JUNE, JUNE, JUNE ... Time For Travel

Just warning you this is a long posting.  It include my trip to China.

Well, I started out the month doing some spring cleaning.  We hauled a lot of old stuff to the dump and started getting a room ready for John.   Jeph kind took over the basement, using a lot of the different rooms as an office and others for recording and etc.  So we had to recover one of the rooms and make it up again.
We went down to Alan & Jacqui's to give her some gifts to celebrate her birthday.  The kids were excited to see us.  Mostly the begging of the month was in preparation to go to China.

CHINA

We left on the 13th of June (Mon morning) and traveled about 17 hours and got to Hong Kong on June 14th (Tues night) We lost a whole day.  Derek was able to get us 1st Class tickets and it made it so much more tolerable.

We were exhausted and tired that first night by the time we checked into our hotel.  The taxi driver tried to take us to wrong hotel at first, but after talking to some people he finallly got it right.  The weather was way hot and way humid. yech!!!

HONG KONG SIGHTSEEING

We had a couple of days before we got to see John so we decided to get on one of those Hop On - Hop Off buses.  It took us all over and was a great way to see a lot in a couple of days.

We first went through Hong Kong.  Just seeing the buildings was amazing.  Everywhere you look it is skyscrapers.

We took the cable car up to the "The Peak" where you can get an overview of the harbor and see Kowloon. It was beautiful.

We also took the STAR Ferry over the harbor and picked up another "Hop On" bus to see Kowloon.  There in Kowloon is the tallest building in Hong Kong called the International Commerce Center.  It has an observation deck at the top so we paid the 20 bucks and went up.  It was lucky that we went that day because the rest of the time we were there the observation deck was above the clouds.  In the pictures below you can see the building we went up and then looking back towards Hong Kong.

There was this cool reproduction of the Hong Kong area under the glass in this hall way.  Derek is pointing to where we were staying and Mom is pointing to the building we were in.

By the way that day was my birthday, so we celebrated by going to "The Outback".  Yes, we opted for good ole steaks and potatoes, rather than Chinese.  We knew we were going to get plenty of that later on.  This was what passed as my Birthday cake.  It was okay, since we celebrated before we left with my kids and grandkids and that was great.











The next day was spent shopping at the Stanley Market in Stanley, it was a rainy day, but thankfully once we got inside the marketplace it was covered up.  This is a place where they have tons of individual spaces, like a street market.  We got some pretty good deals.  I wish we had had more time there, because we had a hard time finding a place like that for souveniers elsewhere.

Later in the day we found the consierge lounge in the Hotel.  Since Derek is a silver medallion or platinum or something like that, he gets privileges at all Marriots.  It was really nice, because our rooms didn't have much room to sit except on the beds and they had free hor's duerves and drinks.  Way cool!

And then we took to the streets to find something to eat and we came across a mexican place, so we said what the heck! Let's try it.  It was one of the best Mexican dinners I have had in a long time.  I only had to go to China for it. Hee! Hee!

Collecting Our Missionary

The long awaited day finally arrived.  I thought it would never come.  We were so excited and afraid we might get caught in traffic we got there way early and had to wait some more in the foyer of chapel connected to the Mission Home.  It was so good to get that hug from a son that has been away for 2 years.  I just didn't want to let go.  I will always remember those first hugs from my boys when I first saw them after their missions.

 Just a shot of the front of the Mission Office and John with President Chan and his wife. Also, one with my mom. It was quite a morning.  They fed us breakfast and there was lots of picture taking.  There were about 14 missionaries leaving to go home that day.  We weren't the only ones to come and pick our missionary either.  There was 3 other set of parents who came also. 

 The Hong Kong tempe is right across the street, so we took advantage of that and did a session with Elder Preece.  It is the first time I have had to wear headsets through a session.  We had been there before several years before when we visited Hong Kong with our first son, when we picked him up from his mission in the Philipines.  It was about the way I remembered, but I didn't remember wearing headsets.  John didn't, he understood everything.  Good for him.

The rest of the day was filled with shopping for clothes for Elder Preece.  He had given away most of his p-day clothes, so since we were going to tour for another 10 days, he needed some regular clothes.  I don't thing he wanted to wear a suit and tie the whole time.  He couldn't wear his nametag in Mainland China, so basically he was on an extended p-day.  We traveled around on the subway, and John had fun with my SLR Digital camera, which was fine with me, as I didn't want to haul it around.

Come evening we met up with some of the other families that were there picking up with their sons and ate dinner together at an outdoor restaurant. It was a very unique experience.  Some converts were invited and helped the missionaries order us some interesting dishes.  They were all really good.  This was our first authentic chinese dinner of our trip.

