Pictures!

We'll see how far I get, but I'm going to try to post pics of the trip starting at the beginning.

Getting ready to go and still raring to go at this point.  This was the easy part - a 2 hour trip to Detroit.

The pilots were very nice and offered for Jacob and Aidan to sit in the cockpit.  

Lunch break in Detroit.  Still fairly fresh.  :)

Getting tireder and the novelty of flying had worn off for the boys.  But, they each had their own video screens and could choose movies.  Matt and the boys all watched the same one here.  Fortunately, they had a "Kids TV" channel with appropriate selections.

On the way from Beijing airport to our hotel after many, many hours of traveling.  The boys are still smiling and excited to FINALLY be in China!

Effie, our fantastic Beijing guide, discussing the plans for the next couple of days with the driver.  He was nice, but spoke not a word of English and was a bit grumpy at times, so this was our first experience with someone "loudly discussing" about us and we had no idea what he was saying.  :)

 The view from our hotel in Beijing.  They never ever see blue skies due to the smog. 

J & A on the steps in the lobby of the hotel in Beijing.  They try to make their hotels' lobbies very nice. 

Aidan eating at the breakfast buffet the next morning at the hotel.  He loved the hard boiled eggs and found an American food - Cocoa Pebbles.  :)  His favorites at the China breakfast buffets were the various juices and yogurts.   At this hotel, there were very few non Asians.  We had some French airline pilots sitting behind us.

Hutong drivers trying to solicit costumers

Our very first adventure in China - the hutong tour.  Matt and Aidan were in one hutong...  Jacob and I in the other.

Aidan and Matt were behind us.

Part of our hutong tour was to actually go into a private citizen's home in China.  They are very wealthy people per China's standards.  Small 3 room house - This is their living room (which also housed their fridge).

The lady on the right led the village tour.  She served as translator for the owner of the house (on the left).  We were able to ask her questions about her and her home.

Beautiful porcelain sitting area under arbor outside the lady's house.




Small kitchen behind the door to the left.  They didn't offer for us to go in there.

What a sweet lady.  The two wooden beams above her door show that she was a common citizen.

Pomegranate trees on her property.  

Notice the 4 wooden beams.  This is an example of a very prominent Chinese citizen such as a governmental official.

Very, very steep, uneven steps up to the old bell tower, which was built in the 1200s by the emperor to keep time for his kingdom.  There was a drum tower right across the street, where drums were beaten also to alert citizens of the time. This bell was cast during the Ming Dynasty.

It's hard to appreciate how huge it was.  They ring it with huge wooden beams that bang against it (as opposed to a clapper on the inside).

Lunch break first day.  The boys got very handy with chopsticks and very much enjoyed Chinese on food this day because they weren't tired of it yet.  Despite the yucky look on my face while serving the boys leeks, we all liked all the dishes that day.

We went to the Summer Palace for the afternoon.  This was the place the emperors spent his summers and it is linked to the Forbidden City by a man made river, so he'd be transported by boat between the two. We had to fight a massive, massive crowd that day to their National Holiday.  It was the biggest and definitely most aggressive crowd I've ever been a part of.

This was the longest corridor (the longest in the world).  It was beautiful and seemed like it'd never end.  The whole thing was intricately painted with original paintings.  

To get back to the entrance, instead of walking back through the masses, our guide recommended to take a boat back across.  It was very beautiful.

This guy was videoing us almost the whole time.  We were the only non Asians on the boat.

.

Among the funniest things in China are some of the translations.   Some of the English translations make little sense or are just gibberish.  We got a good laugh out of this one and still don't know what they meant.