Beijing

on the 2nd half of my moms trip we headed to beijing with a tour for 4 days. it was incredible. i would 100% recommend visiting this city as well. 4 days was definitly not long enough but the tour was a good option because we crammed in sooo much!

our first stop was a jade factory where my mom and i kinda went crazy and spent a lot of money on jewelry. jade is considered good luck and good for your health in china. my favorite part of this tour (and the other factory tours) were where they show you the 4 happy workers in good conditions...but you have to wonder where the other ones are, and what sort of conditions they are working in to mass produce this stuff for tourists.

next we headed to the great wall, which was awesome. its one of those places you think, as a child, that you will never make it to, so it was fantastic to actually get to go. unfortunatly we went to a really busy area, so it was super crowded. either way it was still great. it must have been such a difficult task to build this thing. lugging those blocks up the mountain was certainly not easy. in addition to the actual steps there are watch towers every 300 meters because thats how far arrows can shoot- so they also had to bring up extra blocks for those as well. it was a boiling hot day and climbing this thing was anything but easy, but we managed to make it to the top- which in china designates you as a hero.

the davidsons conquer the great wall

our next stop was summer palace which was also awesome. it surrounds a little pond and has a really nice garden area. it was a 60th birthday present for the dragon empress (assuming my memory serves me correct- feel free to correct me on this...). we are pretty sure that we bumped into our crazy uncle from the yukon there. what he is doing in china, i will never know.

at summer palace with the actual palace in the background on the hill

a boat ferry

oh yeah, notice the haircut in these pictures. its a pretty dramatic change from the haircut i have had since i was 2.


at night we headed to an acrobatic show which is unlike anything i have ever seen before. i could not beleive some of the things these children were doing with their bodies. they must start training at the age of 2 or something. one little boy did a back flip from a 4 person tall pyramid onto a 3 person tall pyramid. at one point they fit 15 people onto a moving bicycle. just seriously the craziest things ever. considering i trip while walking on flat ground i was pretty impressed.





The next morning we went to Tianamen Square. It is really hard to picture the masacre that went on here when it is crowded with tourists and vendors. One of the downfalls of being on a tour was that we were so rushed. I felt like we were only there long enough to snap a couple pictures before we were being rushed out of there on our way to the next stop. I really didnt have time to think about what went on there or reflect. But it was great to have gone there at least once, although i would love to go back.

the entrance to the forbidden city at tianamen square