The bigs' last day of school was Friday, and they treated us to a Christmas concert before heading back to their classrooms for a party and to say goodbye - for three weeks or for longer, as some classmates prepare to leave Singapore.
Early the next morning we caught a plane (and van, and boat, and back of a truck) with two visitors from Minnesota to begin our vacation in Thailand. Thailand! I am so excited! I will eat all the Pad Thai!
Sorry for the wonky formattinf and out of order pictures. I'm still learning how to edit from my phone.
Love and happy holidays to you all from the Singaborcherts!
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone the USA! We are grateful to have you in our lives, across all the miles.
American Thanksgiving is just another day in Singapore, so the kids had school, and Mike had work. But we celebrated with a turkey dinner anyway. Even though it was my first time running a Thanksgiving dinner, Eldest gave it two thumbs up!
The pumpkin pie was a team effort. Eldest made the crust, and the littles helped me mix up the filling. Sadly, we couldn't find our pie pan (we really think we packed it!), so had to improvise. Mini pumpkin pies are delicious too!
And now we have leftovers to look forward to. Yum!
After we left Jingshan Park we were again in need of transportation for dinner, and again were flagged down by an ambitious tuktuk driver. This time it was an open-air contraption that looked like it was mostly built from Ikea scrap, and I had the presence of mind to get most of it on video. First we got stuck in this traffic jam in a hutong side-street:
And here's the rest of the ride once we got out onto the main road. Apologies for the sound quality, the on-board microphone on my Canon DSLR was not designed for quite that much wind!
The next day was our last in Beijing, but we had time in the morning to visit one last site, the Temple of Heaven. This temple complex is of roughly the same vintage as the rest of the palaces and temples in Beijing, and was the site where emperors performed highly complex harvest rituals. Now it is a park where the locals do tai chi in the morning and practice with spinning tops. Here's an uncle teaching Maxwell the basic idea.
From the park you go through a series of gates and temples to progress as the emperor would have throughout the temple complex. All of the important buildings and structures are round (because heaven is round). We did not make it to the Temple of Earth on this trip, where everything is square. We let the kids take turns with various cameras, here's a curated selection of what they felt was important:
Here's a few more from Michael, including the 500-year-old "Nine Dragon" Juniper tree, and the long covered walkway for the emperor that leads to the east gate, now filled with gambling locals.
While at the Temple of Heaven park, Michael started getting cryptic yet urgent messages from work. We dashed back to the hotel to retrieve our bags and let him log in to find out that he's headed to Las Vegas in November!
After a quick lunch, we caught a taxi and pointed to our itinerary to give him directions to the airport...only to find out once we arrived that we were at the wrong terminal! Yikes!
Thus ensued 2.5 panicked hours of
running to catch the only shuttle that could take us to the correct terminal,
running from one check-in gate to the next until we found the right one,
followed by exit customs with incredibly stern officers (what do you mean we don't have the right form? Quick, fill out forms for five people with only one working pen!),
the hurry-up-and-wait of security screening, and finally
the mad dash to the far end of the gate.
<pant>
<pant>
<pant>.
..and we arrived with 5 minutes to spare before boarding. That was close!
Go Team Singaborchert! Though kid complaints were plentiful in the morning, once they understood the situation was serious, the kids really pulled it together and were fantastic travelers.
Overall I think we had a great introduction to traveling in China, and all came away with a much better understanding of Chinese history and culture. So much of what we know about this part of the world comes to us filtered through Hollywood and the western-centric historical narrative, it was a great experience to be able to follow the threads without that baggage* and see the way modern China puts their own long and varied history into context, and to see how these historical places are still living and breathing elements in the modern culture as well.
We also managed to get ourselves into plenty of situations outside our comfort zone, and I think all of us pushed our boundaries. This was definitely good practice for our next family trip: two weeks in Thailand over Christmas!
* fully aware that there is just a different set ofcultural baggage related to the civil war and communist revolution...
Our penultimate day in Beijing was spent at the Forbidden City, which like a lot of things in China has a much more impressive name in the guide books than it does according to the official literature. Renamed as "The Palace Museum" following the nationalist over-throw of the imperial government, the palace was the center of government for the Ming and Qing dynasties, spanning 24 emperors over 500 years.
The approach is through the south gate, across the road from Tiananmen Square (which was sadly closed due to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China that was going on in the adjoining government buildings). The entrance through which ~17 million tourists per year flow is now adorned with an enormous portrait of Chairman Mao.
The entire palace is laid out along a North-South axis, with a special carriageway down the center to accommodate the emperor, who was the only one (presumably along with all of his litter-bearers) to travel down the middle path. Officials and supplicants had to stay on either side of the marble-lined pathway. Now Danger Monkey plays in the puddles.
The entire palace complex is an impossibly long series of gates, courtyards, and throne rooms followed by more gates, courtyards, and throne rooms. To the sides were store rooms and actual living quarters for officials and servants.
