Matt + Janae: Babymoon!!!

Babymoon!!!

What's a babymoon? It's basically the last trip we get to take before our baby comes. I had no idea a couple months ago until I was out for dinner with Goldman and the ARM desk. Donna, who recently had a beautiful boy, and Steve started describing the concept to me. I had no idea it would turn into a 3 week trek around China!

Before we found out Janae was pregnant with our first child, I thought all plans of travel were gone. When I heard my Mom and my sister were going to go to China to meet up with my Uncle and travel around China, it didn't even cross my mind that we could go. At the time, Janae had lost almost 20 lbs and was incessantly sick during her first trimester.

Mary was going to travel to Nepal to work at a health center there before heading to med school (she's actually starting at Case-Western in Ohio this week!). After Nepal she planned on meeting my Mom in China to travel around with her older brother and possibly her younger sister and her Mom. Family reunion in China! Janae started feeling a little better and we decided to join in the family fun.

I was pleasantly surprised by all Beijing had to offer. It's one of the oldest cities in the world where we took a 3-wheel bike tour to see the old hutongs (ancient alleyways that have been around since Mongol occupation). We had a local pedal us around while we sat in the back carriage while giving us a history lesson. He sure worked hard for his $4-5 US!

Fun and games in Heaven

Temple of Heaven park (Tiantan) is best seen in the early morning when it is chalk full of old people doing all sorts of activities like taiqi, singing, dancing, hackey, and all sorts of games. I even met the inventor of a game where you take a cloth hoop and toss it your partner who catches it with his neck. Its a derivation of an ancient game and the guy has articles and articles written on him about it which he was happy to show me. We also met masters of different martial arts doing their thing, singing groups, mini dance performances with a full on orchestra and director, old men playing chess, a blind man playing the harmonica, and best of all, these street performers didn't ask for money! They did it for fun. What a great way to retire - go to the park in the morning with all your friends and do something you love!

The park is famous for the ritual temple site used by Ming and Qing emperors.

Cloudy Days on the Wall

The day we needed clear skies to see the Great Wall, we got clouds and a lot of mist. I did what I could with Photoshop to get the otherwise invisible wall to show up. Traveling with a pregnant women definitely has its advantages. We took the cable car straight up the mountain and straight down allowing us to enjoy the fog covered wall at the top of the mountain instead of having to hike through zero visibility to see the 10 feet in front of us at the top. That day, the view at the top was worth riding a car up to see...not worth hiking to see.

Ming Tombs

Emperors of China like pharaohs of Egypt built extravagant tombs for themselves in which they buried their treasures, wives, and servants. The Chinese equivalent to Egypt's Valley of the Kings are the Ming Tombs where 13 emperors of the Ming dynasty are buried.

Miles and miles before arriving at the tombs were ancient pathways paved with statues of different animals and creatures meant to protect the mausoleums. Feng-shui also dictates the region be littered with Buddhist temples to ward off evil spirits that accompany tombs, some of which still in use. Our taxi driver insisted on taking us to one of these temples to cleanse ourselves of the evil spirits we came in contact with while visiting the tombs.

Summer Palace

Build a Summer palace or build a Navy? Would think Bush would be better off renovating his ranch or trying to take Iraq? Maybe he should take a lesson from Dowager Cixi who decided she needed a summer resort more than a navy and built an extravagant resort that includes palaces, temples, bridges, a man-made lakes built to re-create China's famous West Lake in HangZhou, and and waterways of Suzhou (China's Venice) where we dressed as King and Queen from Qing style.

Forbidden City

A peddler outside the tourist trap pushed us NOT to go inside but take a tour of the city with him instead. When we said no, he said there's nothing good to see inside because it's all under construction. We should have listened to him. Beijing is restoring major parts of the Forbidden City in preparations for 2008 Olympics. The sites were still impressive and I did appreciate the fresh paint on the already restored portions. The sun was HOT and the large open courtyards between buildings offered little relief. I have no idea how Janae made it through being pregnant.

From Beijing we went on to Guilin before going to Shanghai for our mini family reunion.

Links to other pictures around Beijing

Posted by Matt Huang on July 9, 2007 9:20 PM | Permalink

Matt + Janae

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