Summer in the City: Day 2

This post could also be entitled, "Why We Lost Noah's Hat".

I remember hearing a speaker at one of Moody's chapel's who said that before making a decision we ought to HALT. Are you feeling Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired? When feeling any of those particular descriptives (or perhaps situations), it can affect one's decision making abilities. Looking at my own life, I definitely see how making decisions when I'm really hungry or angry or lonely or tired has not been the best idea. It is far better to wait, and try to act with wisdom than to rush into something regrettable.

I suppose when we are relying on our own strength and struggling against the flesh, we are far more likely to act in dishonorable ways, sinning against God and man. Obviously, this simple acronym isn't the answer for all decision-making scenarios. And I could argue that when living through culture shock, it's nearly impossible. You're almost always operating on hunger, anger, loneliness, and exhaustion.

It's been five years in China, but we still experience culture shock. Whenever we're brought to stressful situations, all our frustrations are brought to the surface and our patience is worn thin. This does not make for very restful vacations. I wonder what it would be like to just sit and do nothing and be perfectly relaxed on the beach. Ha!

I feel the need to make a China version of HALT.

When living overseas, experiencing culture shock, trying to vacation in a densely populated city, caring for little kids, trying to be a good spouse, trying to be both a tourist and host, and all the while trying to do these things in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees...it can be a recipe for disaster. If you are experiencing this type of family vacation--remember to give others extra doses of grace. Remember to HALT, but I suppose the China version would be:

Frustrated by cultural differences
Overwhelmed by crowds...as in millions of people
Lost geographically, linguistically, culturally
Exposed to the elements (e.g. we were caught in a huge storm, and struggled against heat strokes)

FOLE

uh. Fole doesn't make any sense. Scratch that.
But, if you are out and about in China, you will probably experience a semblance of FOLE.

I feel like the whole time we were in Beijing, we were walking up and down stairs, riding up and down escalators, and just walking, walking, walking. I was really tired of public transportation. Although subways are nice, I was so exhausted of the push and shove, the intense underground heat, and just the madness of public transit in Beijing. It is cheap, however. And fairly convenient. 

It was like we just went from one stair case to the next. Up and down and up and down. Over and over and over again. 

On Friday, we started the morning with being reunited with Adam! We quickly got ready, ate breakfast and got on the subway so that we could see the Forbidden City. The heat was insanely miserable. By the time we were through the first gate and buying tickets to enter, we had drank all of our water supply and were buying several more bottles of water. 

Willow was so desperate to be with her dad, she stood in the hot sun to buy tickets--though she could have stood in the shade with me. She didn't want to let Adam out of her sight. Here, Willow is proud of the tickets she helped purchase.

Noah looking lethargic from the heat. He drank a lot of water while we were out. At this point, we misplaced his sun hat, which we had only just procured. I was fairly disappointed, and Adam went out in a huff retracing our steps to look for it. Surely, it was snatched up by some other tourist since it was no where to be found. So sad.

Though Willow doesn't look 100% non-Asian, she is still photographed quite a lot by Chinese bystanders. Sometimes she has a whole posse of smart-phone wielding denizens following her around. This guy took several pictures of her while she sipped her water. Then his family tried to take a group picture with her. She ran away from that situation.

Trying to stay cool on this hot day. It was miserable. I can not think of another way to describe it. By the time we were 3/4 through the Forbidden City, we had met our max. Brad didn't want to see the remaining buildings, so we high tailed it out of there and then started the process of trying to get back to our hotel. We needed to cool off, to eat lunch, and to take naps. What an exhausting morning! The Forbidden City is a massive place, filled with so many tourists.

There were not may people near these doors because they were not the center entrances. There are usually three sets of entrances at each gate or building. The center door or entrance is always for the Emperor, and only the Emperor had access to it. He was only permitted to walk down the center of the palace--down a clearly marked path which still runs through Beijing (even through the Olympic stadiums). The sides were everyone else. I believe all the Chinese people walk through the center gates because it is quite a big deal to them. About a century ago, that would have been impossible for them to do, let alone visit the Imperial Palace. We were walking through the less populated side gates, though streams of thousands were walking through all the center gates. I just try to imagine what a symbolic and culturally significant tour they are on as Chinese citizens. It is now called the People's Palace.

Brad, remarking upon how difficult and time consuming it would have been to carve each of these railing sections out of stone.

