Temple of Heaven

On Saturday we went to the Temple of Heaven. There they do sacrifices to heaven to have a good harvest. After that we went to a night market and saw a lot of disgusting things. Such as scorpions on a stick alive big and small. We saw pupa on a stick. Rats, squid, octopuses, snakes, and tarantulas. We just got caramel strawberries instead. We also saw a octopus salad and almost puked. Then after that experience, we went to a book store. It was humongous! There were toys here and there. There was a huge section of Legos and 4 floors of books. Then we went home and slept.  By Duncan

 

70 Year Door

Why is it called that you ask. . .Is it because the door is 70 years old? Nope it is over 600 years old.  The Emperor at the time was 70 and needed a short cut to the Hall of Prayer for Grain due to age and health issues.  To keep his family members from becoming lazy and using his door he created a rule, his posterity 70 years or older may use the door.  Interestingly he was the only one ever to use it!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Fasting Palace

"You shall not pass!"

The boys are convinced that there are Chinese Hobbits as we regularly find these circular doorways!

Look closely, the man is holding up his hands to look at this 500 year old tree called, Nine-Dragon Juniper.  It looks like Dragons twisting themselves around each other, thus the hands.  To keep things in perspective for the boys we remind them of how old America is and then compare how old the building/tree etc. is.

Night Market pictures.

Wangfujing Street

Yes, they are still alive before being cooked, or just twitching.

The uncooked meat is squid and octopus.

Bugs and Cacoons

Hard to see but there are starfish, sea horses, huge centipedes and snakes.

Finally something we can eat, caramel covered strawberries!

Octopus salad

No School

On Friday we went to Yuyuantan park. Then we walked around seeing interesting food, kites, and other things. Then we walked all the way to Burger King and ate a delicious lunch.

Year of the rooster!

Due to no school we took advantage by seeing the first of the blossoms popping out.  This park will be beautiful with all the blossoms in full swing. 

There seemed to be an international food festival of some sort going on, unfortunately it was geared for instruction instead of purchase.  Only I seemed to be interested, the boys voted to find the nearest Burger King.  Subway stations are filled with tasty looking posters, true to form the posters look much better than the actual food.  Very interesting. 

Penned by Duncan and Mom

Angel from Bethesda

The other day Drake and I ventured out to find my favorite book store.  I wanted to add to our Chinese collection.  To my dismay it was closed down and bricked up.  There usually is a guard at the entrance of each street and many parking lots.  So I asked the guard for that hutong (a type of small street) where the store went.  Luckily there was a sign in Chinese explaining their new location.  He gave me basic instructions (all in Chinese of course) and an hour and a half later I found my way to the general location. 

Up until this day the weather had been beautiful, but on this day it was blustery!  At the end I asked four different people who kept sending me in a circle around this one particular building.  The last lady was one I couldn't understand at all.  Then I heard this voice, "Do you need help?"  "YES!"  Here was this Chinese guy who spoke my language!  I showed him my torn scrap of paper with the address and he plugged it into his phone, then escorted me in another circle the other direction.  We ended up finding the book store across the street from where we had met and started our circle!  It is just so fitting for Beijing! 

So this guy who gave up part of his lunch time to help me is actually an American from Bethesda!!!!!  He has been working here for about a year and loves teaching.  Since our meeting we have hired him to be a tutor for the boys.  He is very much into making the boys feel comfortable and wanting them to like Chinese.  For their first time meeting we all went to a trampoline park to have fun and practice Chinese.  Needless to say I think the boys are going to enjoy working with him.

Playing number games with our new tutor.  Now tell me the boys don't enjoy learning Chinese!

School

So this was our first day of  school and we were exited.  We have to wear uniforms we can't bring clothes from home.  There are different types of uniforms: above is our P.E. uniforms and below is our regular uniforms.  When it is summer our regular uniform shirts are short sleeved and shorts.  For P.E. we wear a t-shirt and shorts, oh and a hat.

