Beijing (Day 1)

May 26th

I couldn't sleep. I was up at 4am ready to go. Maybe it was because I slept for 8+ hours on the plane or maybe it was just the excitement of being in China. I couldn't wait. So when the alarm clock finally went off, I was up and running. After a quick continental (American) breakfast, we met up with our new tour guide, Gary, and the rest of the group of 22.

Our First Stop: Beijing Olympic Park
We were able to see the IBM building they built to look like a torch, The Birds Nest & the Water Cube. What is so amazing about all of this is the funding for almost all of the Olympic Buildings were raised by donations. Most donations were made by Chinese individuals & families that do not live in China. CRAZY!

Today we learned that the haze that you see in the pictures is from Coal Plants. This is just a part of the Beijing experience. We were told that during the Olympics, they shut down the plants for periods of time in hopes to clear the air a little. They were also assigned certain days they could or couldn't drive on to reduce car smog. That ended up staying in place even to this day.

We were not able to go into any of these buildings but it was really cool just be there and see them and walk around where all the Olympians were in 2008. They are amazing structures.

We all hopped back on the bus to head towards the Forbidden City & Tiamanmen Square. But our tour guide, Gary had a few stops in mind first. We made a stop at a Pearl Market. They taught us about salt water pearls vs fresh water pearls. It was nice to learn and neat that is was something we learned they did locally (fresh water pearls) but we weren't interested in buying super expensive jewelry.

After our longer then we would have liked stop at the Pearl Market, we headed to Qianmen Street. There was a lot of cool architecture, shops and this is where we ate lunch.

Gary dropped us off here and give us free time to shop and eat. He recommend KFC and McDonalds for lunch! We thought he was crazy and had no plans of eating at an American chain fast food place. Thankfully Gina came to our rescue with her Lonely Planet book. She found us a dumpling place to eat right on Qianmen Street. And it was INCREDIBLE!



The name of the restaurant



We learned a lot from our first dining experience in Beijing. Some quick lessons:

1. Just because the elevator has a particular floor marked with Chinese characters, that doesn't mean that is the floor you are supposed to go to.
2. Some restaurants have you pay as soon as you order instead of at the end of the meal.
3. Don't take the ticket off the table or even move it from the corner or you won't get all the food that you ordered.

 After lunch we made a quick photo stop at the Beijing Theatre. It was such a unique design. If only we had time to see a show in here. That would have been awesome. Maybe next time...

Next we headed over to Tiananmen Square. Wow this place is HUGE! Our tour guide made the joke that it would fit 1 million Chinese or a half a million Americans. We had the opportunity to talk around for a little bit and take it in before we headed into the Forbidden City.



The Square. Hard to capture the size.



National Museum of China (east side)

The Great Hall of People (parliament) (west side)



Monument in front of Mao's Mausoleum (south side)




Forbidden City (north side)

There were people everywhere, tourist and locals alike. It was so amazing to be walking around Tiananmen Square. Time went by quickly and we regrouped and headed into the Forbidden City. It is now opened to the public but before 1925 only the Emperor, family and council were allow in the city.

There is just so much information and history about this place. Every time you turned another corner there was more to see. I guess that is what happens when you build a city with 9,999 1/2 rooms.

We learned that "The Last Emperor", Puyi, became Emperor at 2 years and 10 months old. That is crazy!

After our tour of the Forbidden City, Gary was going to take us back to the hotel on the bus. But it was only about 5pm and Jed, Tim and I were not done exploring the area. From where we left the city gates of the Forbidden City, we could see a lookout at the top of the hill.

So we decided to say good bye to our group and set off on foot to see what we could find. We found Jingshan Park. After a short hike to the top, we were able to get an incredible view of the Forbidden City and a lot of Beijing.

After our time in the park we decided to head back to the hotel. This didn't end up being as easy as we would like it to be. Gary told us not to get a cab near Tiananmen Square or the Forbidden City because they would way over charge us. He recommended us going out the park on the far side, finding a hotel and having them get us a cab. Great idea! In theory... the short version of the story is this...
- wondered aimlessly for a while
- ran up a roaming bill on Tim's cell phone for over $50 in 3 minutes
- found no hotels
- found a cab
- made it back to hotel
- paid too much for a cab

It was such a crazy experience and a great way to get our feet wet for more hiccups the rest of our time here.

But we weren't done for the day. It was still early and there was more to do.

