Touring China: #1 - The Lama Temple

Our very first tourist outing in Beijing, was to the Lama Temple.  It was COOOLLLD that day, but we persevered.  We know we are going to be in Beijing for several years, and the list of must-see sites isn't all that long (at least my list isn't), but the weather, pollution, and crowds are major deterrents to venturing out.  Consequently, our touristing in Beijing has thus far been fairly limited.  But, we are coming to terms with the reality of living in a city of 24 million people and recognize that if we wait for an ideal day, we'll never see anything.

The Lama Temple has been a lamasery (monastery for lamas - Tibetan Monks) since the mid-1700s and there are still monks living and working there today.

At the entrance to the temple there were dozens of vendors selling incense.  People bought it in massive quantities and then brought it inside to light and pray.

  

The temple was originally built as a royal residence so the architecture is much grander than the average lamasery or temple.

So many offerings -- it was a veritable bonfire.

In Chinese architecture, yellow is the Imperial color.  Accordingly, most of the roof tiles at the lamasery are yellow signifying that the emperor once lived there.

The buildings were all this detailed.  So intricate and so beautiful.

One of the many, many buddhas we saw on this visit.

This is the largest building in the lamasery complex.  It is also the most important as evidenced by the  number of figures adorning the corners of the roof.  There are seven out of a maximum nine, indicating that the duties performed inside this building are very special.

Another buddha.  This one is 85 feet tall and carved from a single tree.

The temple is symmetrical and each subsequent courtyard provided more opportunities for burning incense.

The lamasery covers 16 acres with its buildings and grounds.  We saw most of it before the cold became unbearable.  It is a beautiful complex and stunningly preserved.  Luckily, it was saved during the Cultural Revolution for future generations to enjoy.

Family Pictures 2013

Claire was mostly uncooperative for our photo shoot this year, but we did manage a few decent shots.  
Here is a sampling:

My kid can sleep anywhere

When we first moved to China every time I walked outside I wished I had a camera.  Everywhere we went something "blogworthy" was happening.  There was the guy in the alley walking his monkey.  The little children with split pants doing their business, well, anywhere the spirit moved them.  The restaurant around the corner that serves some of the best noodles I have ever tasted, despite the tree growing out of the middle of the building.  The dumpling shop that sells them 10 for $.85.   The fruit and vegetable sellers that stock every kind of produce imaginable.  The butchers that sell every part of every animal, most of which I prefer not to imagine.  The old men walking around with their shirts pulled up above their bellies when the temperature climbs.  And on and on and on.  But, my camera is huge.  It has all sorts of bells and whistles, most of which I don't even begin to know how to use, and it weighs a ton.  It takes great pictures, but hauling it with me for errands is just not practical.  But, I have a mental list of things I want pictures of before we leave and slowly I am crossing these items off my list.  Here is one such image I collected just last week:

It's hard to see, but if you look closely at the crib in what is, in fact, a sample bedroom in a corner of an IKEA showroom, you will see a small child under the covers, sound asleep.  At IKEA in Beijing, this behavior is unremarkable.  Every time I go to IKEA I see people sitting on couches and chairs, watching the TVs that play IKEA product advertisements on loops.  Families sit at the sample dinner tables eating their lunches.  Many of the beds are occupied with lounging and often sleeping adults and children.  And those that aren't occupied sport mussed bed clothes.  In fact, I have yet to see a made bed in the Beijing IKEA showroom.

This is really one of the stranger things I have ever encountered while living here, but apparently that is only the case for me and other expats.  For the locals it is completely normal behavior.  No other customers seem troubled or bothered.  The staff work around these people who have quite literally made themselves at home.  Even I  found myself tiptoeing out of the bedroom after realizing that the child was asleep.  But, luckily, I happened to have my camera with me, so I crept around the corner and shot a photo.  And, voila, an excellent and highly blogworthy example of the unpredictability that comes with living in China.

Like the Phoenix...

Once upon a time I was a regular (okay, semi-regular) blogger.  But, then, we moved to China.  And, our entry was not the smoothest it could have been.  It took much longer for our things to arrive than anticipated and if you have ever lived out of suitcases (even 10 extra large suitcases) for any length of time you know the inherent challenges this presents.  There was also the inevitable "teaching your body to function like its normal self" phase that we have experienced with each move.  That phase took longer than it has in the past as we coped with all of the sites, smells, and tastes we were newly thrust into.  Claire in particular struggled with the change and her adjustment period was difficult and protracted.  But, a couple of months ago, she seemed to settle in and now she is thriving and happy and speaking Chinglish with gusto.  In fact, a couple of months ago, we are sort of crossed over the hump from newly arrived and feeling discombobulated all of the time, to thinking of ourselves as Beijingers

But, coming to terms with life in China has not been the biggest impediment to blogging.  Usually, a move like this has provided lots of fodder for posts and I have used my blog as a coping mechanism for dealing with all the newness of our latest move.  But, China is special.  Life in China is hard in ways that I know no other country we will ever live in will be.  And then, on top of everything else, there is the Great Firewall of China.  I run headlong into it on a daily, sometimes multiple times a day, basis.  We have all the usual technology everyone advises you have to minimize and mitigate these run-ins.  But, we are still at the mercy of a very powerful, controlling, and often unforgiving system.  And, when just checking my email can take 4x as long as it used to,  regular (or even semi-regular) blogging loomed as a monumental undertaking.  So, I stopped, as you may have noticed.

