Our Visit to Xi'an

We went this weekend to a city called Xi'an, which used to be the capital of China for alot of the time when Emperors ruled it. It was about a 2 hour flight. You, know me, I was kind of worried about flying on a Chinese airline, but it was fine. Just like in the US, except they served "food" (if that is what you want to call it), it is a Chinese airline after all. I particularly liked the extra big packet of MSG, nothing like MSG to add to a pile of white goo for breakfast. Anyway, we had to leave the house at 5:00 am, so the kids were really tired the entire day. It was very busy, we took an arranged tour of the city, which was alot bigger than I thought. The reason we went there is because of the buried terra cotta warriors, there are thousands of them buried around the tomb of the Emperor Qin which they found, only in the 1970's. They were buried with him to protect him after his death. It was really neat to see, it is huge. Then we also saw some of the city. They wanted us to eat lunch at a Chinese restaurant, (the only restaurant around), but I told them the kids would not like anything there. I think our guide was a little ticked off, I don't think she does this tour with a 4 and 7 year old much. We did go to a teahouse and luckily they had some grapes, apples, and some rolls that tasted like icing-less cupcakes, the kids ate 10 of them. Between that and the goldfish, pretzel sticks, and fruit snacks, they survived. We stayed in a really nice hotel and went swimming after we got home, but were all asleep by 9:00. The next day, we went to the City Museum, a Chinese mosque, and a jade factory and then back to the airport, we got home around 10:00 pm, so needless to say, it was a challenge getting them to get up for school today. It was fun and busy weekend.
Today, I am going to go and order a larger mosquito net for Marshall, we tried to modify one from Ikea, but it just doesn't fit and he keeps getting bites. Today, when I went in to wake him up, there was one just sitting on his pillow, I think I am actually trapping them in. I am going to ride my bike there, I really like riding it now, it feels good just being able to go where you want, although, I can only buy what fits in a backpack, I need to get on of those big granny baskets for my bike.
We sent some Olympic stuff back to the US on Aug 11th, 2 of the 3 boxes have just recently gotten there, we weren't sure how well it would work, it doesn't seem very reliable and it was not real cheap. Oh well. I also bought my first fake purse, it is a fake Prada purse that I bought for about $14 US dollars. I like it. I also got some DVD's from "Tom, the DVD guy", who comes to your house with big bags of movies. I bought the new Barbie movie, Speed Racer, Sex in the City and some others. He said he would probably get High School Musical 3 the week after it comes out in the US, Lauren is very excited about that. The ones I have tried have all worked so far, but I'm sure not all of them will. He did talk me out of the buying the new Indiana Jones he had because the quality was not that good, he said he would be getting another copy soon.
Chinese lessons are going well, I really like it and tried to say some words this weekend, I was so happy when they could actually understand me.
Hope you like the pictures, I love the one where Marshall looks like he is contemplating Buddhism. You can also see the mountains in the close-up picture of Lauren, they were really pretty. I also put some picture of them acting silly in the hotel. Marshall was kind of bored in the museum, so he put on his sunglasses and found a seat for some of it. It was really neat, they had things in there dating back to at least 700 BC, it was amazing. The one picture shows a pagoda which we climbed to the top, it was a steep climb. After that, we had to stop for Popsicles.
We had a really good time.