What an amazing two weeks we had over Easter. The Turner 5 and Kaehler 2 (my Mum and Dad) embarked on an 11 night/12 day tour around China that turned out to be 1000 times better than any of us could have expected. For starters, not one of us was sick (other than air sick one day but one out of five flights ain't bad) and we even risked life and limb to have the odd salad and piece of fruit. Secondly, as long as we had our own packet of tissues and good quadrilaterals we managed the public squat toilets with ease. Finally, the sights were even better than we'd imagined.
Let the "Slide Night" begin...
Our trip began in Beijing, clear but cold we set out for the Temple of Heaven. It was a great start to the adventure and although we were a bit chilly we appreciated the temple and our fellow temple goers appreciated us (seen here in the first of many photos of the Turner Minors currently on show in thousands of living rooms across China in their own Slide Nights!).
Day 2 was my main purpose in going. After viewing the Ming Tombs and a few other thousand year old things we spent an awesome afternoon at the Great Wall. It was clear and crisp but not too cold as we hiked to the highest point of the restored section we'd driven to, about 90 mins from Beijing city. I made everyone pose several times at several locations to get the frameable shot. I was delighted with the many options and I don't think 200 photos in 2 hours is too many!! To our surprise we had the entire Wall to ourselves, in fact our guide had to leg it back to the Cable Car so they didn't turn it off and go home as we were in danger of being left there, just the 7 of us.
Day 3 was Tienanmen Square (where we got to fly a kite), ######### City and the Summer Palace...I could go on about every day but I'm sure you have to do something important soon so I'll skip ahead.
Day 4 we flew to Xi'an in the West of China before on Day 5 we saw, again among a 1500 year old Pagoda (built by Tripitaka of "Monkey" fame, don't say you don't remember the English dubbed Chinese made show on ABC in the 80's) and a 6000 year old Neolithic Village we saw the astounding Terracotta Warriors (now classed as the 8th Wonder of the World). If you're not familiar with it - in 1974, peasants digging a well discovered fragments of what they thought were pieces of pottery. 33 years later you can walk around 3 specialised sheds covering the untouched to completely restored forms of over 7000 greater than life sized terracotta warriors. These were built by the first Emperor of China, Qin, 2000 years ago to serve as his army in his afterlife. We were there on Good Friday and it paralleled that Qin and his army, although some of them now visible to us were long dead and buried as opposed to Jesus, who after just three days returned to claim his after-life as the Forever King of God's Army.
Day 6, after checking out the Great Wall of Xi'an, very nice but a tad on the small size as walls in China are concerned, we flew to Guilin in the South. Not knowing much about the area we were stunned by the beauty of the 44,000 uniquely shaped mountains surrounding the city and the Li river. We cruised the latter on Day 7 and Dad took great pleasure in taking the mickey out of our first grumpy guide (our previous two had been great). Just ask Dad about the nuts of the osmanthus and the mist...
Day 8, a few more sights in and around Guilin, including Jack's opportunity to hold a monkey (still praying for protection from disease!) before flying on to Shanghai that night.
Day 9, we swept around the Jade Buddha Temple, Shanghai Museum, etc as we saw the city that has grown from around 1 million to 13 million in less than 100 years. This photo shows an area called Pudong - not one of these buildings existed 20 years ago.
Day 10, with the official tour finished, the Turner 5 visited the McLachlan 3 and the Kaehler 2 stayed on in the hotel for a couple more nights. The highlight of this day was watching Mum and Dad do ballroom dancing in Zhong Shan Park with the many other retirees - it is a National past time in any open air area, especially in Shanghai. That night Rob Mac and the Turner 5 experienced the stupendous acrobatic troupe of Shanghai as the performers did feats no-one should try at home.
Day 11, the gang got back together for a trip to Zhouzhuang using Rob and Rachel's driver. Imagine Venice as a small fishing village in China and that's where we were. Although we had the worst food here of the whole trip (aside from the Pork Knuckle which Harry swore by) we lived to tell the tale and loved our last full day on the Mainland.
Day 12, we waved our goodbyes to Rob and Rach and the many tourist trinket vendors who laughed every time we said "Bu Yao" (I don't need it) in our Aussie accents.
In a nutshell (but not an osmanthus one) China is a must see and if you didn't know the truth you'd think it was the best country on earth.
Now, get back to work, or sleep or whatever it is you're supposed to be doing! Love Jules.
