Vacation Pictures

[Leila]

Hi everyone! Our trip to China, Hong Kong and Macau was wonderful! We''ve been back for a few weeks now but I didn''t have time to post earlier. We just have so much going on, been very busy!! Anyway ,we had a lot of fun on our trip, ate a lot of good food, did a ton of sightseeing! We literally were out and about every day for 12-15 hours each day. We truly made the most of each day! It was truly an unforgetable, interesting experience! It was so nice to get away and temporarily forget about work, family troubles, and just focus on each other and have fun. But it wasn''t before long, only a few days though, that we miss the clean fresh air, clean, fresh running water!!, clean bathrooms, etc, and started thinking a lot about how special home is and how fortunate we are to have the life we do. The people''s living conditions in some of the places we visted, particularly Suzhou, are heartbreaking. We were told the Chinese people are really friendly, and in some cases we found this to be true, but we are so culturally different, that some of the extremely rude behavior we encountered may just be cultural differences and not really rudeness. There were endless shoving and elbowing in crowded places (even in bathrooms where there is no need for this!), very poor customer service in stores and restaurants, the concept of standing in line is nearly nonexistent, and the way they drive is so dangerous and scarey! We went during China''s national holiday week so most places were busier and more crowded than usual so this may play a part for some of the behaviors we encountered. I never thought I had to be so aggressive to get into a bathroom stall! Still, I got used to it but while there, but I truly missed the friendly and coutreous people back home in Hawaii. Really, nothing is like home. We were so exhausted after the 2 week long trip, we slept most of the first 2 days back home. Anyway, as promised, here are some pictures we took on our trip!

 

[Leila]

This picture was taken in Beijing. Note the red light! We noticed that although there are lanes, some drivers don''t follow them, the car are constantly weaving in and out of traffic, literally within inches of each other, with bicyclists amongst the cars! They would make u-turns anywhere they pleased, even large tour buses did this! Cars will overtake each other even when there is on coming traffic, and the on coming traffic would simply move to accomadate the cars. We saw quite a few accidents and we even saw a fight break out between two drivers who got in an accident. We traveled on the tour bus and after the first day of watching how the traffic flowed, I couldn''t bear to watch anymore, for the sake of my sanity. It''s as if the drivers do not value their lives! And pedestrians do not have the right of way, even if you''re in the cross walk and it''s your turn to cross! We got honked at constantly and our tour guide, time and time again, bless him, would run in front of the cars and point his tour flag at them wildly getting the drivers'' attention, for them to stop!

 

[Leila]

This picture was taken in the Summer Palace in Beijing. It the largest imperial garden in the world. The Jin dynasty first built a palace on the site, called Golden Hill. In 1750, the Garden was built, commissioned by Emperor Qinglong as a gift for his mother's birthday. Most of it was destroyed in 1860 by foreign troops but was renovated in 1888 by Empress Dowager Cixi.

 

[Leila]

Another of Summer Palace.

 

[Leila]

Here are some jewelry we saw in the museums, worn by the royalty.

 

[Leila]

I''m not sure if these are necklaces or they were jewelry meant to be worn tied to their clothing.

 

[Leila]

This is a crown of some sort. Sorry don''t know really. It''s funny I was trying to get good shots without the glare and I guess I was taking too long (it was not even a minute!) taking the pictures and this bothered the security guard so he started banging his stick against the rail at me and shouting. It was very annoying, but nevertheless, it didn''t deter me! I guess they want the traffic to keep moving and no one to linger in front of the pieces too long, even though I wasn''t in anyone''s way.

 

[Leila]

The Forbidden City was the home of 24 emperors, of the Ming and Qing Dynasty. It was constructed in 1406 and took 14 years and an estimated 200,000 men.

 

[Leila]

Closeups of the architecture. A lot of renovation work was being done on the buildings within the Forbidden City, in preparation for the Olympic Games.

 

[Leila]

Accoring to our tour guide and my sometimes awful recollection, the amount of animals on the roof signify the importance of the building and who may enter. When there is 11, the highest number, then only the emperor may enter.

 

[Leila]

The emperor''s throne.

 

[Leila]

The Great Wall. We climbed nearly 1500 steps to the top.

 

[Leila]

I hope I haven''t bored anyone with all these pictures, and I do have more pictures to share with you all but I''ll have to post them some other time, I''ve gotta get ready to go out.

We''re having a small reunion with some old friends.

 

[FireGoddess]

Great pics! Looks like such an interesting trip!

 

[Stone Hunter]

Oh I''m not bored. I''d love to see more pics.

 

[oshinbreez]

What great pics. How was the trip?

