Family Adventures

It seems I am incapable of producing a blog post with any regularity. I have excuses, but you don't want to hear them, so I will spare you :).
Even though it has been about a 2 weeks since arriving back in Beijing after two wonderful weeks of travel with my family, the memories are still fresh in my mind.

The week before my family I arrived I was itching to see them. I counted down the day, 7,6,5.... and so on until Friday afternoon I got an email from my dad, "We are in Beijing!" My family, who I had not seen and had missed so badly for 4 months was finally in my reaches. I raced home to my hutong near where my parents hotel was. I found my mom sitting in hotel lobby waiting, fighting off her jet lag while my father and brother had succumbed to it and fallen into bed. To be able to hug my family and actually see them for the first time in so long, not just as fuzzy pictures on my computer screen, is a feeling I can't really describe. After the happy reunion and a SYA Christmas Party, the trip really began.
We all arose bright and early (to my brother's extreme dismay) and headed off to the Great Wall with my good friend, Stephanie, and her family. After enjoying several hours strolling the Wall's tumultuous hills, we headed off to the Ming tombs, several burial sites of emperors long gone. We had a tour guide, and it was a wonderful feeling to hear her tell my family little bits about Chinese culture and then, having already studied most of them, elaborate and teach them what I have been learning about.
After a long day, we headed home to have dinner with my host family and when we arrived I discovered that my mama had prepared nothing short of a feast. There must have been 8 or 9 dishes of various dofu's, meat's, vegetables and all sort of CHinese cuisine. Having already prepared my family for this possibility, they tried a little bit of everything and kept up a constant stream of praise for my mama's cooking. It was a little funny to watch them struggle with their chopsticks, but after several dropped mouthfuls into laps and onto the floor, they got the hang of it. After I thought they might all burst from so much food, my mama, who did not eat anything but watched and piled things on their plates, said, "现在我们吃饺子。“ Translation- Now come the dumplings.
Uhoh. My mama made a grand total of 4 trips into the kitchen to bring out 2 bowls of lamb jiaozi, 2 bowls of vegetable jiaozi, and a bowl of beef jiaozi. I thought my family might start to cry when they saw the 2nd round of food, but if they just smiled and polietly stuffed as many dumplings into their mouths as possible in between the cries of, "UMMM! Delicious!" and "The best Chinese food I've ever eaten!" I would like to make special note of the real hero of the night, my brother. As a 6'1" kid with not an ounce of fat on his bones, his plate was immediately the target of my mama's heavy scooping spoon. He ate more food than any human being, Chinese or otherwise, I have ever seen. Though generally a picky eater and absolutely allergic to anything healthy or vegetarian Esq, he put down more dofu, radish, and spinach than I though humanely possible. I was so proud of all of them, but him in particular for his enthusiasm and wonderful attitude around my Chinese family. Beyond proving themselves competition worthy eaters, my family communicated with my family beautifully. Though they had help from Wang Qian, and myself, my family basically held their own and covered issues from the one child policy to what Americans really think of Bush (lots of laughs on that one...). To watch my two families not only accept each other and get to know each other, but also have a wonderful time in each others company made me realize how incredibly lucky I am. Most people are lucky to have one solid, loving and caring family, but I have two.

After several days in Beijing, showing my parents my favorite places and introducing them to some of my friends, we were off. First stop, Lijiang, a relatively well known city in Yunnan. Lijiang is beautiful and we spent most of our time in parks and in the old town. Here are a few pictures that will probably do I better job than I will of showing you Lijiang.






Then after a VERY long 7 hour car ride, we arrived in Zhongdian, or Shangrila as it was renamed a few years ago. Zhongdian, also in Yunnan province, is the sight of a huge Lama Temple that houses near 700 monks. This area was a former Tibetan territory and when we visited this culture was extremely apparent in the atmosphere of the place. Everywhere we went the people were dressed in very traditional and colorful Tibetan grab and the architecture or the homes was like no Han Chinese home I have seen before. Cows, pigs and yaks roamed the gravel paths and monks ranging any where from 10 to 60 strolled solemnly through the giant temple. The temple itself is a giant edifice set on a hill with a long line of steps leading to the main entrance. Inside there are many giant brass and silver prayer wheels and colorful murals depicting the scripture's stories on the walls. Unfortunately, not pictures were allowed inside of the temple but here are a few from the area.









It was beautiful and wonderful to see such a starkly different part of China.

From there we headed to Shanghai. Shanghai and Beijing are often compared and judged against each other, leaving Beijing to be the "Washington DC" of China while Shanghai is the "Manhattan". This comparison held up and Shanghai truly is a cosmopolitan and international city. But because of its extreme similarities to New York and London, it wasn't nearly as interesting as the other places we visited. Besides that, the weather was absolutely atrocious and this was our view from the bund, the most famous sight in Shanghai.

Rather anti-climactic, but the shopping was fabulous :).

We all left Shanghai ready for something other than a huge bustling city and found ourselves in Hangzhou, our last stop on the trip. Famed for having been called the most beautiful place in China by Marco Polo, Hangzhou is a city of 7 million set near a giant lake resort area. It is the most beautiful place I have thus seen in China and there was a certain magic to the way the sun sparkled on the lake and the willow trees dipped their branches low to skim the surface. We stayed on the outskirts of the city, and other than visiting a temple and garden, my family spent our last days together for the next 5 months strolling over ancient marble bridges and watching birds scoop low to hover above the vast lake. One night my mom, dad and I went to see a performance Hangzhou is famous for. I was afraid it was going to be a giant tourist trap, and perhaps it was a little bit seeing as the audience was almost entirely comprised of foreigners, but it was most tastefully done tourist trap I have ever experienced. Disney World/Land should take notes. The show started at 8 and it was outdoors on bleachers on the edge of the lake. Suddenly the lake lit up and a beautiful score began to play. From the middle of the lake rose a figure, and he seemed to float on the water. The show was the folk lore of the town and a sad love story intertwined and preformed entirely on platforms just below the waters surface. There were drums and a fantastic light show that not only lit up the small section of the lake we sat near, but a huge area. It was the best set for a show I have ever seen. To give you an idea of the scale of this performance, I found out afterwards that the staging and lights were done by the same man who helped to direct the Olympics opening ceremony. In short, it was awesome.

After several days of relaxing and enjoying each others company, my family flew on to Hong Kong and then home and I flew on to my home. It was hard to see them go, but I feel better knowing that they have seen how I live now and that they know I am happy :).

Well, its late and I have the SAT this Saturday... *gulp*...
Study time!
Until Next Time,
Julia Loughlin

Song of the Week
I Miss You by: Incubus