Asia Adventures, Installment 3: Wish You Were Here

There is only one reason a family will have 3 cameras going, and that is to insure that 'the' picture is caught. You know, the one where everyone is smiling happily in front of that very famous/well known landmark.  The one that guarantees you'll remember where you were thanks to the sign your standing in front of.  The "Wish You Were Here" postcard shot.

And this time we had the added element of trying to get a 6 month old to cooperate for said moments of picture taking.  I really wish we took shots of the people trying to get Ollie to look at the camera or even (heaven forbid) smile.  But I'm sure most of you have been on the opposite side of a camera trying to get the uninterested baby or dog to look your way.  So can visualize for yourself the shenanigans that went into the below pictures.

So here for your enjoyment, some of our 'wish you were here' moments:
(I know there are quite a few, but we really wished you were with us...a lot.)

Forbidden City, Beijing

Tiananmen Square, Beijing

The Summer Palace, Beijing

Great Wall, Beijing

We did it!
Great Wall

The Peak, Hong Kong

Crystal Cabin ride to Buddha, Hong Kong

Tia Tian Buddha, Hong Kong

Bruce Lee Statue, Hong Kong

Hong Kong skyline

Ollie's First Zoo Visit!
Beijing

Summer Palace, Beijing

Great Wall, Beijing

Great Wall, Beijing

Great Wall, Beijing

Not really 'wish you were here' but still good events to document.
Who else will be able to say they had their diaper changed on the Great Wall?!

One happy boy!
Great Wall

Temple of Heaven, Beijing
This is the spot the Emperor could have conversations with Heaven.
Those shadow and the crowd to the left are all the people taking pics of Ollie.

Temple of Heaven Family shot

798 Art District, Beijing

That baby is eating my baby!
798 Art District, Beijing

Asia Adventures, Installment 2: Cool Views

One of the most obvious great parts of the trip were of course the sights! My mom reflected on growing up and never thinking that actually traveling to see the Great Wall of China would be something she would do, and I have to say I didn't think I would be either! Then add in the rest of the amazing places we visited and it was a little unreal to think we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to do this trip.

So here are some of the places we saw...

*** Disclaimer: I was never very good at remembering things in school and that still holds true.  All the information I provide is how and what I can remember.  It may not be completely accurate.  If you want accuracy, read my brothers blog.***

This was the view from the Peak Tram in Hong Kong.  It was quite the journey up the mountain in the tram and the views of the city were magnificent! One of the things that struck me the most was how this city was built on such a hilly land.  Kind of like San Fran and NYC combined. 

Hong Kong
This is the largest Buddhist Temple in Hong Kong.  The smell of incense permeated from the building.  

To be honest I'm not sure if this is from the Forbidden City or the Summer Palace in Beijing; either way it is the walkway that the Emperor was carried over.  And he (or she as is the case with "the Evil Lady") was the only one who was able to be over the dragons. 

Forbidden City, Beijing
I like this one for the symbolism.  One lesson we took home was EVERYTHING means something in China.  So in this case, the square gate is symbolic of Earth (where us commoners live) and the inner rounded gate is symbolic of Heaven (where the Emperor lives).  

This shows the doors up close! There are 9 rows of 9 gold knobs on all the doors.  You are suppose to rub each knob in a row for good luck.  If you only rub 4 then, well, your doomed.  

Forbidden City, Beijing
These are little statues that are on every building in the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace.  The front statue is the Phoenix with 'dragon sons' behind it and then papa Dragon behind the sons.  The number of dragon sons will tell you how important the building is.  If there are 9 then it is very very important, because 9 is also a number that represents longevity. Are you noticing the significance of 9 yet??

Summer Palace, Beijing
The Summer Palace was built as a gift for one of the Emperors' mother.  The buildings in this pictures were used for celebrating her birthday.  There are actually 3 separate buildings; one for her to get dressed in, one for her to pray (a temple) and the other for the celebration.  So these gorgeous buildings were used once a year.  That seemed to happen to a lot of the Emperors buildings as well as many buildings that were built for the Beijing Olympics.  Some traditions just don't go away. 

THE GREAT WALL!
I don't think I need to describe this one. The section we were on was called the Mutianyu Great Wall.  

Yong He Gong Temple
We were able to visit a few Buddhist Temples in both Beijing and Hong Kong.  It was easy to tell the tourist from the acting Buddhist, the ones with a pile of incense burning (sometimes with large flames) were the tourist and then those with just 3 sticks of incense may have known a little more about the religion or at least read the signs.
The Buddha's we saw were amazing and to hear our tour guides story's about the Buddhist religion and it's relation to China was also very interesting.  