What an amazing two weeks we had over Easter. The Turner 5 and Kaehler 2 (my Mum and Dad) embarked on an 11 night/12 day tour around China that turned out to be 1000 times better than any of us could have expected. For starters, not one of us was sick (other than air sick one day but one out of five flights ain't bad) and we even risked life and limb to have the odd salad and piece of fruit. Secondly, as long as we had our own packet of tissues and good quadrilaterals we managed the public squat toilets with ease. Finally, the sights were even better than we'd imagined.
Let the "Slide Night" begin...
Our trip began in Beijing, clear but cold we set out for the Temple of Heaven. It was a great start to the adventure and although we were a bit chilly we appreciated the temple and our fellow temple goers appreciated us (seen here in the first of many photos of the Turner Minors currently on show in thousands of living rooms across China in their own Slide Nights!).
Day 2 was my main purpose in going. After viewing the Ming Tombs and a few other thousand year old things we spent an awesome afternoon at the Great Wall. It was clear and crisp but not too cold as we hiked to the highest point of the restored section we'd driven to, about 90 mins from Beijing city. I made everyone pose several times at several locations to get the frameable shot. I was delighted with the many options and I don't think 200 photos in 2 hours is too many!! To our surprise we had the entire Wall to ourselves, in fact our guide had to leg it back to the Cable Car so they didn't turn it off and go home as we were in danger of being left there, just the 7 of us.
Day 3 was Tienanmen Square (where we got to fly a kite), ######### City and the Summer Palace...I could go on about every day but I'm sure you have to do something important soon so I'll skip ahead.
Day 4 we flew to Xi'an in the West of China before on Day 5 we saw, again among a 1500 year old Pagoda (built by Tripitaka of "Monkey" fame, don't say you don't remember the English dubbed Chinese made show on ABC in the 80's) and a 6000 year old Neolithic Village we saw the astounding Terracotta Warriors (now classed as the 8th Wonder of the World). If you're not familiar with it - in 1974, peasants digging a well discovered fragments of what they thought were pieces of pottery. 33 years later you can walk around 3 specialised sheds covering the untouched to completely restored forms of over 7000 greater than life sized terracotta warriors. These were built by the first Emperor of China, Qin, 2000 years ago to serve as his army in his afterlife. We were there on Good Friday and it paralleled that Qin and his army, although some of them now visible to us were long dead and buried as opposed to Jesus, who after just three days returned to claim his after-life as the Forever King of God's Army.
Day 6, after checking out the Great Wall of Xi'an, very nice but a tad on the small size as walls in China are concerned, we flew to Guilin in the South. Not knowing much about the area we were stunned by the beauty of the 44,000 uniquely shaped mountains surrounding the city and the Li river. We cruised the latter on Day 7 and Dad took great pleasure in taking the mickey out of our first grumpy guide (our previous two had been great). Just ask Dad about the nuts of the osmanthus and the mist...
Day 8, a few more sights in and around Guilin, including Jack's opportunity to hold a monkey (still praying for protection from disease!) before flying on to Shanghai that night.
Day 9, we swept around the Jade Buddha Temple, Shanghai Museum, etc as we saw the city that has grown from around 1 million to 13 million in less than 100 years. This photo shows an area called Pudong - not one of these buildings existed 20 years ago.
Day 10, with the official tour finished, the Turner 5 visited the McLachlan 3 and the Kaehler 2 stayed on in the hotel for a couple more nights. The highlight of this day was watching Mum and Dad do ballroom dancing in Zhong Shan Park with the many other retirees - it is a National past time in any open air area, especially in Shanghai. That night Rob Mac and the Turner 5 experienced the stupendous acrobatic troupe of Shanghai as the performers did feats no-one should try at home.
Day 11, the gang got back together for a trip to Zhouzhuang using Rob and Rachel's driver. Imagine Venice as a small fishing village in China and that's where we were. Although we had the worst food here of the whole trip (aside from the Pork Knuckle which Harry swore by) we lived to tell the tale and loved our last full day on the Mainland.
Day 12, we waved our goodbyes to Rob and Rach and the many tourist trinket vendors who laughed every time we said "Bu Yao" (I don't need it) in our Aussie accents.
In a nutshell (but not an osmanthus one) China is a must see and if you didn't know the truth you'd think it was the best country on earth.
Now, get back to work, or sleep or whatever it is you're supposed to be doing! Love Jules.
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