Overall, there are nearly 1000 buildings in the palace complex, many still being restored and some holding special collections on painting, calligraphy, and timepieces that were collected by various emperors of the Qing dynasty.
At the north end of the palace is the emperor's private garden, a place for quieter contemplation surrounded by cypress trees that still grow there, some of which are as old as the palace.
Here you can see the varying levels of restoration of the paint and lacquer, as well as the two littlest SingaBorcherts trying to fall into a koi pond.
North of the Forbidden City is Jingshan Park, an imperial garden that was also opened to the public in the 1920's. The most notable feature is a 150-foot-tall hill that overlooks the palace grounds, built almost entirely from the earth dug up to create the moat for the Forbidden City in the 15th century. The hill's peaks are topped with intricate pavilions that were used by the emperor and his court, and currently mobbed by tourists looking to get sweet photos of the palace below, the Beijing skyline, and our curiously pale children.
Although Puyi, the last emperor of China famously retrofitted parts of the Forbidden City so that he could get around it more easily on a bicycle, it turned out that the stroller was a mistake.
After the Summer Palace, we got caught up on a part of Beijing we missed on our first day - starting with the Lama temple
The Lama temple is the largest Tibetan Buddhist temple outside of Tibet, and home of the Panchan Lama as well as the largest Buddha carved out of a single sandalwood tree - roughly four stories tall.
From the Lama Temple we hiked to the Drum tower and Bell tower - These two imposing towers (which were the official timepiece of Beijing until 1924) were sadly closed for the week for maintenance, but the kids made the most of the large square between them.
The Drum and Bell towers are nestled into a part of residential Beijing that is undergoing some controversial re-development, as their status as a tourist attraction comes in conflict with quaint neighborhoods like this one:
Leaving the Drum and Bell Tower square, we prepared to hunt down a taxi, and instead met with a friendly tuktuk driver, who assured us we could all fit into his vehicle. We swerved through car lanes, and bike lanes, scraping by with centimeters to spare. Zoom!
The next day we had booked a trip to the GREAT WALL OF CHINA. That's right, you've heard about it since elementary school, though much of what you've probably heard has been myths propagated by (or for) tourists. The section we were scheduled to tour, the Mutianyu section, is known for gorgeous views, and fun alpine slide down from the ridgeline.
The day dawned rainy, gloomy, and gray...and stayed that way. We soldiered on, and I am so proud of team SingaBorchert for keeping in good spirits despite the rain.
Well, we were able to see the wall itself, but will have to depend on Google to show us the gorgeous views...now that we're on the right side of the great firewall. At the very least, we were able to get out into the countryside and get a glimpse of China that was very different from the Beijing urban experience.
Michael's quote for Beijing was "I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this!"
I've been reading my guidebook, and all of the internet to prepare for this trip, but these don't always have the details you really want to know. Like, will the restaurant staff speak English, or have an English menu? (answer: probably not) Or, how long should we plan to spend at the Summer Palace? (answer: as much time as you possibly can)
Our plan for the second full day was to spend the morning at the Summer Palace. With Eldest feeling better, we marched the crew over to a local shop for dumplings. With Eldest translating, we enjoyed our local-style breakfast,
Then we hopped into a taxi to visit the Summer Palace! This huge estate was a summer retreat for emperors, first built in 1750, and last rebuilt in 1912, and opened to the public in 1924. But knowing that, and reading about it in a guide book did not prepare us at all!
Walking in, I felt like I was at an amusement park. This is not entirely unreasonable, since the north gate, where we entered, was an amusement area for the Emperor and court. The artificial riverfront featured pretend storefronts, so the emperor and concubines could play at shopping. Of course, the previously fake shops now contain souvenirs, so we admired the view and then ushered the kids through as quickly as we could.
Not really knowing what to expect, we followed the crowds straight ahead, which led us up, up, up the hill. Good thing we left the stroller at the hotel!
The kids had a grand time climbing the hill and exploring all the side halls and caves, and were in good spirits as long as we kept doling out the snacks.
And then back down the other side, through amazing temples and imperial apartments filled with artifacts.
At the bottom of the hill, we encountered the crowds who entered through less strenuous routes - as well as the famous long corridor, which the kids were happy to run along. Where do they get this energy?
This was also the kids' first day of being the tourist attraction. Many of the other visitors were interested in the kids, and wanted to touch them or take pictures with them. Danger Monkey was having none of it, and consistently ran back to Mommy when anyone approached. Middle Child also usually hid or ran away, but Eldest was willing to entertain a few pictures and enjoyed amazing her fans with her Chinese skills.
We then caught a boat across the lake to the Temple of the Dragon King. The view back to where we had climbed was gorgeous, and I was transported to a different world, imagining myself aboard the imperial barge. I can only imagine how it must have looked pre-smog.
Overall, I give the Summer Palace two thumbs up. It is gorgeous, and has plenty of nooks to explore and opportunities for the kids to play. In our five hours there we saw only a fraction of the grounds, and I can't wait to go back.
