There’s been a long gap between posts, partially because of Covid and partially because of school. Both of these have made writing hard, especially given that both seem to be lasting forever. In addition, there’s been a change of venue for the Traveling Family- we’ve moved to Edinburgh, Scotland. We’ll be there for a year while I finish the PhD (although Mark will go back to China before then). But, we’re back and writing again and need to catch up! I will try not to get so behind as we have to finish up China adventures so I can share our new city with you.
My timeline of the Wuyi trip may be off, but I think this was the last day we spent on this trip. It was a bit rainy and we went to see a local river town.
I’ve always been a fan of the decorative artwork put in places it didn’t need to be, have a wall around your building? Make it beautiful.
The roof tile end stops are something I look for now too, they are often unique to one building (or sometimes a neighborhood area). I’ve seen many different faces and designs on them, but this one is in my top five. I love the face he’s making and there was just a row of hundreds of them.
Doesn’t this look like China in the movies, or in the Chinese paintings you see everywhere? Misty mountains stacked up, it looked like the pictures the university hung in our apartment.
Rachel took us to the local temple, which if I remember correctly was a Chinese Buddhist temple. This is one of the two door guards- we’ve seen them on temples in China and in Thailand.
Now, by now in the blog, you should know I have a thing for temples. I’d go to all the temples, but Alex gets bored and even Mark gets done after a few of them. This one was really cool because of it’s location, in the misty mountain village with the open center space and the rain slightly falling. You couldn’t ask for a more picturesque location. We all broke off inside to look at different things, but the whole group of 3 families were there.
This time we didn’t buy any joss sticks to pray with, but the altar for putting them in was beautiful and ornate.
Even the feet of the altar were decorative.
Not my best picture, but I do love the Chinese phoenix style. I think one of my next tattoos will be a Chinese phoenix.
I don’t know if he sees this blog, but I always take pictures of different kinds of bee houses for my Brother in law, Joe. He is a beekeeper by trade, and if you’ve ever gotten honey from us, it came from his bees (https://thehoneyhouse.com/).
These supers are from the area behind our hotel there, but there were also some in town that looked like these too. I haven’t seen anyone collecting the honey from these yet, but there are lots of people selling local honey.
When we left Wuyi, the three families decided we hadn’t seen enough of each other yet, and planned a follow up visit the next day in Haiyan, a Haining adjacent town that was also scenic and watery.
Anna was in a good mood, and one of the only kids not to grumble when I asked for a picture. Because this was still early in 2021, we were still wearing masks in all public places in China.
Around the lake, there were several artists using different art styles painting the lake and scenery. You could walk around and view them, a few people even had previous paintings you could buy.
These beautiful flowers look a little like cherry blossoms, but I believe they are actually plum blossoms. They are such a vibrant dark pink and they were all planted in a big section.
I think I like taking pictures of flowers and plants most of all, they don’t complain about how long you’re taking!
Getting pictures of the kids is always an adventure- Here we’ve got Alex, Nichole and Emma, with Anna in the front. These 4 are together a lot, for most holidays and major events. Emma and Nichole have been best friends for years, and Alex often plays big brother to Anna and keeps her out of the big girls way.
And what visit to a garden in China would be complete without the foo dog statues. I love collecting pictures of them, especially unique ones with different features.
Marco leading the kids down a rock path around the lake.
This gazebo is famous, it was featured in a Chinese movie or soap opera- Rachel explained it to me, but it wasn’t a movie or show that I was familiar with.
While we were walking around, we heard singing and as we followed the path around, there were two people in Chinese Opera costumes singing their songs and being filmed.
It was such a unique experience to be in this ancient garden and hearing opera being sung by professionals. And they were so kind they didn’t mind us taking photos and videos of their performance .
This time just the adults, and actually I think this may be the only picture I have of all the adults in this group together.
After his disastrous run in with the fake rock structure at the hotel in Wuyi, Marco is taking the time to warn everyone about the sign instructing you to watch your head. Fortunately for me, I’m short enough not to be in any danger, Marco is not so lucky.
Coming to the garden was a great follow up to the families’ trip to Wuyi, we had such a good time, and many inside jokes that are still funny 18 months later. How lucky we are to have such good friends that made it so hard to leave China.
Traveling Expat Family 