a night market with a couple of students.  It was a wonderful stroll through narrow streets filled with food vendors and trinket hawkers.  The streets spread out from a central mosque, so there was a strong Islamic influence in the market.  It felt wonderfully familiar and new all at the same time.

 

A delicious dumpling dinner

The Xi'an street market

On December 27^th, we spent the day marveling at the site of the Terra Cotta Warriors.  I was excited to see them, had learned a little from Greg and James (who were REALLY excited to see them), and had even looked at a few images to try to understand why they were such a big deal, but I was completely unprepared for the enormity of the project.  There are thousands of these life size sculptures – each one unique.  Many of the bodies were cast from molds, but each face was individually crafted to look distinct.  They were absolutely, stunningly amazing.  The other part of the site that amazed me was to see the condition in which the Warriors were discovered – smashed to bits by marauding peasants who were angry with the Emperor.  The current task of putting each Warrior back together is utterly monumental.  Most of the Warriors are on display in these giant buildings that were built up and around the dig sites.  If you’ve ever been to the Mammoth sites in South Dakota, where they are still excavating and tourists get to see the process, then you have a small idea of what the Warrior sites are like.  Grace and James recorded a video that we’ll post from Seoul once we get it all edited!

row upon row of warriors

On December 28^th we transitioned yet again, traveling to Beijing.  We arrived in the early afternoon and started our four-day whirlwind tour of this amazing city. It would take hours to describe everything we’ve seen, but the list goes something like this: the Temple of Heaven; Tiananmen Square (where I cried remembering the events of June 1989 – events our tour guide mentioned while telling us that he isn’t allowed to talk about them); the Forbidden City and Coal Hill Park (where we should have had a gorgeous view of the Forbidden City but the smog was so bad that we just saw rooftops peaking through the haze); a pedicab tour of the Hutong District (complete with a stop at an artist’s residence); a spectacular day climbing the Badaling section of the Great Wall (climbing up both the north and south sides, we counted 1114 stairs going up – which doesn’t quite capture just how much we climbed that day!); the Summer Palace; the Olympic Park; an acrobatic show; and a Peking Duck dinner. 

Grace really grasped the Temple of Heaven

Tiananmen Square

The Forbidden City as seen through the smog

A beautiful day on the Great Wall

Tomorrow, New Year’s Day, we will be heading to the Beijing Zoo to see James’ beloved pandas.  And then we are off to Seoul.  It is easy to get caught up in the listing and picture taking and forget to be present in the moment sometimes, but I think we are doing our best to soak in as much as we possibly can these days (except for the smog, of course).  I am extremely grateful for a life-changing 2015, and I look forward to all the new adventures that 2016 will bring.  Happy New Year!