Funny Things Happens in China . . .

A funny thing happens in China when I try to log onto my Facebook page. I receive the following message:

"Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage"

I have known that China monitors and controls what their citizens can and can't do on the web and apparently Facebook is off limits. Too many people congregating in one place to share ideas and stories; a direct contradiction to Communism.

So you and I will have to be ok with blog posts for now.

Beijing is absolutely amazing. All of the sights, sounds and smells are a sensory overload for any foreigner, especially five from Alaska.

We have seen a lot in two and a half days and I want to write about them all. For now I will give you a general overview as I am EXHAUSTED and we have an early morning (Monday) adventure to the Great Wall. From the looks of things it may be quite commercial with gondolas up to the wall and toboggan slides down. We are headed to the Mutianyu section which we have been told is not so "touristy".

Our plane landed at 9:30am Friday morning after an 8 hour overnight flight from Stockholm. I was a bona fide wreck. Cranky. Tired. Head spinning. Body aching. All I wanted to do was to get to the hotel and sleep. I certainly didn't anticipate feeling like this since I did get some sleep on the plane.

The remainder of Friday was a recuperation day. We all took a 5 hour nap, got up and did a little exploring. We happened upon a night snack market with all sort of Chinese delicacies. The sort of stuff you find in movies and on travel shows. Everything was on skewers and cooked to order over open flame. Delicious eats such as crickets, snails, centipedes, scorpions, sheep unmentionables, various animal parts plus, chicken, beef, lamb, shrimp and fresh fruit. Guess what we ate for dinner? Yes, we were the less adventuresome Americans who ate the later menu choices. They were delicious though.

Saturday we explored a bit more and this time met some lovely Chinese young ladies who took an interest in the boys. We spent an hour chatting with them as they showed us their artwork. Yes, yes we did walk away with one paid piece of pandas painted on silk for Cameron and one "gift" of the character for "prosperity". One of the gals took a piece of rice paper and drew it for us in person and explained what each part of the character meant. There are three parts to this one character. The first is for clothes, the second is for family and the third is for home. When all three come together in plenty you are prosperous.

They kept telling us we are "lucky" and "prosperous" and must be a "very happy family". This is because we have three boys and boys are very precious in this country. We would be considered royalty with three boys. And, the fact that I work "inside the home", well knock your socks off, we are now Emperor status!!! Once we were told this we noticed that everywhere we went people would comment about our "happy family."

The final thing I will share in this "general overview" that's becoming not so general is that Cameron is a national celebrity. EVERYWHERE we go people gawk and stare at our adorable, tall, handsome, redheaded boy. It's quite commercial actually. I watch them staring at Cameron, then I make eye contact, we smile at each other and sometimes giggle as they walk off saying, who knows what, in Chinese about my boy. I pointed it out to Cameron too and he got a kick out of it too.

Today we met two Chinese educators who desired to be our personal tour guide for half the day. It was a true insider’s tour. More on that tomorrow.

So here we are in Beijing, a happy, prosperous, royal family with no access to Facebook totally enjoying ourselves.