The next couple of days were filled with church, church and more church, J/K.  But we did actually go to 3 sacrament meetings in those two days.  On Saturday, John wanted to take us out to this area that has wild monkeys just running loose.  It took us some time to find the right bus and get out there, but it was an interesting experience walking the streets.  You are never sure what you will see.  We got to ride on the very top of one of those double deckers and it was fun being right there in the front, seeing everything.

The monkeys were really fun to watch and photograph.  Of course we weren't supposed to feed them, but right before we got there, somebody had given one an orange and so they were all gathered around, trying to fight for it.  Then they just kind of watched us for a while to see if we would give them something and then they finally ran after somebody new who showed up.

We rushed back to our hotel in time to make it to the International Branch that attends the Wan Chai building in Hong Kong.  They have sacrament meetings all week to accomodate the Philipina Sisters who are maids and don't get Sundays off from work.  They were a loving group of Sisters and wanted to take our pictures after the meeting.  I guess they do this all the time.  One lovely sister knew that some of the missionary mothers were going to be there, so she gave us all a bunch of roses.  It was so sweet.  I looked awful, because we had no time to get fixed up, because we had gone to see the Monkeys.  Oh well. I was so glad I went.  It was really good to see where my son and spent a lot of time on his mission.

 Below is a pictue of the Wan Chai building that the church owns there in downtown Hong Kong.  I think it is where the area presidency works from.  The room below was where the elders would bring the sisters back that they had contacted and teach them the gospel.

Later that evening we went to dinner with Derek's cousin Ronnie, who happens to live in Shenzhen, which is across the border in Mainland China. We were able to connect with him and he managed to travel the couple of hours to get there to visit with us.  I am sure it was good for him to visit with family and speak some english after being around Chinese speakers all the time.  We had a good visit.  We walked around town after dinner and found a cute little dessert shop and enjoyed some interesting combinations of ice cream and fruit.  It was fun.

FATHER'S DAY

Sunday was Father's Day, and we went to two sacrament meetings.  One was totally Chinese and we needed a translater, and the other was with another Philipina branch. The Chinese ward happened to be the home ward of John's Mission President and they happened to attend that day, so that was nice seeing them again.  In fact, their son translated for Mom and I, while John translated for Derek.  He sat behind us and and whispered to us as people talked.  You would think that it would be weird, but there were several others there, missionary families that were also translating, so there was a lot of murmuring. 

Anyway, we thought this young man was in his teens, but it turned out he was 27 and had served his mission in San Francisco.  That was why he could speak so well. 

This is Derek and John in front of the building that we attended.

As soon as we finished there, we caught a taxi, and rushed to get to the other ward that we wanted to attend.  It was a Philipina branch that actually is held on Sunday.  They were so happy to see us visiting and wanted to really stay for all the meetings and afterwards. 

They had a dinner prepared and activities for Father's Day.  So of course we stayed and it was one of the most enjoyable activities we had on our vacation.  It was wonderful talking to the sisters and getting to know them a bit.  We also got to visit with some of the couple missionaries and it just made us eager to go on our mission someday.

 They had us play some fun games and got us involved.  It was sort of the old telephone game.

The day was long, but was a highlight of our trip.  We had to get back to our rooms and get packed up to start our Mainland tour that would start in Shanghai. 

SHANGHAI

Our trip to Shanghai took forever.  As we sat on the plane for 2 hours before we even took off, I thought we were never going to get going on our tour.  But we finally made it.  I thought this picture Derek took says it all.  Check out the headline!
 

When we got to Shanghai, our tour guide wanted to start right away on sightseeing.  We didn't even get to freshen up at the hotel since it was out of the way.  I was not ready to go sightseeing, but we did it anyway. Shanghai is very modern and there is not much of old china to see here, but there is this old Garden set right in the middle of the town, that is a tourist attraction that we saw.  Interestingly the garden is not flowers and plants, but rocks and ponds.  But it was beautiful in it's own way.

We went into this silk worm factory and they showed us how they gather the silk from the worms and some of the things they make with it.  Of course it is a tourist trap and after the demonstration it opened into a big showroom, where you can buy their stuff.  Too expensive. 

 Then she took us to "The Bund" which is just the area along the river where you can see the cool skyline of Shanghai and there are a lot of old buildings.  Also we found out that they like to have some weird looking building.  These are just a few.

We spent a couple of days here, but the second day was kind of a rest day and some shopping.  We went back to the Yu Garden, because right outside the Garden were all kinds of souvenier shops and that was what we were looking for and our tour guide didn't give us time to shop there.