The Emperor's bedroom

subway tunnel

Riding the subway. Brad snapped this picture on his iPhone. Everyone in the car was looking at us, sitting on the bench. Willow and Noah attracted all the kids that were in the train car, and soon there were three little kids sitting next to Willow. With the one child policy, children lose the benefit of sibling relationships. Thus, pretty much every child, whether friend or stranger, is considered your child's brother or sister. Just as everyone adult is your Uncle, Aunt, Grandma or Grandpa. Everytime we see a toddler or baby, we are expected to stop, say hello, shake hands, and say little pleasantries to our "small friends". Willow has to learn to call her chinese playmates, whether friend or stranger, big brother/big sister/little brother/little sister. 

Anyway, this has both advantages and disadvantages. I think it teaches Willow to have a strong sense of community and openness for making new friends. But if you are going somewhere in a hurry, it can be a time hindrance. It can also be awkward at times, but mostly the interactions are sweet. If the other children are naughty, I sometimes worry about negative examples being set--but then, my kids are not perfect either, so it goes both ways.

I think it's a lovely facet of Chinese culture, and I truly miss it when we're in America.

After swimming, naps, showers, etc...we went out for dinner at one of our favorite Beijing restaurants: Peter's! We ordered  burritos, enchiladas, tacos, guacamole, and sweet tea...so delicious! 

On our way back to our hotel, we ran into this interesting plaza that had a water show going on. The lights and fountains were choreographed to different musical selections that were blasted across the square. Many people were standing around watching the show, taking selfies and videos. Willow loved it. Noah hated it. The water occasionally hit our faces because of the breeze--and though Noah loves his bath time, he decidedly hates being splashed in the face with cold water.

Seriously, escalators and stairs everywhere. Can't even walk on the side walk without having to go up and down several times. Can you spy Adam? He's really good at taking the stroller down the escalator, backwards. If I spun the stroller around, while walking, while being pressed from every direction by crowds, I would surely fall down the escalator. But Adam is amazingly coordinated with things like this. Jealous.

We slept really well that night. Even the kids, who usually wake up at the crack of dawn, slept in until 9am the next morning. It was wondrous. 

Summer in the City: Day 1

Hello, dear reader.
It has been far too long since I've clicked 'publish' on this site.
My brother, Brad, has been visiting us for about 4 weeks, so we've been very busy hanging out with him and showing him around Shenyang. We also went to Beijing for a few days, and I wanted to at least blog about that trip. There's so much I'm behind on. Willow's 3rd birthday party, Noah's 9 month post AND his 10 month post...so many other things here and there along the way. I don't know why it has been infinitely more difficult to keep up with this blog lately! 

Ok, so we went to Beijing.
Adam was already there because he was touring the city with the 8th graders on their spring adventure trip. Instead of returning to Shenyang at the conclusion of the week-long school field trip, he met us at our hotel. We decided to fly to Beijing, though it would have been cheaper to train. I was worried about the convenience of taking the train, or rather I should say the inconvenience of it. And since my dad had funded our trip, basically, paying a little more to fly on a Chinese airplane was totally worth it. I just couldn't figure out how we'd take the train, since Willow would need to use the toilet on the train (which is basically a hole in the floor, and you can see the train tracks whizzing by) and I predicted she'd freak out about that. Also the train station in Beijing is insanely busy. Tens of thousands of people shoving each other and pushing through large halls as everyone pours out of the station like an evicted ant colony. I wondered how we'd navigate that with two little kids, someone who has never experienced that sort of press of people before (brad), and luggage. I'm so thankful we were able to fly. Taking the train would have been an all day event, whereas flying gave us time to get to the hotel, check in, go swimming, explore some shopping areas, and eat dinner. The kids were also able to take naps at the hotel, and we had a relatively nice day settling in. We were so excited to meet up with Adam in the morning--Willow was especially eager to be with Adam again since he'd been gone all week. 

Read on for: 

Some stories from the flight.....

Some stories from the commute to the hotel....

Some stories from the shopping mall...

Willow has fairly glorified airplanes and air travel over the past year. But she hadn't flown since September, so she could barely remember the actual sensation of take-off and landing. She also had forgotten the less pleasant parts, such as turbulence, which makes her feel ill. Anyway, as we were going through each process of checking in and security, she was so excited! I mean, she was excited to get in the van that was transporting us to the airport, and the fact that we had packed suit cases. But as we were waiting for the plane to take off, she was super happy. She had her own carry-on, her little owl backpack, which she had packed with snacks and toys and coloring activities. She got right to work, with her tray table. "Ok, now I need to eat a snack!" "Ok, now I need to color a picture!" and so forth.