 

[Sundial]

Thanks for posting your pictures Leila! My husband and I were just in Japan and China last month ourselves and we had a wonderful time!!! We went to Japan first so we missed the crowds during the Chinese national holiday, but there were still plenty of people around especially at the Great Wall. In China we visited Dalian, Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. We thought that the air quality was very poor in China. And although we met some delightful people there most were not as polite and helpful as they were in Japan. We did love the food and all the wonderful historical places that you can see there.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

I have also been to China, but not to Bejing. So I enjoyed seeing your pictures! The traffic was crazy everywhere we went, but we didn''t encounter any rudeness or anything like that. Of course, you can travel to different places within the US and have varying amounts of courtesy as well! I enjoyed visiting a place with such rich history and culture!

 

[anchor31]

It''s beautiful and so exotic!

 

[Leila]

Date: 11/4/2006 7:27:52 PM
Author: Sundial
Thanks for posting your pictures Leila! My husband and I were just in Japan and China last month ourselves and we had a wonderful time!!! We went to Japan first so we missed the crowds during the Chinese national holiday, but there were still plenty of people around especially at the Great Wall. In China we visited Dalian, Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. We thought that the air quality was very poor in China. And although we met some delightful people there most were not as polite and helpful as they were in Japan. We did love the food and all the wonderful historical places that you can see there.

I saw your pictures Sundial, we have some of the same shots! I am glad you had a wonderful time! I completely agree about the air polution in China. It''s really terrible. And how did you adjust to using those urinals looking toilet on the floor? What do you call that? I could not get over those squatting toilets! That part made me miserable! I would loved to have visited Xian and Japan! Japan and Europe is at the top of our next vacation destinations.

 

[Leila]

Here''s the type of toilet I was talking about. This was the cleanest one I encountered so I had to snap a pic for all my friends back home who has never seen one of these! Most of the newer developments and nicer areas like shopping malls and hotels have the regular western style toilets, or both.

 

[Leila]

One of the statues at the Ming Tombs, in Beijing. Thirteen of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty were buried here.

 

[Leila]

Oops, I''ll try again...

 

[Leila]

A street vendor in Beijing. I didn''t try any of the food sold by the street vendors, no matter how delicious they smelled. It looked too risky.

 

[Leila]

Interesting shot of a street in Beijing. I think some of these vendors live in the back of where they run their businesses. Some of them, hang their laundry in the street.

 

[Leila]

This is a view of Tiananmen Square from afar. Tiananmen was built during the Ming Dynasty, the area was used to house the offices of the imperial ministries and was also the gate to the Forbidden City. It was enlarged sometime in the 20th century, and can accomodate a million people. It holds Mao Zedong''s Mausoleum and is also famous for the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The Chinese government estimated 200-300 civilians were killed during the protest, but the Chinse student associations and the Chinese Red Cross estimated 2,000–3,000 were killed.

 

[CareBear]

Great pics Leila! I agree with you on those hole in the ground toilets. I''ve seen them all over asia and cannot get used to them. I always feel like I might accidently slip and fall into them. But I was told that locals actually prefer them to western style toilets because there''s no contact with the toilet seats which they feel are dirty. I guess most places don''t have wax toilet seat covers.

 

[Sundial]

Date: 11/7/2006 11:03:57 PM
Author: Leila

Date: 11/4/2006 7:27:52 PM
Author: Sundial
Thanks for posting your pictures Leila! My husband and I were just in Japan and China last month ourselves and we had a wonderful time!!! We went to Japan first so we missed the crowds during the Chinese national holiday, but there were still plenty of people around especially at the Great Wall. In China we visited Dalian, Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. We thought that the air quality was very poor in China. And although we met some delightful people there most were not as polite and helpful as they were in Japan. We did love the food and all the wonderful historical places that you can see there.

I saw your pictures Sundial, we have some of the same shots! I am glad you had a wonderful time! I completely agree about the air polution in China. It''s really terrible. And how did you adjust to using those urinals looking toilet on the floor? What do you call that? I could not get over those squatting toilets! That part made me miserable! I would loved to have visited Xian and Japan! Japan and Europe is at the top of our next vacation destinations.

Oh yes the lovely "trough" toilets as I called them! I don''t miss those. It is a good thing I''ve been exercising or I might not have been able to get back up after squatting over those things! We would rate the toilets and if they had a western style facilities with toilet paper and an air dryer for your hands that was a "four star" toilet.

I have a new appreciation for why men are so messy in the bathroom!

 

[FireGoddess]

A friend of mine who went to Japan was trying to describe those toilets to me. Eek.

 

[Leila]

Temple of Heaven was built in 1420 during the Ming Dynasty. The Ming and Qing Emperors traveled each year from the Forbidden City to the Temple of Heaven to pay worship, offer sacrifices to the gods, and to pray for good harvests.