Day three was a full day. Hailey had some ups and downs, which we expected and planned for before we left. Both the girls were great in the morning though, and that's what this blog post is about. We met our tour guide at 8, and off we went to the Temple of Heaven and silk factory. Fun stuff!
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TJ being the awesome dad extraordinaire and changing the baby's diaper. So hot.
Also, that bag that Hailey's holding? The tour guide gave her a pile of stuffed animals that his daughter had outgrown. |
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| We basically got dropped off at the entrance to what looked like a really pretty park. As it turned out, it was a really pretty park. Hailey was also really attached to our tour guide. See that adorable panda sticking out of her adorable backpack? The tour guide gave that to her. |
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| Not much can be done at this park :( |
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| Brittany and TJ were amused at the sign above. |
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| This is a stroller. Yes, you read correctly. That woman is carrying a real live child in there. If this were the states, that woman would have been tackled by a pile of cops telling her that this stroller was banned by the *insert acronym for government watchdog parenting association here* and she had to burn it immediately! This is a communist country after all! They should know better. Okay, i'm kidding. I actually thought it was darling. Yes, darling. As in, as cute as Darling from Lady and the Tramp. |
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| Lilah and her love. |
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| This park was swarming with people who wanted to get some exercise. The tour guide, who's name was David (should have said that earlier), said that people come here for their health. The Chinese people love to work out and move their bones. These particular people were playing badminton. |
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| Darling stroller again. |
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| Hrm...not entirely sure what was going on here. |
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| Me and my brittanys. |
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| The park was beautiful. |
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The entrance to the Temple of Heaven was inside the park.
Before I go on, I have to tell a funny story. The Oregonian in me really came out when I was walking through the park. There was a guy trying to sell some little hackey sack type things with feathers and glittery things on them. People were hackey sacking them all over the park. One of the guys that was selling them tossed it to me (they were seriously pushy with their selling skills. My guess is he wanted me to catch it and then not take it back from me and demand that I pay him) the Oregon in me hackey sacked that hackey sack right back at him without missing a step. Thank you Anthony Baronian for teaching me a thing or two about the hacky sack. It saved me a few bucks in China. |
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| Being the mom that I am, it kind of reminded me of the girls stacking cups, only it wasn't pastel, and you can't knock them down, and they're not that big...and basically they're nothing alike but that's what I thought at the time. |
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| Lilah lovings at the Temple of Heaven. |
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| Us and our awesome selves. |
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| Yep, we were there. |
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| The Temple of Heaven is a place for Buddhist worship. The Dragon lady came here frequently to pray. |
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| This kinda reminds me of my grandma Vovo not allowing me to be in the kitchen when the microwave was going on...cough...yea. |
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| She loves that daddy guy. |
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| Stunning! |
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| I can't get over this building, and I was there! |
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| The inside. |
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| Hailey being an adorable five year old. |
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| Another climbing moment. |
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| I love the colors. |
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| On our way to an art exhibit where collage students sell their art. |
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| One of the students giving us the meaning of all the art. The two on the far right represented male and female. They are a typical wedding gift. Naturally TJ fell in love with me all over again, which he told me repeatedly while we were there which of course he was reminded of when looking at these beautiful pieces of art. So we bought them. To remind me of his love for me...or maybe my love for him? Totally kidding Teej! I feel in love with them too! And him of course. We did buy them which surprised me. I've never been into Asian art but there's something about living in an Asian country that really changes your perspective about a lot of things, including art. |
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| Mes loves gnarly trees. |
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| Chinese zumba. |
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| Dork.. |
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| We were pumped up and ready to learn about some silk bugs! |
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| Our next stop was a silk factory. It was way cooler than I thought it was going to be. Who knew that silk was made of silk worms. I didn't anyway. This dude showed us some silk worms live and in person. |
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| The silk worm life. |
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| Silk extractor. This pulled the individual silk thread from the cocoons and basically braided them together into silk thread. |
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| Not sure if you can see but we were all holding a single thread. |
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| This chick was taking the silk threads and placing them over that horse shoe shaped dookicky over the sink. |
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| SOOO SOFT!! |
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| David and his manly muscles couldn't rip it. |
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| They took that tiny little piece of balled up silk and stretched it over a queen size mattress to make a queen duvet. They put layer after layer after layer after layer down before they sew it all together. |
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| See, look! it |
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| YAY! Lilah got a silk fuz! |
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And Lilah being her normal adorable self.
Our morning was full, fun and relaxing. The girls enjoyed what we saw and we enjoyed that they enjoyed what we saw while enjoying it ourselves. Yea. |
