Now that I've caught up our trip to China I'll try to catch up the past three weeks.

Week one was getting us, and our students, back on track to finish the last bit of school. When we got back from spring break we had eight and a half weeks of school left. That's a fair amount of instruction time in a classroom. Too much time to just let the kids slide into the end of the year. The first few days back were spent whipping them back into shape, getting some grades into the gradebook, threatening them with parent-teacher conferences coming up in a couple weeks.

At home, it was time to re-stock the fridge and make the beds. Leslie and Cady arrived in Kaohsiung on Thursday (April 14) and our niece Amanda arrived on Friday. We did a whirlwind of city touring for the next little while. Tours of KAS, shopping at the jade market, a walk-through of the night market. Leslie and Cady were only in Taiwan until Monday morning, but Amanda stayed until the following Friday (April 22). It was nice to have an excuse to do some things one more time, but also nostalgic to think they we may never do some of those things again, like going to the former British Consulate.

But time does march on. I got another wisdom tooth pulled last weekend, stitches came out today. All is healing well, if a little slower than I'd like. (The first one was such a piece of cake that I have no patience for this one taking longer to heal, even though Dr. Jason had explained to me very carefully and clearly that this would be the case. I'm just being a baby, an impatient whiner, to be exact.) The week was full of end-of-the-year activities. We had a day of parent-teacher conferences, got rid of some extra furniture, went to the school's spring concert, bought boxes for packing.

Tonight we're going with a dozen or so friends to a baseball game, Kaohsiung's Eda Rhinos vs the Lamigo Monkeys. It will be incredibly loud and raucous, with lots of opportunities to eat baseball stadium food and people watch. Oh, and see some baseball too. Then tomorrow morning we'll join many of the same people at the playground at our apartment building for a pair of two year olds birthdays. It will also be loud and raucous, and fun too.

China Day 7

The skies were overcast but the rains held off all day, which made for a glorious trip down the Li River. We loaded onto a river boat, along with hundreds of other people on a dozen or so other boats, and headed off down the river. With all the rain that had fallen in the past few days the river was well above flood stage. That meant that a trip that often takes four hours only took us about three.

There were frequent waterfalls along the river banks and every now and then there were small fishing villages, but mostly it was one spectacular view after another.

After a mediocre lunch buffet and delicious but overpriced steamed fish, we arrived in the quaint tourist town of Yangshuo. While Leslie, Cady and our guide Mark went shopping, Lee and I rented bikes and rode out of town. We came upon this odd little park that was planted with fields of flowers and featured a colorful tree full of plastic blossoms.

It was nice to get on the bikes, my favorite mode of transportation, but it was also pretty terrifying. The road out of town was mostly dominated by large tour buses that would fight each other for parking space in the bike lane and disgorge their passengers, whose only goal was to snap a few pictures and walk in front of the bikes as we tried to get around the buses. It was beautiful countryside but still it was a relief to get back to town where the traffic was a bit more predictable.

A big section of the center of the town was pedestrian streets lined with shops and restaurants. We found little cups of fabulous espresso, mango smoothies, trinkets, tea and crystalized honey candy. This gentleman shooed the bees off his pile of honeycomb before scooping the pieces into bags.

After dark the streets were jam-packed with people. We walked around with the crowds for awhile until the crush got overwhelming to the claustrophobes in our group (me in particular), but Cady was in her element.

The next day we drove back to Guilin to the airport. We were heading back to Kaohsiung and work while Leslie and Cady continued on for another five days of touring China. As a final goodbye, we were treated to a herd of water buffalo blocking the road.

One week is not enough time to spend in China so Lee and I have planned a second trip in June as we head back to the US.

China Day 5

We flew from Beijing to Guilin. Not much to say about that, just like you want when you fly. Our drive to the airport was interesting though. The roads were being closed as we drove along. Presumably some uppity-up in the government was going to be driving through soon. Our timing was perfect since we were just early enough to not get stuck behind the barricades and the roads were virtually empty. It took us about 20 minutes to drive what would normally have taken up to two hours with normal traffic. The wait at the airport was, therefore, abnormally long but we made friends with a young woman who teaches Chinese to non-native speakers and was thrilled to practice her English with us, especially with Cady.

When we arrived we were greeted by our guide who whisked us off to the obligatory stop at Elephant Rock along the Li River.

If you ever find yourself in Guilin, China feel free to skip this stop on the itinerary. We did have a nice walk through an odd little park along the river and I took pictures of the signs that I found amusing.

China Day 6

The day alternated between drizzly, torrential rain and simply overcast but it turned out to be perfectly fine weather to drive out to Longsheng and the beautiful terraced fields in the mountains. Our driver was both cautious and aggressive and managed to get us two hours up into the countryside without taking forever, as we got stuck behind overloaded delivery trucks, and without driving us over the edge of the cliffs that lined one side of the road.

It was worth the drive.

We walked uphill for a couple of hours and were rewarded with gorgeous views through the mist and clouds of endless terraces of rice. The terraces were dug into the hillsides hundreds of years ago and are still being used today.

At the highest point of our hike we stopped at a little shop and had ginger tea.

On our way back down we had lunch at a restaurant that was perched on the side of the mountainside. The fog had really moved in and it felt like we were floating in the clouds. I was pretty hungry and the food was great so all I got for a photo was the aftermath.

