Favorite Part of China

China was a great place for us.  I guess we were prepared and expecting it to be "India" hard and we were pleasantly surprised how much we liked it there.  The one thing we did not like about Beijing is the air pollution!   While in Beijing we visited the Olympic park, the Great Wall, saw an acrobatic show, saw the Forbidden City and Tienanmen  Square, the Temple of Heaven park and bargain shopped at a few of the markets.  




While I loved visiting these places, my favorite activity was watching people.  I figured since everyone was watching us, it was alright to watch them back.  I  was expecting to find unhappy, oppressed people but instead found friendly, happy people. We were quite a novelty since we have 4 children.  It was funny to see people count our kids and see their expressions.  Many people commented (or used hand motions to comment) about how tall Sam is.  Jenna's long blond hair also got plenty of attention.  Even though our languages were different we found people trying to communicate with us.

Almost everywhere we went we saw groups of people doing tai chi, a dance type form of exercise.  They would have music playing and then the group were doing the various movements.  They made exercise look really fun!  While at the Temple of Heaven Park we saw a playground.  Playgrounds are always good for children with excess energy so we thought we would spend a few minutes there.  But as we got closer we realized it wasn't actually a children's playground, but an adult exercise area.  There were many adults using the various pieces of equipment and again I thought that it made exercise look fun.  We also saw groups of adults playing with a Chinese hackysack.  So of course we had to buy one too.  We were trying it out and an older lady came over and joined in for a few minutes and taught us an easier way to play.  Of course no words were spoken, but a feeling of friendship was exchanged.

One afternoon we went to a local park, not a tourist attraction.  Besides seeing the groups doing tai chi, we saw many grandparents with a grandchild.  The parents work during the day and the grandparents take care of the children.  I really enjoyed just sitting at the park watching everyone and also watching everyone watching us.  They seemed so content with life and were just enjoying a nice afternoon in the park.

We just stayed in Beijing but someday I would like to return and visit other parts of China.

Adult playground in Temple of Heaven Park

One of the many photos taken with Chinese people

Rhythmic Ribbons

Yes, we actually saw Chinese doing all of these different poses for pictures!