When the plane took flight, she sat back in her chair, a little shocked at the butterflies in her stomach. She gripped her arm rests and yelled, "Ahhhhh!!! Whoa!!!!" And then started giggling. Noah, on the other hand freaked out, nursed for two minutes, and then passed out. He coped fairly well, I suppose, by taking a nap. Willow struggled with the air pressure, but was mostly so excited to be flying.

As we were approaching the Beijing airport, Willow could see we were nearing the ground again. She saw many green fields and yelled excitedly, "It's rugby! Oh, there's another rugby!" Apparently this city girl thinks any large green area is a rugby field, since the only time she really sees large green fields is when Adam watches rugby games on tv.

The plane was just about to tough the ground, and Willow had buckled her favorite stuffed cat, Poppy, into her seat belt with her. The other passengers were very quiet, so I'm sure everyone heard Willow when she started belting out, "Oh no! We're falling!!! We're GOING TO HIT THE GROUND!!!!" I was trying so hard not to laugh at her.

When Noah woke up, he proceeded to flirt with the four women sitting in the row in front of us. He's such a flirt. I shouldn't say that. But he is! He's quite the charmer, and he particularly likes Chinese women. But perhaps he's not flirting, and he's just overly friendly towards Asian ladies. They loved him--the fashionistas were draping their long hair over their chairs so that he could play with it, and they were handing him their bracelets and phones...it was ridiculously funny.

When we exited the plane, we were on the tarmac. We had to bus to the terminal. It was so hot on the blacktop, I thought it felt like we were being cooked alive. Beijing was 15 degrees hotter than Shenyang, plus the heat from the buses and planes...it was pretty intense. We also had trouble finding our stroller,  but eventually did find where it had been delivered. A man found us, somehow knew we needed a stroller, spoke perfect English and directed us towards the other side of the baggage claim. I don't know how he knew what we needed, since we had merely been standing there...but it was definitely the Lord looking out for our needs at that moment.

We decided to take the Airplane express train towards downtown. Willow made a friend on the express, a nice lady who knew a little English. Willow was so eager to talk to her, she took out her Buzz Lightyear and her Woody toys and played with the lady. At the end of the line, the lady gave Willow a sparkly pen as a gift.

Then came the part where we needed to catch a taxi to take to the hotel. We walked around quite a bit in the horrid, overbearing heat. We had so many carry-ons and totes. Willow was in a stroller, Noah was in the Ergo...they were both very hot and starting to act lethargic. Noah was as red as a lobster and I started to worry that they were suffering from a heat stroke. It was over 105 degrees and it was sweltering even in the meager shade we eventually stood in. At one point, we were in a bus transfer station that was probably 115 degrees inside. I think that the panic I feel that temperature is very unique.

We finally found a taxi that would take us. Though he used AC, it took the entire 30 minute ride for us to start to cool down. The kids drank all the water we had from the plane, and I promised Willow that we could go swimming at the hotel. We were so hot! And hungry. It was mid afternoon and they hadn't napped or eaten lunch yet.

Finally we arrived at the hotel, with our 7 carry-ons + stroller + two kids. We checked in. Drank some water, and decided to find somewhere to eat. We found a McDonalds in the same building as our hotel, and ate there since it was fastest. Willow ate a ton of food. Noah was a normal shade again. We returned to the hotel and took naps. After we woke up we explored the shopping malls around our area. The mall we walked into first was huge, and four of the ten floors were food courts and restaurants. Brad was intrigued by the architecture of the building. Some elements were cool, some were stupid, and mostly it looked like student projects, he said.

We did go swimming after all. It was freezing cold water. The "gym" was located around the poolside. Haha! It looked bizarre and oh-so-China. There were no locker rooms or towels, life guards, or any sort of safety equipment, and the lighting was mostly just two flood lights. But it was still fun to swim with the kids. Both Willow and Noah were both excited and terrified of the water. Willow did not like watching Brad swim, and Noah cried when Brad would swim under water.
Willow slipped on the slick tile, and I was very worried at first. But she exhibited no signs of a concussion, though she did cry a fair amount. We were so ready for bed that night. When we woke up in the morning, Adam was knocking on our hotel room door. Yay!

Stay tuned for the actual site-seeing pictures!