My good friend Alana and I took A LOT of these types of pics during our time studying abroad in Mexico:
I never thought we would get to take pics like these together in CHINA!!! But we DID, because she CAME TO VISIT!!! We felt so honored that she would fly across the ocean to see us living life here in the Pearl of the Orient.
It was an incredible visit. About a week and a half after school started in September, Alana flew in and started living life with us. She came to school, observed Steve’s 4th grade Chinese geography presentations, worked up a sweat in my spin class, explored the city of Shanghai, endured going to the hottest and most humid tennis tournament in history, gave her testimony at our youth group, ate basically only Asian cuisine while here (which is actually a challenge considering how international this city is), came to church with us for a special Hillsong United concert, and served in a local orphanage.
And, to top it all off, the three of us spontaneously decided to go to Beijing for the weekend! Our school just happened to have a four day holiday during the time she was here, so we took advantage and hopped on a bullet train to show Alana more of China!! I kind of made that sound easy, but we literally almost didn't make it to the train on time. We ran the entire way off of the subway and onto the train, which left about thirty seconds later (two whole minutes earlier than it was supposed to---look at my watch!!). Phew!
I love Beijing and have thoroughly enjoyed each time we have been there (first with Lyssa and Kirsten, then for the Great Wall Half Marathon, and again with Mark and Rob). Each time has been different in it’s own way, and has been equally amazing. As Steve and Alana are BOTH credentialed history teachers, this last trip to Beijing was seen through the fun and educational lenses of history and cultural analysis.
Our first full day in the capital was actually spent three hours outside of the capital- with a hike on my favorite wonder of the world: the GREAT WALL! We went to a different section of the wall than we had been to before: Jinshanling to Simatai. Wow. It was amazing. Once we took the gondola up, we had the choice to either go left and explore the intact ancient ruins of the wall, or to go right and see the reconstructed wall- what it would have looked like if we could see it in all of it’s glory. Of course we turned left and started climbing up, down, and around the crumbling stones of the original wall’s remains.
I loved how the slanting wall looked like the scaly back of a dragon! We also loved the BLUE SKY that allowed us to see the wall continuing to slink and slope into the distance. And, of course, Steve loved how panoramable the landscape was in general :)
When it comes to the Great Wall, pictures are just so much better to describe it than words. So here they are:
Our next full day in Beijing consisted of the Drum and Bell Towers, a trip to Coco’s, some famous Peking Duck, a walk around the Summer Palace, and…well I’ll get to our unusual dinner later…
Ok ok ok ok- all that was beautiful and wonderful and cultural and usual. So we decided to set out for something a little more unusual - dinner. Not just any ho hum dinner, but a cultural meal that was set in a comunista simpatico setting decked out with propaganda and complete with a live performance and waitresses dressed as communist combatants. Getting to the restaurant was an adventure in and of itself! Since none of us has a smartphone, we relied on google maps and the directions of a helpful guy we met on the subway to find the place. I won’t mention the post-apocalyptic alley we had to walk through to get there… ANYWAY when we did arrive, Alana and Steve found the entrance to this iconic communist restaurant quite appropriate:
With no one able to speak English and no pictures on the menu, ordering was a little bit tricky. Fortunately, we did all right with our survival Chinese. I will say though, that it was the first time we’ve seen a cooked chicken skull amongst the veggies!! They gave us Chinese flags to wave during the performance, and encouraged people to sing along to the patriotic songs. Steve and Alana enjoyed being immersed in the history of it all and helped me understand some of the historically significant components of the night. It was especially interesting to watch the elderly people in the room singing along, and wondering what life had been like for them when this wasn’t just found in a restaurant but in the dominant culture of the country.
Our last morning before zipping back to Shanghai was spent in the Forbidden City. We got a guide, which was good until he found out that both Steve and Alana were history teachers…then he got scared that they knew more than he did (which combined...they totally did!). Fortunately, we did learn some things we didn’t know before. The worst part about our guide was that he lied to us about our favorite part of the whole city- the Nine Dragon Screen! He told us it was closed that day, but Steve suspected something was amiss, and boldly led us right to it!!
Of course we also had to channel our inner Mulan...as well as visit our second-favorite part of the city- the theater!!
Alana’s goal in coming was to 1) see us :), 2) see what God is doing here in China, and 3) see China!! She was able to see a lot, and while I think she was able to see how far and wide God’s reach around the world is, Steve and I were the ones that were extremely blessed by her visit. She is so full of life that it spills into other people in a very, very good way. Her time with us sparked some pretty awesome spiritual growth in us, which I don’t believe was an accident. In the testimony that Alana shared with our youth group, she talked about how when she won big on the game show through listening to God’s voice, it wasn’t just for her. This crazy “new normal” was now for us, and I think that it is so cool to see the ways that God is using her to further bless others!