Our morning started off with a visit to the Summer Palace. I've been to the Summer Palace twice before and it looked totally the same. M has really started to enjoy the trip and she finally was very interested in seeing everything around her. We did go to a different 
area within the summer palace that I haven't been to before called Suzhou (probably spelled wrong) Street. Basically it is an area with lots of little buildings surrouding a man made little lake. The buildings housed a bunch of little shops that sold a lot of the same kind of souvenir stuff that you can find in Guangzhou (stuff that I already had plenty of so I didn't buy anything). After the Summer Palace we headed to an area where you can see the new Arena (The Bird's Nest) and Water complex (Water Cube) that they 
built for the Summer Olympics. We then headed to lunch at a Mongolian Hot Pot restaurant. I do have to say that of all the meals that I've had in China
, this was my favorite. I've never had Hot Pot before and thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it. M even had fun cooking (she didn't eat much though) the meats in her Hot Pot. After lunch we went to a tea shop where we were able to try 4 different types of tea. On all of my previous trips I have never purchased any tea(I bought tea pots but no tea) so this time I splurged. I bought a large container of Oolong tea because it was the one tea that I thought I would probably like to drink a lot more of and it tasted more similar to teas here in the US. 
The Birds Nest (Olympic Stadium)Since this was t
he Eve of Chinese New Year, we were scheduled to have dinner at a local families home. We went to the home of Michael Han's (the owner of Always and Forever Homeland Adoption tours) sister and mother. I really think the home was not the typical Chinese family because it was actually very nice and large, not what I thought most homes were like. I believe the family is one of the "rich" Chinese. They actually lived in a 2 story Single Family home that had lots of rooms and a well equiped Kitchen. They even had 2 large flat screen TVs. I was also kind of surprised at how all the activities took place. The dinner was more informal that I thought because not everyone sat down at the table at the same time to eat (I envisioned the dinner to be similar to our Thanksgiving dinners but it wasn't). They had a young son and he just sat at the table long enough to eat a little and then left. The mom didn't sit down right away either. There was lots of variety of food and everything was very good (M of course didn't eat much again). The Dad did set off fireworks periodically throughout
the evening. There are no laws governing the type
of fireworks individuals could set off so some pretty powerful fireworks were set off all over the city. M. was having a hard time throughout the evening mainly because the family didn't speak English and she just felt out of place. She had a mini breakdown in a spare bedroom because the family thought she might want to take a rest and she really didn't want to be in the room (it was tough to say no when you really couldn't communicate that well). M. did recover well enough to be a good girl the rest of the evening. We didn't stay until midnight because M was getting very tired. On the way back to the hotel, the local people were just setting off fireworks all over the place. M and I didn't stay awake until Midnight but I was awakened many times with all the noise of the fireworks until late in the morning.
he Eve of Chinese New Year, we were scheduled to have dinner at a local families home. We went to the home of Michael Han's (the owner of Always and Forever Homeland Adoption tours) sister and mother. I really think the home was not the typical Chinese family because it was actually very nice and large, not what I thought most homes were like. I believe the family is one of the "rich" Chinese. They actually lived in a 2 story Single Family home that had lots of rooms and a well equiped Kitchen. They even had 2 large flat screen TVs. I was also kind of surprised at how all the activities took place. The dinner was more informal that I thought because not everyone sat down at the table at the same time to eat (I envisioned the dinner to be similar to our Thanksgiving dinners but it wasn't). They had a young son and he just sat at the table long enough to eat a little and then left. The mom didn't sit down right away either. There was lots of variety of food and everything was very good (M of course didn't eat much again). The Dad did set off fireworks periodically throughout
the evening. There are no laws governing the type
of fireworks individuals could set off so some pretty powerful fireworks were set off all over the city. M. was having a hard time throughout the evening mainly because the family didn't speak English and she just felt out of place. She had a mini breakdown in a spare bedroom because the family thought she might want to take a rest and she really didn't want to be in the room (it was tough to say no when you really couldn't communicate that well). M. did recover well enough to be a good girl the rest of the evening. We didn't stay until midnight because M was getting very tired. On the way back to the hotel, the local people were just setting off fireworks all over the place. M and I didn't stay awake until Midnight but I was awakened many times with all the noise of the fireworks until late in the morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment