Great Wall Adventure

Jason recently took a trip to Beijing to meet some friends coming to visit. While there, they decided to camp on the Great Wall and then hike a section of unrenovated Wall. It was an adventure!

Night on the Wall turned out to be much cooler than in our hometown and morning broke early due to Beijing being in the North and there only being one timezone for the entire country. So, after a sleepless night and rising at 4:30am, the journey began. Jason had looked at some online forums and figured it would be a 3-ish hour hike over undulating hills. What it turned into was a 7 hour trek up and down jagged mountain peaks! Here are some pictures of the event. Please do not attempt at home.

See the mountain way in the distance? We went there.

It really was an awesome adventure. Next time, warmer sleeping bags, a little rope and more water!

There would have been more pictures, but at some point while we were free climbing over a precarious drop, we decided the relative safety of our lives outweighed photo opportunities.

Hudson and Micah's Birthday Bash!

Hudson's 7th birthday was in March and Micah's 5th is in May, so we obviously had their birthday party in April! We had a Star Wars themed party with a 3-D birthday cake and a Death Star pinata. We heard 3-D is all the rage in the States, so we took part. The boys had a lot of fun and we followed the festivities with a watergun fight outside in our neighborhood. Unfortunately we forgot to take pictures of the watergun fight. Oh well.

Strange and Funny Signs in China

Mmmmmm, gruel! (Sorry, I'm incapable of turning this picture.)

"So, what kind of style are you going for?"

"I don't know, maybe something unsightly or peculiar."

"I know just the place!"

Just some signs we've found interesting...

Just in case you thought you should hold on to it a few days longer...

Hannah Grace's 9th Birthday Party

Our little girl is just a year away from being in double digits. She turned 9 this month and had some friends over for a High School Musical party. It really went better than we expected having 8 8-9 year old girls in our house to spend the night. She had a great time. Here are some pics from the night..

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It rained!

We have had two showers and two light sprinklings of rain in the last week. Hooray! The drought is still very severe, but thank goodness we have gotten some relief. I wouldn't be surprised if some Chinese farmers weren't out dancing in it. (Okay, actually I would be a little surprised.)

Drought!

Here in our part of China we have a definite dry season and a definite rainy season. Rainy season is from late May to early September. Dry season is every day outside of those months. So, life here depends on getting enough rain in those three and a half months to last for the other eight and a half. Unfortunately, Rainy Season '09 did not perform up to its usual standards and so we were in a deficit for the province. Experts in our province felt that we had enough in the reserves to make it til next rainy season with not too much trouble. However, to go with a lack of rain last summer, this winter has been extremely warm with almost zero cloud coverage. Our province is in the Tropics in the South and sits on the Tibetan plateau in the North, so we get a lot of hot sunshine. More water has evaporated and more has been used this Winter than normal to keep crops and vegetation alive. Thus we are in a major drought.

With this drought, people are now having a hard go of finding drinking water in rural areas. Cisterns in villages are bone dry and water is having to be trucked in. It comes at a cost, however, and rural Chinese farmers aren't known for their large bank accounts. We keep hoping for some relief for the province and some rain to come, but rainy season is still two and a half months away. Please remember this area and the people facing this drought.

Welcome to the Jungle

For Hudson's and Micah's birthdays last year (10 and 8 months ago, respectively), we promised them a trip to the rain forest in the southern part of our province. But, rainy season came so it would be too wet and then it was Fall, and Fall in the rain forest is terribly hot and then Thanksgiving and Christmas were here. So, we are getting close to their next birthdays and figured we'd win worst parents of the year awards for failing to give them birthday presents from last year. However, during the second week of January a few days opened up and we made our push to get to the rain forest.

On a side note, its neat that this summer we were on a glacier in our province and in the winter we were sweating in the jungle, also in our province.

Jason, Hudson and Micah trekked down to the Southwest tip of our province on the Mekong River where we border Laos and Burma. The area is touted as a 'Little Thailand', except no Dunkin Donuts or beaches. I take it to mean that it is hot like Thailand, and it was. Anyway, we got down there and headed to the Wild Elephant Valley that sits in the middle of the rain forest and is home to the last wild elephants in China. It also houses snakes, lots of monkeys, frogs, lizards, mosquitos and probably some of the less desirable tropical diseases. We avoided most of those, though.

Our plan was to sleep in treehouses above a favorite watering hole of the herd of 20 or so elephants, but when we got there, we discovered that one of the treehouses had been damaged by an elephant and they were closed but all being remodeled. We were able to stay in a little room about 2.5 km from the watering hole, though. The first day there, we went deep into the rain forest. Our goal - to track down the elusive wild elephant without getting trampled or bitten by snakes.

As we slashed through the undergrowth, we came across a trail we could only guess was cut by these great beasts. Hudson spotted some broken bamboo and a place in the mud where some elephant toenails had dug in for traction. Micah found some footprints near a stream and Jason smelled and spotted the remains of the elephants' dinner a few nights ago.

While we were taking a break and resting under a tree, a giant boa dropped from a tree and tried to squeeze the life out of Jason! Hudson and Micah were quick to respond and subdue the behemoth! Tragedy avoided.

We were going to press on further into the woods, but night was falling and the screeches of wild monkeys reverberated through the canopy. We figured they might be man eaters so we packed up and headed back to the relative safety of our room. We fell onto our beds exhausted, but knew the next morning was our best chance to locate these Asian elephants.

We donned headlamps and struck out into the fog-filled dark as the sun had not risen yet the next morning. As we were headed down the trail, we encountered our first wildlife of the day, a rabid monkey! Okay, so he wasn't really rabid, but we still stayed clear. He might have had ebola like in Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo.

We continued our search in the still cool air. We didn't hear or see much. Then, as we came near the bend in the creek where the elephants come to drink, we saw some movement in the trees. And more, and more. Then we heard the whooping of monkeys from the canopy. Then with grace and speed we stood face to face with two black and white monkeys who looked hungry. They ran and swung back and forth past us, obviously trying to confuse us with their movement. But, they were no match for Hudson and Micah. They did that hand thing to the monkeys that Crocodile Dundee did to the water buffalo and soon the monkeys were wrestling with each other on the ground.

All of the commotion got the monkey community riled up and soon there was a lot of whooping and hollering going on. Jason had to hold Micah back from taking to the vines and climbing to the monkeys' nests high in the trees. Hudson was taking off his shoes so he could rush into the creek and tackle any crocodiles that might come our way. This is when Jason decided it was best to leave before his boys left destruction in their wake. As we were headed out, we came across a monster elephant. We quickly tamed him and soon Micah and Hudson were riding him around.

Our adventure nearly over and our legs tired from all the trekking, we climbed into a cable car and took a 20 minute ride back to our room. What a great adventure in the rain forest!