China Day 4

Today's tours were of the Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. All impressively grand in scale and in history.

Admission to the gardens around the Temple of Heaven is free to citizens over 60 years old and it was busy with people socializing and enjoying themselves.

Playing music

Playing dominos, cards and mah jong.

Quietly knitting.

Practicing calligraphy with water on the sidewalks.

Cady kept a watchful eye on this gentleman's work.

The temple complex is gorgeous. The colors are vibrant blues, greens and gold. It sits on top of a small rise and has commanding views of the city.

Gargoyles for drainage along the terraces.

Tiananmen Square is a required stop on every tour of Beijing and, although it's impressive in size, it left me unimpressed. It's a huge open space with Mao's tomb taking up a big portion at one end and his gigantic portrait overlooking the opposite end.

Mao's tomb on the left and the Monument to the People's Heroes on the right.

It's the gathering space for the city, but mostly for state-mandated parades and national holidays. It's also where the students demanding freedoms gathered in 1989 and were subsequently shot, but no one talks about that. Both times I've been there the driver has dropped us off at one end, we've walked with the guide across the huge expanse and filed into the gates of the Forbidden City. It feels like walking across a really big parking lot with no cars and a recent history that's like a huge elephant sitting in the living room. Our guide on this trip was a child living in rural China in 1989 and said that his family knew nothing about the uprising, although he knows the rest of the world heard about it as it was going on. He was reluctant to say anything more about it and did not share his thoughts about how his government handled the situation.

On we went into the Forbidden City.

I have a picture from nearly 15 years ago of Dad sitting in this pagoda in the garden. It was a lot more crowded on this trip.

China Day 3

Another busy day with an early start. The first stop was at the Badaling section of the Great Wall, about two hours outside of Beijing. I could fill this blog post with just pictures from there but I'll give you a sampling instead. It was another beautiful day, although the pollution was beginning to build. There were lots of people, including a tour group of 700 (!), but, like everywhere you go, the farther you walk, the less people you see. We left our guide David at the bottom and Leslie strolled around on her own while Lee, Cady and I headed up.

This section of the Wall is the same one I went to 14 years ago with Dad and Leslie, which I was happy about. I liked remembering that day with Dad and how much he enjoyed his visit. He and another older gentleman had a brief conversation, that included Dad speaking English and the other man speaking Chinese, whereupon they decided they were the oldest people walking on the wall that day. At the time Dad was a spritely 76 years old, as was his acquaintance.

Another thing that added to my enjoyment was watching how much Lee was enjoying himself. We were at The Great Wall. How cool is that?! I think it was better than he expected, so full of history and amazing workmanship. The views were incredible and the act of walking up all those stairs was awe inspiring.

We enjoyed ourselves so much we've decided to go back in June. We have an overnight layover in China on our return trip to the US so we're going to have our guide pick us up early in the morning and we'll head back to Badaling and climb the section across the river and be back in time for our flight in the afternoon.

China Day 1 (Saturday, April 2)

We arrived on what must have been the most beautiful spring day that Beijing has seen in a long time. The air was wonderfully clear, there were trees in bloom all along the highway from the airport into the city, the temperature was springtime warm and dry. We didn't arrive until late afternoon so we didn't do much beyond arriving at our hotel, but fortunately, the next day was equally nice.

China Day 2

Our daily itineraries were pretty full so Leslie and Cady had to adjust to the time change, 12 hours in their case, very quickly. They did very well in that regard. We had no time change since all of China, including Taiwan, is in one time zone. Our first day of touring had us meeting our guide, David, at 8 am sharp. The first stop was the Panjiayuan Market. It's a huge area with stalls full of antiques and books and handicrafts and junk. What a pleasure to see it all thrown together in one massive market.

Leslie, Cady and David look over old metal coins.

If only we could have figured out a way to ship these home. They're about 10 feet tall but would look great in any backyard.

Lee tried out the pan pipe, but chose not to bring one home.

Our next stop was the Lama Temple, also known as the Yonghe Temple, a Tibetan Buddhist temple built around 1700. It was the Tomb Sweeping holiday weekend (which coincides with our April vacation week) so it was pretty crowded but it's beautiful and it was worth the stop.

If I had a more nimble mind I would remember what the four languages are on this sign. One is Mandarin (second from the right) and one is Manchurian.

After the temple we went to a Hutong neighborhood for a look-around. These are the old neighborhoods where everyone lived before China decided to tear down the old houses to make room for skyscrapers and malls. When the government figured out that tourists (international as well as Chinese) wanted to see the old neighborhoods they started to preserve the last remaining ones and they help subsidize the people that live there.

The streets are so narrow that the best, and pretty much only way to get around is by foot and pedicabs.

We had lunch at a local family's house and got to listen to the mom of the household and her 7 year old daughter play the guzheng (Chinese zither).

This is our guide Tina's adorable one year old daughter, out for a bike ride with her Baba.

The last stop for the day was a delightful tea house where we were entertained by a young man who served us lots of kinds of tea and explained the process of how to make each one. Then he led us into the purchasing part of the shop and we obligingly bought lots of tea and tea cups.

Not bad for our first full day in China.