Our next adventure: Dinner
We weren't sure where to go for dinner so we thought we should just ask the front desk. They can speak some English so we were hoping they could tell us a place to go. We asked and they didn't understand anything we said. We pointed to the question in our translation book and they sent us over to the concierge, Ryan. They asked us what we wanted to eat and asked if we wanted Italian! Really? Italian, in China? Of course, we wanted Chinese food. So they recommended Peking Duck. I wasn't a huge fan but I figured Tim and Jed could try duck and they would have something there for me. Ryan walked us out to get us a cab and no cabbie wanted to take us so we asked if there was something that we could walk to. The guy looked shocked! Apparently the foreigners that say at this hotel don't tend to want real Chinese. He told us of a place right across the street. He walked us over there, talked to the people inside, got us a number and menus to look at while we waited. He was so great and a HUGE help. The restaurant was definitely authentic. We were the only foreigners in the place and we got quite a few stares but we didn't care. After quite a wait, our table was ready and the rest of the restaurant was beautiful.


The restaurant

 

The pictures just don't do it justice. There was water under the glass floors, little bridges over little waterfalls, and super fun drapes for individual table privacy. The food was super spicy but really, really good. They had dog on the menu but Jed & Tim just weren't ready to tackle that yet.

We had an amazing dinner and headed out for a little walk before calling it a night. All these little street vendors popped up around the hotel and on bridges. They had random clothing racks that they were selling random articles of clothing, ipod nanos, bootleg dvd's, a ton of different food, some fresh fruits and others were cooking different meat kabobs and tiny little spotted eggs. We looked but didn't buy. After our walk, we were ready to end our first day in China. Had to get a little sleep before our next adventures.

CHINA!

May 24th - May 25th

CHINA! Jed and I got the chance of a lifetime and were able to book a trip to China. We were able to find a great deal with Affordable Asia. Our trip was 10 days and we covered 3 main cities; Beijing, Xi' an, and Shanghai. The trip was everything we could have hoped for and so much more.

So lets start at the beginning...

Our trip really started on Wednesday, May 23rd. After work we drove up to New York and stayed with Jed's brother, sister in law and niece. Our flight took off from JFK on Thursday and it wasn't worth the risk to just drive up on Thursday. Besides, it gave us a few hours with the family at the front end of the trip.

So Friday morning, we got up, spent some time with Kerry and Emma before dropping her off at school and then Kerry was nice enough to drop Jed and I and all of our luggage off at the train station. I love taking the train into Grand Central! Our game plan was to take the train into Grand Central, get a slice of pizza and a Jamba Juice for lunch, hop on the subway to the Airtrain and take that to JFK. It was the perfect plan until we got to Grand Central and headed outside and it was pouring! We were pretty bummed but what can you do. So we headed down to the food court and found Two Boots and Magnolia Bakery.

After pizza and a cupcake, we were off to the airport. Tim's flight from Boston landed as we were on the Airtrain so we all met at the Air China counter right around the same time. Our flight ended up being delayed. Which was no big deal the first two times. When they delayed it the third time they were nice enough to let us know why. There was a monkey loose on the plane. You read that right, a monkey was running around the plane and they couldn't catch it. Crazy! We never really got much addition detail to the story and we never saw a monkey or the affects of a monkey but I appreciate them telling us why we weren't leaving on time even if it meant they made up a ridiculous story of a monkey gone wild. While we were waiting, we met Dave and Gina. They saw our "Affordable Asia" luggage tags and introduced themselves. They are going on the same tour and they were start enough to call Affordable Asia and let them know we were delayed.

After a four hour delay, we were finally on the plane. And just as I was dosing off to sleep I hear the Captain notify us that we now have a weather delay. So we hung out on the tarmac for another hour. But finally, at 9:45pm, 5 hours behind schedule, we were in the air!

Thankfully we had a direct flight from JFK to Beijing. It was over 13 hours on the plane but it really wasn't bad. I spent a lot of it sleeping.

When we finally landed in Beijing, I was a little nervous but was more excited than anything. I ran around like a typical American tourist taking pictures of everything and nothing...

It wasn't too different to get through all of the obstacles to get through customs. We did have to go through an area that took your body temperature. It was pretty crazy and uneventful in the end. After all the hoops, we finally made it to baggage claim and all of our bags made it!

As soon as we made it into the common area of the airport, we were easily able to spot the Affordable Asia flag. Leo was there to take us from the airport to our hotel. It took us able an hour to get there but during that time, Leo helped us with counting and learning the sign for all of the numbers. It was dark outside so there really wasn't anything to look at. It didn't really feel like we were in a different country.

We pulled up to our hotel and the first thing we saw was the 24 hour McDonalds that was across the street. Seriously! But we got our bags and our hotel keys and we all headed to bed. We weren't really tired since we slept so much on the plane but it didn't matter, we had a wake up call in 5 hours so we had to try and get some more sleep. By the time we got up to our rooms and in bed it was 1:30am, Saturday, May 26th. Yeah, we had lost an entire day. Between the 13 hour flight and the 12 hour time difference we missed Friday. But we couldn't think about that, we had too much to see and do to focus on.