We did go to a cool acrobatic show on the following night, that we weren't supposed to take pictures of, but of course Mom did. Hee Hee! In the lower right pictures, they took a guy out of the audience and made him think they were throwing knives at him.  They had him blindfolded and the assistants would pop the balloons.  I think he was genuinely scared.  It was pretty funny. 

XIAN

 Xian is where the Terra Cotta Warriors are.  So I was excited to see them. We traveled there by airplane again.  Again, we were stuck on the plane for a couple of hours before it took off.  They were small planes and we even went out on the tarmac and boarded the old fashion way. 

So we got a new tour guide in Xian. She was cute, but a bit hard to understand. She took us to a Museum right off the bat.  It was interesting, but after awhile it began to become tedious and we were ready to move on.  It was raining that day, so it kind of cooled things off. The funny thing about the places they take you is, there is always a place to buy merchandise and it is usually way expensive. Oh well. 

Next we went to the Goose Pagoda.  I had no idea what this was going to be.  But it turned out to be some sort of temple set on these beautiful grounds. We got there right before it closed and it was raining and the grounds were really slick.  But we did have it to ourselves pretty much.

They had these funny looking characters all around.  And then this huge bell that if you hit it, it gives you good luck or something.

The Next day was our trip to the Terra Cotta Warriors. Of course we stopped at a factory on the way to see how they were probably made in ancient times.  They believe that they were originally painted like the ones in the pictures below.  Also, you can see the kiln where they fire all the little ones that they sell as souveniers. 

We had a chance to become Terra Cotta Warriors.  Don't we look fierce.  They also found that they made the bodies separate from the heads so they can put different heads on different types of bodies.

We finally got to the site.  It is a big place and they have done a really nice job preserving the warriors. It was a big hall.

They have 3 huge buildings that they have surrounded the different sites.  In the lowest picture is how they originally found them, and in the lower right is how broken up they all were.  Top left, you can see how they have pieced them together, and then on the Top right is the finished ones standing uprighted in the positions there were originally in.  They have so much more to excavate had repair. 

Later that evening we went to a Dumpling Dinner Show.  We were the first to arrive and we were all by ourselves for quite a while and then tour groups started showing up.  They brought basket after basket filled with different dumplings filled with all sorts of stuff. It was really good.  One of the weirdest things we got to eat were 1000 year old eggs.  I tried them.  Pretty good. (I don't think they are really 1,000 years old, because I survived.

After we all ate, they had this show of cultural dancing.  It was pretty spectacular.  I really like the lady with a thousand arms.  It was a stunning performance.  It was done with such precision, that you almost believed she had a thousand arms.

BEIJING

We left Xian and flew next to Beijing.  We were met by a male tour guide this time.  His name was Jessie and we really enjoyed him and our driver.  They were pretty funny and he really catered to our needs.  As soon as we got there we freshened up and took off immediately to see the Olympic Venue.  It was so neat to see where the Olympics were held.

After visiting the Olympic Venue Jessie took us to dinner and we found out that this combination was a common thing we got for dessert. Yes, watermelon and cherry tomatoes.  What a crackup.

Forbidden City

The next day was spent touring the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven.  We found that after awhile most things started looking the same.  But it was awesome to think we were somewhere I thought I would never be. 

 Jessie was pointing out the "Nails" or I would call them nobs on the doorway.  It symbolized royalty, 9 rows with 9 nails.  9 was a royal number and nobody was able to use the number nine, also they were not able to use the colors red or yellow, those colors were for royalty also.  Every doorstep or threshold that we went through had a step to step over.  It was thought it would keep out evil spirits.  On each corner of the buildings they had little sculptures and those represented something about how important the person was inside.  It was all very interesting and very symbolic. 

Next we went to the Temple of Heaven, but Jessie didn't like to call it that.  He said it is more like an altar of worship.  The Kings would go there to pray for good crops.

Along the grounds we came across many of the people out in the parks enjoying their Saturday.  It was so fun to watch them dance or to even interact with them.  On the left side is a tree growing within another tree.  Kind of odd.  Right below was a little girl who wanted to practice her english with mom.  She was so good.

We even got to try out the Chinese Medicine man.  Derek is getting a checkup by sticking out his tongue and having the guy feel his pulse.  This way he diagnoses you and prescribes herbs.  Which we ended up buying.  We'll see if they do any good.  By the way - this was not on the tour.  Our guide wanted us to go there.  I think he wanted us to get healthy.

  We saw another show that night, but no pictures, cuz they are copyrighted.

