From Birds Nest..to Tea Ceremony...to Anti-Nausea Meds and Pedialyte (and a few things in between)

After ending our flight last night with Josh grasping the airsickness
bag with a death grip, he had a short nap and woke refreshed for our
entrance to China. By this morning, he was ready for the buffet at our
hotel, which was absolutely incredible! We enjoyed our choice of
traditional western food, and lots of Chinese food as well. Christina
was the most adventurous of the group on the Chinese food, encouraging
us to taste lots of different items. After breakfast Josh commented "I
don't think I've ever eaten that much before," which is quite a
statement if you know Josh or really any other 9 year old boy! We were
relieved that we were on the road to recovery with him.

Our first stop was the Olympic Village where "Mr. Andy," our tour
guide, explained quite a bit about the design of the village which was
quite interesting -- we are learning that feng shui and ying yang are
central to Chinese culture and play a huge role in the design of their
architecture and cities. We welcomed the Chinese Tea ceremony as our
next stop, as our outdoor tour was quite brisk -- about 35-40 degrees!
We sampled 4 different kinds of tea, learning when to sip, slurp or
chew the tea, and watching the "Pee Pee boy" do his thing -- yes, he
lets you know if the water is hot enough for tea when you pour it over
him and he makes a fountain of sorts. Zach laughed so hard. That was
the highlight of the ceremonoy for him, as you can imagine :-)

As long as I am on the subject -- a note on bathrooms in China in case
you are headed here soon :-) Always, always, always bring your own tp.
Be excited if there's an actual toilet as we think of them, because
most of them are like a horizontal urinal in the floor (the kids
pointed out that this is good for muscle tone in your legs -- I think
my preference would be normal potties complemented with a short run for
muscle tone :-) Many of the bathrooms have incense burning -- the kind
that are little coils. It helps w/ the aroma if you know what I mean.

Lunch was next where our guide ordered quite a meal -- about 5
different dishes set on a lazy susan in the middle of the table. Mr.
Andy called it a "lazy suzie" :-) We started with bean soup which
wasn't the favored item for the group, but moved into Kung Pao chicken,
mutton w/ cilantro (excellent), bamboo sprouts w/ pork, and a few
others. We visited the Summer Palace which is, well the summer palace
of past emperors. We enjoyed the beautiful architecture and the
stories about the "Dragon Lady" empress who expanded Ancient Summer
Palace in the 1800s and then rebuilt it after it was destroyed. For
all of you Sonlight users out there -- remember Little Pear -- the book
about the mischevious young Chinese boy? I recall him eating something
called "Tang Heulers" at Chinese New Years. When we have been to
Chinese New YEar in San Francisco,they have never known what I meant
when I asked. Today, they were selling them at Summer Palace! So we
got to enjoy this Beijing-only delicacy -- candied crab apples with
sesame seeds on a stick. They got mixed reveiws -- but all good from
the younger crowd, and I was happy to finally taste them!

Chinese calligraphy lessons were next -- we had a demonstration and
then we each were taught how to make a chinese character. We learned
about the use of rice paper for calligraphy, about the inks and types
of brushes. The absolute best brushes use the hair from the tips of
the tails of goats. Who would have thought.

We then were able to experience Beijing rush hour. This is something
you should not underestimate. LOTS of cars. LOTS of rickshaws. LOTS
of bikers. LOTS of motorcycles. And very little clearance between
cars. No helmets on bikers. No seatbelts on most drivers. We are
amazed at the amount of cargo that can be carried on a rickshaw. I
hope to be quick enough with my camera tomorrow to catch a pic of a
fully loaded rickshaw -- it's incredible. Josh didn't enjoy the rush
hour so much. This is when I learned the value of traveling with
ziplocks. Did you know that you can throw up in one and then seal it
and it is really quite tidy? NEver leave home without them. I am so
thankful that Josh knows when it is coming and he aims well.

Enough about that -- he perked up after that so we hit the kung fu
show. It was really neat -- more of a show than a demonstration, which
my kids would have liked. Once you made that mental shift, it was very
entertaining to watch. A few more stomach issues on the way home, so
we ended the night administering the magic anti nausea medication
(Zofran), mixing a pedialyte cocktail for the wee hours of the morning
and heading to bed. Another travel tip: take as much medication with
you as you can get your pediatrician to write prescriptions for :-)

Speaking of beds. Did you know in most of Asia you can only sleep 3
people in one hotel room? Wow. So we have a Boyum Boy room and a
Boyum Girl room. 3 people in a king bed. They aren't quite as big as
our king beds. Christina thinks they are emperor beds :-) Hits the
pocketbook and is a bit inconvenient especially when you have a sick
one.

Well, there's so much more but this has rambled long enough and who
knows what the night holds. All in all we are super excited to be
here, overall we are faring well and very much enjoying ourselves. For
those of you praying for us -- thank you!!! I think our main request
now is for Josh's health. We need to start the malaria meds before we
travel to Thailand at the end of the week, but they have lots of
potential side effects, nausea being one of them. We'd really like
Josh to get back to normal before we give those to him!!!

I tried to attach some photos but I can't figure out how to compress
them -- and my IT department is asleep down the hall :-) We'll try
tomorrow... so stay tuned! And thanks to all who have commented on the
blog -- it's good to hear from you!

I hope all of you at home are enjoying your Christmas trees and
decorations and looking forward to a Christ centered Christmas season!