Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City

Sorry for the delay in posting the rest of our China trip...

This was a pretty funny day.  We spent quite a bit of time in the Forbidden City being pushed around by thousands of Asians there on holiday.  The buildings were spectacular, however, it was really just one big courtyard after another surrounded by buildings that all looked the same.  I must say, we didn't prepare ourselves as well as we should have with the history of the city to enjoy this stop as much as we could have.  

After hours at the square and Forbidden City we headed to the Temple of Heaven, which, had we not just come from the Forbidden City may have been more impressive.  We walked in, looked around for a few seconds, and little Wilson spoke up and said, "Mom, we were just here!"  It was pretty hilarious because we all felt the same way - it was a big courtyard with buildings that looked exactly like the ones at the Forbidden City.  Needless to say, we didn't stay there very long.  But there was a "geriatric park" right next door so we went and played there and it was just the break that we needed to get us back into sight-seeing mode.  

At the end of the day we enjoyed a nice (but extremely expensive) American meal at Hard Rock Cafe Beijing.  We sat next to the guys who had been one row behind us on our flight from San Fran - what are the chances they'd want to eat at Hard Rock too?



Mao at the Forbidden City



Those Chinese are so crafty!

Jeff, Braden, Wilson and turtle

View of Forbidden City from above

Temple of Heaven - which looked exactly like the Forbidden City

Man at the geriatrics park

Summer Palace

Home of the Emperor during the summer - hence the name, Summer Palace.  This is more than just a summer home - it's more like a Summer Village.  Unfortunately it was raining immensely hard that day so we didn't see as much as we wanted here, but what we did see was beautiful!

Me, my double chin, and my poncho somewhat ready for the rain.

The One and Only Great Wall of China

Two super cute dudes ready for some fun! (Wilson, left and Braden, right)

Typical Chinese Market

View from the top - the light colored line you can see across the top of the
mountains is the Great Wall stretching on for miles!

Ode to Mao Zedong - still not sure why they love that guy

The way down

Woo hoo!  What a ride!

China!!!

At long last I'll be posting about our trip to China in April.  I realize this is very delayed, but I've got a busy life and really need no more excuse than that.

We headed for China on April 20th at 7am our time and landed in Beijing at 3pm on April 21st...talk about a long flight!  My brother-in-law,Neil, picked us up from the airport. It was easy to spot him as was the only 6'4" person with bright red hair among all of the hundreds of people there. We stayed in Beijing for the first 3 days of our trip.  While in Beijing we saw the Great Wall, Summer Palace, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, lots of markets, and Hard Rock Cafe Beijing.

I must say that Beijing is a very dirty city and horribly crowded, but other than that I loved it!  It was so nice to have Neil as a tour guide and interpreter.  The next few posts will just be a picture documentary of our time in Beijing with a few captions here and there.  

Possum Infestation

Not long after moving into our house, Jeff and I saw a possum in our backyard.  We were really excited as neither of us had ever seen one before.  Much to our chagrin, however, the possum crawled right under our shed  followed by another possum which had appeared from nowhere and we realized we have a family of possums sharing our lot with us!

Last month we had another sighting, although this time the possum was kind enough to pose for some pictures.

Archana and pictures

In America people like pictures but many people don't like having pictures taken of themselves - or at least not while they're at work.  However, in India they love pictures and take pictures all the time (or so I'm told by Archana).  This has been interesting in our office because most people don't want to have their stressful busy season experiences captured on camera, but Archana doesn't go anywhere in the office without her camera.  It's been rather hilarious to watch people's expressions when she pulls out a camera.  Also, in India, whenever people show up to work wearing the same color, she takes a picture.  As you can imagine, this happens a lot!  So I've had my picture taken several times for showing up matching.  One time we were on a video conference call with the Indian office and I was wearing the same color as 2 of the girls in India...that made for an interesting picture!

Additionally, Archana was married less than a year ago and so she loves doing silly things with pictures of her and her husband.  For example, she will photoshop her and her husband's faces into a picture of an American couple on their wedding day to see what they'd look like in an American wedding dress and tuxedo!  It's so funny!

Archana at her engagement party last April

Me in front of video conference screen with Surthy and Florance in matching colors.

Archana's husband, Raventh, photoshopped as Santa Claus!

Archana

Busy season is officially over!!!  So I actually have time to blog again!  I don't feel too bad about not blogging for the past 3 months seeing as all I've done is work and who wants to read about tax provisions or depreciation on a blog?  I'll answer that...no one.

The one noteworthy experience from busy season is the arrival of Archana in the Seattle office.  Deloitte has offices in India, as does every other business, for the sole reason of cheap labor.  Every so often we have one of the employees from India do a rotation in the US to help them learn and develop professionally.  This year the Seattle office was pleased to welcome Archana - and I've been assigned as her "buddy" while she is here.

At first I was a little hesitant about the whole thing.  I wondered if all of my spare time would be consumed with taking her grocery shopping or sight seeing.  I worried about this because this is what happened to the "buddies" of the other India rotators in the past.  However, Archana has been incredibly competent and independent.  In fact, we've become quite good friends!  She is very kind and thoughtful.  She's funny and works hard.  And she's eager to learn.  She's not so eager to eat American food so she is starving to death, but we're working on that.

A few funny things...the left hand is considered unclean in India so whenever I eat with my left hand or reach for something with my left hand Archana scolds me or slaps my hand.  I have to remind her frequently that not only am I left-handed, but she's in America where we use both hands all the time.  In India, they don't have traffic rules so when you want to cross the street, you just start walking and hope the cars don't hit you.  I've had to remind Archana on a few occasions to wait for the crosswalk signal to show a white man before attempting to cross the street.  She has almost been killed a couple of times by thinking the cars will just stop when they see her!

Overall, it's been a great experience for me to learn about their culture and lifestyle.  I feel really ashamed that I was so clueless before; I really had made no effort to learn about the workers we have over there.  Archana will be here through July 4th and I'm excited for the things we can both teach each other.