 The following Day was Sunday and we got to visit a ward in China.  They have Expat wards, that are separate from the actual Chinese wards.  They cannot interact.  Kind of weird.  But soon we hope the Church will have full recognition in Mainland China.  The meetings were held in an Office building, and we had the hardest time getting our Taxi Driver to understand that the Church we were going to was not in an actual church.  He kept telling us there is no church at this address, we assured him that it was okay to drop us off there.

After church we got to go on a ricshaw ride through the old "Hutongs". These are the old neighborhoods that have been preserved from old times right downtown.  Everything else is being replace by modern high rises and apartments. 

Jessie explained all the symbolism on the doorway for us.  It was quite interesting.  You can tell just from the stuff at the doorway, how well off a family is or their status in the community.

Then we were invited into a local home and they prepared us lunch.  It was a kind of neat to be in the home, instead of in a restaurant.  The food was really good too.

We visited another garden, but at least this one kind of looked like a garden.  We stopped and fed the fish in the pond.  It was a nice break.

 While we waited to go on a ferry across this lake, we found more people just dancing to music they bring to the park.  This one couple were fun to watch and when they finished, they invited Derek and Mom to try their hand at dancing too.  I took pictures and filmed.  That was fun.

 So finally, at the end of the day, we visited Tiannamen Square.  It was huge.  What a historic place to be.  I never imagined that I would ever be there.

The Great Wall of China

Our last day of touring we went to the Great Wall of China and the Ming Tombs.  Both were outside of the City of Beijing.  First we went to the Great Wall.  There are a few areas that are accessible to tourist.  We went to the closest  one. But first we stopped at the Government Jade Factory.  Another tourist trap.  But it was fascinating to learn a little about Jade.

We stop to take pictures and look at the steep wall ahead.  We wanted to get to that top building .

 To the left this is the view looking across the valley.  The Great Wall here was in a pass and the Wall went in several directions.  That side was much steeper than the one we climbed.  Along the way we came across these locks that couples put there names on and lock on the chain and throw away the key. 

 It was a hot day and many used umbrellas for shade.  The stairs were uneven as you can see in the picture below.  It made it very difficult to climb.  After a while I sent the others on ahead, because I was so slow and felt like I was holding them back.  The picture below is me waving to them above.

 I never did make it clear to the top.  I started getting shivers and knew I was overheating, and as I was resting just short of the summit, Here came John with a lemon juice bar.  I guess they had a snack bar a ways up.  It was welcomed.  Probably the hardest was coming down.  Our tour guide was very protective and wanted to make sure I didn't fall.  So he gave me his shoulder to hold on to and I hung on to that railing. 

Well I didn't get as far as everybody else, but I did go as far as my body would allow.  It is something I wanted to do, climb the Great Wall of China.  WOW! 

And of course we went to another factory, but this one had our restaurant on the second story, where all the tours go.  I guess so they can get the tourists to buy the cloisonne items on the ground floor.

After we ate lunch we went to the Ming Tombs.  We were supposed to go to this one open tomb, but it was 9 floors of stairs down into the depths of the earth and after climbing the Great Wall, I don't think any of us cared to do more climbing that day.  So we opted for an easier tomb, which was mostly a museum and such.  Mom showing her enthusiam for the beautiful flowers or the fact this was the last site on our tour.  The Chinese throw money at the base of this statue for good luck, kind of like we would throw coins in a fountain.

Our last day we were on our own and John really wanted to try the subway (and I didn't), so He and Derek went to the Beijing Zoo.  The rest of the day we found taxi's and figured out where to go to do some shopping. 







Some of the shopping was in bazaar type places, which are always fun trying to get a bargain. 

The other shopping was more upscale and not really what we were looking for, but was fun to check out anyway. John was looking for DVD's in Cantonese and we actually found some. 

Just a random sign I thought was funny.  When you realize most toilets are just holes in the ground.

 We said Good Bye to our Tour Guide.  He was a good man and we sure enjoyed him.  He took really good care of us and our Driver was great too.  He was so funny.

Home again, Home again, Jiggedy Jig!

We were met at the airport by all the kids, except Alan's family who were all very sick.  Poor guys.

 Elder John had fun greeting all the neices and nephews.  These are only a few.

 Then of course we had to go out for lunch before we arrived home.  By this time we were very tired, but the day was only half done. 

 John was greeted at the house by the sign I made before we left, that Jeph so kindly put up for me.

Then we handed out some souveniers and visited some more.

 And finally the release.  It was a sweet ending to our trip.  Emotions were running high and the spirit bore witness to us that our son John did indeed serve the Lord by bringing souls unto him.  We were so happy and so tired.  We had been awake for almost 36 hours by now.  But I would not have missed this moment for the world.

So ends June.  If you got all the way through this post, I congratulate you.  It's taken me a while to get it posted.