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We had about a month off for Spring Festival, so we used the time to travel. Katrina's cousin Chance, flew out to visit us, and the three of us spent a couple weeks in Beijing, Qingdao, Tai Shan, and Fenyang.
Chatotoro in front of St. Somebody's Cathedral on Wangfujing, a shopping street in Beijing.
Hey! We're in a city!
Katrina doing her photographer thing at an aquarium in Beijing.
She's got a thing for tentacles (see her blog for pictures of the dizzying array of things-on-sticks that we could have eaten (I had lamb)).
Look! China!
We picked up Katrina's cousin, Chance, at the airport and the three of us took a bus to Qingdao (home of Tsingtao beer), known as the Bavaria of China. Our bus left Beijing at 5:30 pm, so we thought that maybe it would arrive around 6:00 am and we would have the whole day to explore the city. Instead, we arrived in Qingdao at around 2:30 am and were it not for a very nice young man sitting next to Chance on the bus, we probably would have found ourselves stuck in the cold and the dark for a few hours before we managed to find our hostel.
Katrina and Chance in the revolving viewing station at the top of a hill.
Katrina on top of the hill practicing the xun, a black clay egg-shaped flutey instrument.
Chance is contemplating the city.
Now Chance is contemplating the fish. The Qingdao aquarium was much more impressive than the one we saw in Beijing.
Sunset on the Qingdao beach. We spent a while walking on the sand collecting shells and worn pieces of glass and leaky old batteries.
The view of the city from behind our hostel. The hostel was almost impossible to find; it was on top of observatory hill (it is the site of the first observatory in China), and even with a map, our taxi drivers usually ended up dropping us off at the bottom of the hill because they didn't know how to drive up. The views were excellent, though.
Katrina at the beginning of our trek up Tai Shan, one of the most famous mountains in China.
The view from part way up. It was a foggy, hazy day, so about halfway up we lost sight of the ground. We did eventually get up above the fog, though, and the top of the mountain was pretty clear.
Strong like ox.
Frozen waterfall and carven poetry.
There aren't many pictures of Chance on the mountain. He had all that youthful energy and he kept running up ahead a few hundred steps.
Whoo! Top of the mountain.
After a few days in Fenyang for Spring Festival, we headed back to Beijing to take Chance to the airport. We briefly visited the Great Wall, but it was freezing and windy and packed with people, so we didn't stay long this time.
Katrina says, "I'm so hot in that picture!" She likes her big hair. (the cousins in Tiananmen Square)
The gate of heavenly peace, glowing.
I'm there, too!
Sunshine! Blue sky! Everything in Beijing was much cleaner than anything we had seen in a million years.
Before the gate.
In the Forbidden City. It looks like a photo of architecture, but really it's all about the pigeons.
We never actually knew what we were looking at; this is the gate to something, and plenty of other tourists were taking their pictures there, so we figured it was a good idea.
Pretty.
Oh noes! Eternal loss of beauty!
Although the self-heating meal seemed like an irresistibly good idea before be bought it, in the end it turned out to be gross. Really, really gross.
I'm warming my hands on the steam from the meal.
The back of the Forbidden City.
Candied pineapple on a stick!
Delicious!
We visited a temple where a Spring Festival carnival was winding down. We bought some slightly oversized coins to throw at...
a bell in the center of a much bigger coin. If we rang the bell, we'd get a wish. I never managed to, but Katrina did once (she's since forgotten what she wished for, so I'm going to assume that it came true).
Chatotoro in front of St. Somebody's Cathedral on Wangfujing, a shopping street in Beijing.
Hey! We're in a city!
Katrina doing her photographer thing at an aquarium in Beijing.
She's got a thing for tentacles (see her blog for pictures of the dizzying array of things-on-sticks that we could have eaten (I had lamb)).
Look! China!
We picked up Katrina's cousin, Chance, at the airport and the three of us took a bus to Qingdao (home of Tsingtao beer), known as the Bavaria of China. Our bus left Beijing at 5:30 pm, so we thought that maybe it would arrive around 6:00 am and we would have the whole day to explore the city. Instead, we arrived in Qingdao at around 2:30 am and were it not for a very nice young man sitting next to Chance on the bus, we probably would have found ourselves stuck in the cold and the dark for a few hours before we managed to find our hostel.
Katrina and Chance in the revolving viewing station at the top of a hill.
Katrina on top of the hill practicing the xun, a black clay egg-shaped flutey instrument.
Chance is contemplating the city.
Now Chance is contemplating the fish. The Qingdao aquarium was much more impressive than the one we saw in Beijing.
Sunset on the Qingdao beach. We spent a while walking on the sand collecting shells and worn pieces of glass and leaky old batteries.
The view of the city from behind our hostel. The hostel was almost impossible to find; it was on top of observatory hill (it is the site of the first observatory in China), and even with a map, our taxi drivers usually ended up dropping us off at the bottom of the hill because they didn't know how to drive up. The views were excellent, though.
Katrina at the beginning of our trek up Tai Shan, one of the most famous mountains in China.
The view from part way up. It was a foggy, hazy day, so about halfway up we lost sight of the ground. We did eventually get up above the fog, though, and the top of the mountain was pretty clear.
Strong like ox.
Frozen waterfall and carven poetry.
There aren't many pictures of Chance on the mountain. He had all that youthful energy and he kept running up ahead a few hundred steps.
Whoo! Top of the mountain.
After a few days in Fenyang for Spring Festival, we headed back to Beijing to take Chance to the airport. We briefly visited the Great Wall, but it was freezing and windy and packed with people, so we didn't stay long this time.
Katrina says, "I'm so hot in that picture!" She likes her big hair. (the cousins in Tiananmen Square)
The gate of heavenly peace, glowing.
I'm there, too!
Sunshine! Blue sky! Everything in Beijing was much cleaner than anything we had seen in a million years.
Before the gate.
In the Forbidden City. It looks like a photo of architecture, but really it's all about the pigeons.
We never actually knew what we were looking at; this is the gate to something, and plenty of other tourists were taking their pictures there, so we figured it was a good idea.
Pretty.
Oh noes! Eternal loss of beauty!
Although the self-heating meal seemed like an irresistibly good idea before be bought it, in the end it turned out to be gross. Really, really gross.
I'm warming my hands on the steam from the meal.
The back of the Forbidden City.
Candied pineapple on a stick!
Delicious!
We visited a temple where a Spring Festival carnival was winding down. We bought some slightly oversized coins to throw at...
a bell in the center of a much bigger coin. If we rang the bell, we'd get a wish. I never managed to, but Katrina did once (she's since forgotten what she wished for, so I'm going to assume that it came true).