Warrior Dash

May 20th

This was SO MUCH FUN! Everyone needs to participate in a Warrior Dash. Just go ahead and put it on your bucket list now. No training needed, no experience needed. Just grab some friends, find some crazy costumes and sign up!

After Peter completed the Krispy Kreme Challenge with us back in February, he picked this race for us to try out next. Peter and Jeremy had completed this race in New York a few years back but he had so much fun he had to do it again. So Joel, Peter, Jed and I piled into our car and headed to Mechanicsville, MD. 

Our first stop was meeting Scottie for a quick lunch break. Jed was adamant that we not stop in Charlottesville (aka Hell) but in the end he lost and we met Scottie on the outskirts of Charlottesville at Christians Pizza. It was not bad for a pizza joint in Hell. It was nice to see Scottie and catch up with him for a little while but we needed to get back on the road.

We couldn't help but make a quick pit stop at Carl's in Fredericksburg, it was on the way!

We made it to Take It Easy Campground in record time. Even though we had called ahead and confirmed that we were coming and got there before they closed, things did not go well and do to may things, we did not end up camping here. My opinion of it, they hate us.

But we quickly got over the debacle that was the camping situation and were able to find cheap hotel in Lexington Park, Maryland. We met up with Peter's brother, Scott & his son, Drew. We headed out to a "carb loading" dinner at Texas Roadhouse and spent the rest of the evening spending time hanging out and getting our outfits ready for the next day.

Race day was SO MUCH FUN! We took a few pictures to document our amazing outfits and off to the race we went. There were not as many costumes as I had hoped but people loved our crazy get-ups. We got a lot of comments, points and car horn taps.

The race was so much fun. Three miles of just being silly. We ran through mud, threw mud at each other, climbed walls, cargo nets, crawled under barbed wire, walked over bridges, slide down water slides, jumped over fire and swam through a mud pit just to list a few things. We did all of that and all 6 of us kept our hats on! Pretty impressive if you as me.
I desperately wanted to get a picture of us covered in mud. I am really glad I got it but it cost us our camera. After we had someone take the picture of us, some how, our camera rubbed up against something and got covered with mud. So bummed I destroyed the camera but glad I got the picture!

After the race, they hose you off using huge tankers of "pool water" and fire hoses. They have a place for you to donate your race clothes and shoes. 

Discarded shoe pile after one day



Once we got cleaned up, as best we could, we headed back to the race area for our free beer and to cheer on other races. We did a lot of people watching and did see some great outfits. Some of my favorites were wedding dresses & bridesmaid dresses (on ladies and guys) and super hero outfits.

We couldn't stay long since we had a long drive home that night so we head the road my mid afternoon. We stopped in Richmond for dinner. We were looking for barbeque and tried to get at Virginia BBQ but they were closed. Maybe next time. We were able to find Phat Boyz BBQ. The place was really fun and the food was really good. Great corn bread! It was nice to sit outside and enjoy the weather before finishing the last few hours of our drive.

We had so much fun on our quick road trip and crazy fun at the race. Everyone really should try it at least once. At least go watch and guard your friends cameras so they don't get destroyed.

Nags Head Family Vacation

May 6th - May 8th

After Kelly & Adam's wedding, my mom rented a beach house in Nags Head for the week. It is the same beach house she got a few years back when she retired, The Spirit of Kitty Hawk. We really like it and it is a lot of fun to have a beach house that we go back to time and time again. It almost feels like a second home. It was still a little chilly so we never made it out to the beach during the day. We spent most of our time hanging out by the pool.

                                        

It was great to be able to spend time with family and just relax. And we had so much fun watching and playing with my niece, Korryn. She is just too cute.

                                         

One of our days at the beach, Shelby, Ben, Korryn, Jed and I hopped in Ben's truck to go four wheeling in Corolla. We made the 45 minute drive down to the sand but Ben wasn't able to get his truck into four wheel drive so we weren't able to do too much off roading. We even got stuck twice and both times some really nice people were willing to help pull us out so we didn't have to pay a million dollars to get the truck towed.

                                            

                                                

 After our adventure on the beach, we headed back to the house and met up with mom, Tom and Ryan and headed out to dinner. We found a cool brewery just down the road called Outer Banks Brewing Station. It is "America's First Wind Powered Brewery". We liked the beer, root beer and food but the service was not the best.

On our last day at the beach, it started to warm up so Jed and I took a little bike ride. It was fun to get out and enjoy the weather and explore a little. We didn't find much but we did end up seeing some pretty funny graffiti on the road.

On our way back home that night we had to make a quick pit stop for dinner at one of my favorite places, Chesapeake Pizza. I love this place and I was so excited to be able to stop and get a pizza for the road. It was the perfect way to end our few day vacation.

I am so thankful that we had the chance to go and spend time at the beach with my family. Thank you so much mom for making it happen and getting the house. We had a great time!