Beijing, China - March 2014

My teenaged son and I had another adventure in March 2014: CHINA!  My sister and her two teenaged sons joined us, along with another friend and her teenaged son, and another friend with no kids.  (I suggested that she bring earplugs!)

Our tour company, China Spree, was excellent.  We stayed at the Traders Hotel, which had both a fantastic breakfast and a fantastic view.  (Notice the blue skies?  Yes, we *mostly* had those, too!)

We spent our week in Beijing, with side trips to a foster home in Langfang and to the Great Wall of China.  At the foster home, we learned that SkipBo and Phase 10 are not limited by language barriers.

I cannot say it enough: the Great Wall was ah-maze-ing.  AMAZING!

We were lucky to see the highlights of Beijing, including Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (also called the Palace Museum), both of which were closed the next week due to heightened security in the area for the National People's Congress.  

The Summer Palace was one of my favorite places!  I can definitely understand why the emperor would want a summer home in this beautiful setting ... though the lake was still mostly iced over during our visit.

In addition to famous tourist sites included on our tour, we also did some fun things on our own.  We visited the Wangfujing night market - twice!  None of us were brave enough to try a scorpion or a silk worm or a star fish ... but finding crawfish was almost like being at home in Louisiana.

On our last free day, we visited Beihai Park, where locals were dancing and singing and painting.  My sister danced with a group at Beihai, and I danced with a class at another park, Temple of Heaven.  The parks were so nice and so filled with activity!

Also at Beihai Park, the boys found cotton candy ... though my nephew jokingly called it silk candy, since we had visited a silk factory the day before and the cotton candy was very much like raw silk.

Beihai Park was just beautiful.  There were walking trails through trees, a beautiful lake filled with ducks, and a stunning White Dagoba.  I was so glad we had the chance to visit this park!

So how did we get around the city?  By tour bus, by taxi, by subway ... and by rickshaw and vintage sidecar!  Zipping around the city attached to a motorcycle was sooooooo much fun!!

I was so happy to see Beijing's Olympic site -- both during the day and at night, during our sidecar tour.  The Olympics are one of my favorite sporting events!  And who could forget the eight medals Michael Phelps won during the 2008 Beijing Olympic games?

And finally, we got to see China's most famous residents: PANDAS!  Although the pandas are not from this area, the Beijing Zoo has two panda houses, where we visited the pandas during their breakfast.

This trip to China was truly an incredible experience.  A few pictures here can give you a taste of what we experienced, but nothing can compare to our short time in and around Beijing.  The food was excellent and abundant, the locals loved taking pictures with the "big-nosed people" (i.e. Americans), and the sites were something we couldn't have seen anywhere else in the world.  If you get the chance, go ... you won't regret it.