Shanghai - by Graham

We went to Shanghai today. It was a two and a half hour drive to there, but it was worth it. the bustling city is quite beautiful, even though the salespeople keep bugging us. Oh well.

P.S. are trip ends on Thursday, so this is the third to last post.


P.S.S. we won't be able to see your posts, but you can ask us questions starting Thursday night. Still, keep posting!!!!

On the Road Again

Today was fairly exciting, as we left Xian for Xiangzhou via plane immdiatly after an early breakfast, eating lunch on the plane. Arriving in the early afternoon, we first toured a educational, if sweltering museum of ancient chinese medicine before enjoying shopping in a nearby makertplace. After retiring for a rest hour in our very nice hotel, we then went to a nearby restaurant for a wonderful dinner. After polishing off the meal, we returned to our rooms and killed an hour watching a chinese children's show which seemed to mix Barney-esque characters with a reality TV system for a suprisingly intense program!

Today we visited the Summer Place along with 60,000 other Beijingers on May 1st a national holiday in Communist China. The ride on the dragon boat was the highlight. The park was beautiful although it was hazy with smog that accumulated after the winds died down the evening before.

Graham enjoys exploring the jade factory/museum. Here is is checking out a huge jade sailing ship. Most of the prices were a bit out of our league but we learned a lot about jade. Do you know that hard jade is almost as hard as a diamond?

We enjoyed speeding through the narrow alleys of a Beijing neighborhood by rickshaw and having lunch in a local home. Although we only met the resident briefly she told us a bit about her life style in Beijing. Her home has running water, but no septic hook up - so she must visit the public facility when nature calls. The food was good, although I prefer it when the food isn't looking back at me.

The Temple of Heaven may be everyone's favorite spot so far. It's located in a large park in Beijing and this morning it was filled with friendly people. Lots of locals were there playing games, ribbon dancing, ballroom dancing, and practicing all sorts of martial arts. If you stopped a watched for a minute or two, they were sure to ask you to join them! Lots of Chinese tourists were there too and they all wanted to have their pictures taken with Graham and An Lee. As soon as the camera snapped one photo, the Chinese person would jump away and before Graham and An Lee could move two more would jump in for another photograph! The kids were a little baffled, but they seemed to enjoy the movie star attention. The temple itself was impressively large and beautiful and it emitted a real sense of tranquility.

The Great Wall is certainly aptly named. We hiked about a mile in one direction today (mostly up, as Graham mentioned) and then a mile back. Hard to believe that the whole thing was started 2500 years ago and it was finished before Columbus sailed.

Graham and An Lee had certainly given everyone a sense of our trip so far - lots of adventure, and not all of it on the itenerary! Yesterday we went to Tian'an Men square and the Imperial Palace. The kids were coaxed into posing before the Chairman Mao Museum. The sights were all fantastic! If you were born in the Imperial Palace and visted a new room every day of your life then you would reach the final room as a 24 year old (over 8000 rooms!) .

How I BECAME a country-wide phenomimon - by Graham

We visited the great wall today. After actually getting on top of it, we began to climb. The thing was, was that the path was slanted at a 70 degree angle. As you might of guessed, that made climbing it that much harder.*streaches arms*Also their was incredibly steep steps. Though thing that bothered us the most was the salespeople. I swear, there must have been at least 50 salespeople atop of the wall. What I enjoyed was when random people came up to us and asked me to have a picture taken with them. I don't mean to brag, but I made 12 bucks having people taking my picture. Hey, what can you say, I am THAT good. We also visited the temple of heaven, which was really cool. Not to mention the jade factory we went to. There were some jade animals bigger then me!!!!!!!! Those ones were usually about 800,000 dollers, and I am not exacterating. By the way, we FINALLY got our luggage back today. After we saw the great wall, we went to a resterant to eat. Truth to be told, it stinked. Oh well.

Dinner - by An Lee

Well today me and my family and the others went out for dinner.There was a big blue spinner that they put food on.We would spin the disc,to get the food.The first dish was tofu in a sauce,I thought it was fantstic!!The second dish was chicken with vegetables , I didn't really like that.I forget the rest but there was this one dish that no one knew what it was so my brother John sipped some and at first he thought it was cabbage juice,andsome one else thought it was dish water but we asked a waiter and it turned out that it was a kind of soup. I forget what kind but it was funny, and now we are back at our hotel.

The Wrath of the Cotton - by Graham

We just got back from exploring in Beijing, and it was preatty nice. First, we headed over to the forbiden city, which was amazing. It had many great views. After that, we went to a local house to have a deliousous lunch.We then went sight-seeing, and went to places like a drum tower with painful steps, and a school where kindergardeners did a kung fu presentation, which was interesting, mostly because some of them looked like they were dancing. We also got to be driven around in ricksaws, which means we got on these couches while people drove us around. I have to say though, that throught the whole day, cotton was falling out of the cotton trees at A mad pace. I kept getting them in my eyes and my mouth!!!!!!! Well, all together, we had a preatty nice day. :-)

Though I have to say, I'm beat.

the morning- by Graham

We just got out of bed, and practically everybody except me is nausiated. It was probably from the plane... :-P. The view from our window is beautiful, and it is VERY fun to watch shows that are in a different language.*laughs*. We are just about to head down to breakfest, and I hope the food will be as good as last night's.

things could be better.........-by Graham

Well, yesterday morning, nearly all of us got up at 6:00. After flying over to NYC, we started to fly to Beijing, not knowing that we left our luggage behind. The flight was terrible! A baby was crying for the whole 14 hours, the food tasted terrible, and they took you in such a complex path, you would nearly barf! Oh well, thing will hopefully be better tommarow.

things could be better.........-by Graham

The Midnight Sun gets old around 11

We've arrived in Bejing, currently twelve hours ahead of exeter time, after a plane route involving a baby crying for the full duration of the flight (an admirable lung capacity) and a north pole detour, so the sun never set. Exhausted and nauseous, we arived to find our luggage back in NYC......*sigh* But we're at the hotel and we've eaten, so things are looking up!

Whew! A busy day of last minute details. Errands, packing, getting the pets settled. As you can see we've all been working very hard!

Tomorrow we set off!!

This concept is new for the Johnsons', please be patient with us. We are traveling to China for our first family tour of Asia. There is much anxiety about the trip, yet we are hopeful...

We will be posting all the news when (or if) we find internet availability.

This is a test.