Tian Tan Buddha, Hong Kong
This is the largest seated bronze outdoor Buddha in the world.  (We had also seen the largest sandal wood indoor Buddha at the Yong He Gong Temple in Beijing)

Hong Kong
The wet market where Brian and Kristen venture to get some fresh, local groceries. 

Hong Kong Laser Light Show
There couldn't have been a better way to end our visit with Brian and Kristen then at the Laser Light show.  We could see parts of it from their apartment window but it was fun to see the whole thing as our final celebration of the trip.  

This is not all the sights we saw, but there will be more pictures of our adventures in the next installments!

Asia Adventures, Installment 1: Ollie's International Debut

It's been 7 days since we have returned from our journey to the other side of the world, China!  We are still working out the jet lag kinks.  But all in all are feeling pretty good and still in denial that our amazing trip even happened.  Multiple times we've asked ourselves what our favorite part of the trip was, and I don't think either Ryan or I have come up with an answer we are satisfied with.

What I can do is come up with 5 categories of amazing memories from our time in Hong Kong and Beijing.  Because of the ridiculous amount of pictures we have (there were 3 cameras going for this trip and we didn't figure out the smart thing to do would be to just use one and share until day 6 of our 10 day trip), I am going to do a separate post for each category to show off some of the thousands of pictures.

Without further ado, the first category (and possibly my favorite) is Ollie's International Debut!

Seriously.  Our kid is on the road to stardom.  He handled being stared at, having his picture taken from all angles, being video taped and being touched (cheek squeezing, foot touching, hand shaking and yes some cheek kissing) like a regular Hollywood superstar.  I know, some of you are probably gasping at the last of that series (cheek squeezing, foot touching, hand shaking, kisses).  Trust me I cringe slightly when I admit to it, but honestly we did the best we could, they were stealthy admirers.  The one thing we did manage to do was prevent any strangers from holding him (except that one concubine who snuck in while  hovering during a diaper change-she got to experience mama bear first hand).  Again there were lots of stealthy admirers who tried their best to achieve this ultimate sightseeing event.  Mama Bear busted out on this particular offence (and the cheek kissing one too) and only a few times that I had to pull the 'don't make me slap your hand' stance.  But for all of you that are still very concerned, we had plenty of child friendly sanitizing wipes and he was wiped down frequently.  Plus, I made sure to kiss him about every hour all over his face so I could get the same amount of germs as he was and let breastfeeding work it's magic.

Here are a few of Ollie's paparazzi moments:

Stanley Market, Hong Kong
Note how we have surrounded them.  These lucky ladies were the only ones
that got Ollie solo for a pic.

Beijing Zoo
There were two adorable baby pandas behind everyone,
yet they all were much more interested in our baby American. 

Concubine Restaurant, Beijing
We had more waitress than I have ever seen helping us at this place!
And when I went to change his diaper, you would have thought the Emperor was using the toilet.
It was probably the largest audience Ollie will ever have during a diaper change.  

Summer Palace, Beijing
We even resorted to hiding in the corners.

Brian and Kristen's pool, Hong Kong
This is the kind of paparazzi we can handle!  

Temple of Heaven, Beijing
Ollie couldn't figure out why that little boy was so interested in
his feet!

Temple of Heaven, Beijing
This picture took awhile, both of the other children were pretty scared of Ollie/Ryan.
I'm pretty sure Ollie was just wondering if they would share their ice cream with him.

Note our personal videographer.
He followed us all around the Temple of Heaven.
We are still waiting for the video to go viral on You Tube. 

Dragon Boat-Summer Palace, Beijing
We shared this boat with some Iranians, Ryan unzipped his jacket to reveal Ollie about half way through.
The gasp and awes where plentiful and then lots of chatter and pictures commenced being taken.  

Summer Palace, Beijing
This group of gentlemen were actually more interested in the baby carrier.
Apparently they had been discussing it for some time and were pleased to find out they
had indeed figured it out...
there is a strap around the waist and over the shoulders.  

Asia Sneak Peak

We have been in Asia for 7 days and it has been amazing!  We have been around Hong Kong a bit and took a short trip to Beijing. I'll have to go into more detail once we are back home and can look back on it all.  The thing that has been consistent no matter where we have gone is the attention Oliver has gotten.  We now have a feel for what it means to be famous and followed (yes we were followed) by paparazzi! Don't get me wrong we thought he would get attention, but it was pretty unreal.  Especially in Beijing.

For now here are a few sneak peak pictures.

At 'The Peak' in Hong Kong

Forbidden City- Beijing, China

Our signature jump shot: Tiananmen Square-Beijing

Some of Ollie's paparazzi at the Beijing Zoo

At the Great Wall of China!

Jump shot on the Great Wall

Temple of Heaven- Beijing, China
(actually the temple for good crops but part of Temple of Heaven)