I have felt a little guilty for this extended lapse.  I mean, we live in China, after all.  Our daily lives are nothing like our "regular" lives.  Although, at this point in our journey,  what we consider to be "regular," for the vast majority of my friends and family is anything but.  And, my children are growing and having extraordinary experiences that go virtually undocumented.  Claire especially has changed dramatically since we arrived, though I much prefer not to remember the weeks and weeks of fretting we all did over her seeming failure to thrive.  But, I ignored the guilt, quite successfully.

Then, last week, I designed and ordered this year's Christmas cards.  And, as I have done every year for the last seven, below our signature I put the address of our/my blog.  Suddenly, I was engulfed by regret.  This has been an important year in all our lives and I have essentially ignored it.  We have lived every moment deliberately this past year, but the children are young enough they won't remember what has transpired without some external promptings and I have neglected providing those.  And, as happy as we are here, everything is not perfect and sometimes I need to be reminded that I can do hard things.

So...here I am.  At the beginning of the end of 2013 and I have promised myself that I am going to blog every day this month.  I am going to sift through the photos and remembrances and mementos of the past year and share them, or at least 31 of them, for now and for posterity.  I may regret this decision, considering the inevitable Internet battles the will ensue.  But, here goes nothing...

One of our very first outings in Beijing was to Fundazzle.  A magical place that used to be an Olympic sized swimming pool (you can still see the diving platforms above the deep end) that has since been turned into an indoor play area for children.  The boys thought they had died and gone to heaven and declared they would be celebrating every birthday in China there.  We'll see about that.

 

More Easter

We participated in three Easter egg hunts, but I have no pictures from two of them and no pictures of the boys from any of them.  In my defense, one of them was at the US Embassy and cameras were not allowed.  But, for the other two, my only defense is that with three kids there just isn't a hand leftover to hold the camera, and they were indoors anyway so the light was not great.  I do, however, want a picture of Claire in her Easter dress finding an Easter egg, so we may stage that later this week IF the sun comes out and IF the pollution index falls to a reasonable level.  In Beijing these days those are both very BIG "IFS."

 Some of our new friends in Beijing invited us over for a delicious, potluck Easter feast.  The food was truly scrumptious and included all our favorite Easter dishes.  Then we went outside and crushed confetti eggs.

 We have never had confetti eggs before, but the kids really enjoyed them so we may have to adopt a new tradition.

 These eggs were extra sturdy so there was quite a bit of head bonking before they were all finally cracked.

Kenny's Easter present.  So far we've only acquired the Easter ornaments, but I have a feeling that won't be the case for long.

Claire makes us all smile.

My favorite photo of the day.

Happy Easter!

No, this is not an April Fool's Day joke, this is an actual blog post, 

at long last from deep behind the Great Firewall of China.

With any luck this will be the first of many posts to come as I try to catch our hopefully still thriving small and mighty band of faithful readers 

up on our latest ramblings.  

We are now in China and have been for 2 whole months!  We are so very happy to be here and compared with our last overseas adventure, couldn't be more pleased with our quality of life in this new and completely foreign place.  Although, having grown up in Hawaii where Asian influences were everywhere, I have found that in many ways China, or at least Beijing, is not as foreign to me as I thought it would be.  Apart from the language, which is painfully non-existent for me, the combination of growing up around many things from this part of the world and our previous experience with living in the developing world has made this transition surprisingly easy.  But, there is lots of time to go into all of that.  

On to Easter.  We celebrated with all our usual traditions this year, despite the fact that one of us (ahem, guilty!) sent the Easter eggs by slow boat (they are still somewhere in the Pacific) instead of on the airplane.  However, after a valiant search I did find the only place in this entire country where plastic eggs can be bought and the problem was rectified.  The search was arduous indeed, 

particularly in light of the fact that all the eggs we've ever had have probably all been made right here in China.

I also forget the egg dye kits that I very deliberately bought on sale last Easter, but luckily Grandma stepped in and saved the day sending not just an egg dyeing kit, but loads of candy, Easter presents and some fun things to fill the Easter baskets that I did manage to remember.  Most importantly, the Easter clothes were packed in the suitcase so we all managed to look our best for Easter Sunday.

Ready to dye 

Claire helped too 

The fruit of their labors 

 Hunting for eggs

Enjoying the loot 

Happy Easter!

What a difference a year makes

Our beautiful Claire is 1 today, 

can you believe it?

 

January 9, 2012

January 9, 2013

Happy Birthday, baby girl.  

We love you to the moon and back.

Marathon Man

Kenny ran a marathon yesterday.  Yeah, I'm impressed too. It's not on my bucket list, but it's on his and now it's crossed off forever.   

 He is already talking about the possibility of running future marathons (Beijing has one in the spring and the fall), 

but I think he'll spend some time recovering before he actually signs up to run another one.

  He did pretty well for his first, and maybe only, time and we're all very proud of him!

Yea, marathon man!

Nancy Strikes Again

We had our family pictures taken in September by our favorite photographer and dear friend, Nancy.  Despite having to work with some very uncooperative and less than willing subjects, she worked her magic once again.  My goal is always 1 good family group and 1 decent shot of each of the kids.  Mission accomplished.  Thanks, Nancy!

All my pumpkins

One of the residual benefits of all of my children being born in the same month is that things like coats and costumes fit everyone at the perfect season.  Before Caleb's first Halloween I found a pumpkin costume on ebay for the bargain price of $5.  

We certainly have gotten our money's worth...

 Caleb, 2006

Isaac, 2008

Claire, 2012

Happy (belated) Halloween

For the sake of posterity, here are my little ones celebrating one of their most favorite holidays.

 Caleb as a samurai.

 Isaac as the white ninja.

Baby Claire, the cutest pumpkin on the block, 

at least we think so.