In violin class for me Grahm, it is good and I am not the only new kid in class.  Violin is only required for Years 1, 2, and 3.  They don't call grades like 2nd grade, they call it years.  I am in Year 3.  My class is called 3A, there are three classes in my Year.  My teachers are Mr. Cole and Ms. Liu.  One is an English speaker and the other is a Chinese native speaker.  I have made friends already.

Guy- My schedule is different everyday, it is a five day schedule.  I will be starting my violin lessons which will be during school time.  I am lonely, lonely so lonely.  Oh but I do have one friend, Steven from Canada, but he is moving after this year and I will be lonely, lonely so lonely.  😭   The teachers that I have through out the week constantly are nice and friendly. My science, english, math, (teachers) and other teachers I don't have, are willing to help guide and encourage me through out the day.

Duncan- I am in Year 5.  My favorite thing of the day is Chinese class.  I consider myself the Chinese expert amongst the boys.  I also like recess because I am the fastest one and everyone wants me to be "it".  I like the fact that art is two periods long which gives me enough time to work and finish my projects.  I love that at lunch time I can sit by anyone I want to. 

Familiar

Amazing how familiar Beijing is.  It has brought a smile to my face seeing sites that bring back memories.  I am ever so grateful that we were here earlier "checking it out" and learning the ropes.  The stress has been lightened as we already have so much figured out.  We aren't completely out of the woods as there are new things to learn, new places to get use to and new tricks to figure out.  One example is church and the subway.  We already have our cards for the subway and know the stops, plus we know where church is but we had to learn the best way from our new place.  We underestimated our travel time and ended up showing up an hour late.  Lucky for us it was a conference so we were only a half hour late.  😁

I am also excited with how much I can understand language wise.  The boys and I have been more comfortable trying out our language skills.  I have found myself in more sticky spots this way as the Chinese then think I know more than I do.  Soon though, I will be able to understand and say even more!  I am looking forward to the day when I jump into someone's conversation after they have been talking about us.  I can do that a little bit but I want to really be able to know what to say.

We are pretty much settled into our apartment.  It is big enough to say "wings".  We have the boys' wing, the guest wing and the master wing.  Our stuff seems puny compared to the space it is suppose to fill.  Don't worry we will soon fill it up with the arrival of the rest of our stuff and the purchases we'll make during our time here.

This video is more of an experiment than anything else.  Hopefully in the future the boys will be doing the video with editing and all the good stuff that goes with it.

Here are some fun pictures of Drake adapting to our new home.

This is our imported keep on the shelf milk.  Our milk is from Australia and our butter is from New Zealand.  We do drink milk from China sometimes, but our most favorite is Banana Milk!

This picture is from our very first night here, at this moment we hadn't even seen our apartment yet, Drake was busy making himself at home in the indoor play area.  Can you spot him?

This is the outdoor playground.  Our windows look out over this area which makes it convenient for mom to keep an eye on the boys as they "watch" Drake play.

Dad watching Drake by taking him to Mickey D's.

Mama's little helper.  Drake definitely rules the roost here.

Sundays Being at Church

Hi this is Grahm, and I am talking about how we go to church. So we could go three ways and those ways are going on the subway, walking and also riding a taxi. And now I'm talking about other things so our church (congregation) is called a branch not a ward and our bishop is not called a Bishop its called a Branch President and there is a new one and he was kind of nervous.   

 

Making our way home after church.  First the subway (with a transfer) and then the walk.  The boys in front of a fruit market.  Almost home.  The trip takes about an hour.  We could drive it in about 15 minutes, but we'll save that for when our car arrives.

The top picture is from our first stay in China.  This is our church building, Golden Tower.  We have a half a floor devoted to church.

Our very first day of church was Branch Conference.  We walked in minutes after they announced the combining of 1st Branch and 4th Branch.  Very exciting news for us as we have friends in both branches and now we are that much stronger.