Surprise--Vienna!

(back to back posts today)

After the Alps, the girls and I made a spur of the moment train trip to Vienna.  Mike ditched us for a business meeting in Slovakia, so this was a way to move further east and see another fun spot.  He's promised he'll eventually pick us up with a rental vehicle, but we have yet to see him.  That's OK--we love Vienna!

The train ride was long--8 hours--but so much beautiful scenery along the way.  This was just outside of Zurich.

And now we can add Liechtenstein to our list of countries!  I think it only took about 5 minutes to cross it by train.

We arrived in Vienna Thursday evening and have been exploring for the past three days.  There are lots of sights to see but it's also a great city for hanging out.  All the high rises are in another area, so the city center is full of beautiful, historic buildings and lots of parks.

The girls are a little "cultured out", so we kept it pretty light, inserting a dose of culture here and there.  We did visit the Sisi Museum and Imperial Apartments at Hofburg Palace.  This focused on the time when Franz Josef and Elisabeth were Emperor and Empress of Austria, something I knew very little about.  Elisabeth was called Sisi and lived a pretty tragic, eccentric life.  The museum told her story, including odd eating habits, hair care, and exercise routines--so this was a little more interesting for the girls (and for me!).

But then in the evening, we visited Prater Park, a historic amusement park, where Celia and Trina rode the giant swing.

They're up there somewhere!

Near the amusement park was this green park that contained every possible kind of accident-causing playground equipment known to man.  It all began innocently enough with a fun zip line and a low ropes course and our wish that Innocademy could have these things--but it ended with us fearing for our lives!

This ropes course went on forever and kept getting higher.  By the end, Trina was so tired but the only solution was to hang on tight and finish or suffer certain injury by jumping down.

In the background is Karlskirche.  I got the girls to enter this cathedral because you're able to take an elevator up to the dome.

At the very top of the dome.  Fun to see the painting from this perspective

St. Stephen's Cathedral and Stephansplatz in the center of Old Town Vienna.

The big dose of culture I gave the girls was a high mass at the Augustinian Church this morning.  Every time Mike is out of the picture, I try to push a little more culture at them but so far it's been met with little success.  Up in the balcony were a choir, the organist and a full orchestra.  It was as much a concert as a mass.  So very beautiful and worshipful to me.  So very boring and weird to them!  Much as I tried to explain that we can draw near to God through music and experiences even without knowing the language, they really just want an English service in a format that's familiar to them.  Maybe next Sunday...

Did you happen to notice a missing daughter in the pictures?  Mike asked if any of the girls wanted to meet him in Budapest.  Faith was quick to say yes and enjoy the adventure of navigating from Vienna to Budapest on her own.  Her cousin, Bobby, is spending the summer there and I'm grateful to him for so dependably meeting her at the train station.

Deutschland mit der Familie!

This was the part of our trip we've looked forward to since January.  Mike's brother, Mark, and family took a two week trip to Europe, and we planned to join them for their last few days.

First the long flight from Beijing to Frankfurt.  But we spotted another area for the travel list--somewhere in southern Turkey, I think.

We finally met up at Mark & Sue's hotel in Kaub, Germany along the Rhine River.  This was within minutes of reconnecting.  Anyone look a little happy?!!

Sunset on the Rhine River

Gotta love the autobahn when you're in a hurry to see cousins!

And what can I say--I'm just a European girl at heart.  Seeing all this cheese made me so happy.

Bacon, eggs, cappuccino--how I've missed you!

We spent our first day traveling along the Rhine River with lots of views like this.

We traveled south from Germany into Switzerland.  Mark and Sue had made plans to stay in Murren, Switzerland, a small town high in the Alps and only accessible by cable car.  One of the more beautiful places I've ever seen, although we were chanting a little "rain, rain, go away" after our first two days.

Our first day we took a damp hike across to the neighboring town of Gimmelwald.  We definitely hit wildflower season.

The kids were pretty reluctant hikers and happy to see the sign pointing the way back home.

Yes, those white balls are hail!

Walking through wildflowers on the side of a mountain while cowbells tinkle?  Just call me Heidi.

Success!  We're on the homestretch back to Murren.

Each of our four girls has a special bond with each of these four kids which made things especially fun.  Trina was so happy to have a playmate in Jonas.

Our second morning, the sun came out and this was the view I woke up to from our hotel window.

On our second day we planned a big hike up to the top of the mountain.  Enroute we found out that there was still too much snow to go that far but we went as close as we could.  It was a nearly three hour, pretty intense hike requiring much encouragement, but we were rewarded with these awesome views.

We didn't completely miss out on snow during our trip!  Celia, Trina, and Anna got to build a snowman.

By the time we reached Birg, our end point, the clouds were rolling in.

And this is what I woke up to the following morning--the sunrise reflecting off the mountains.

It was such a gift to spend these few days with Mark, Sue, Kylie, Maddie, Anna, and Jonas.  We enjoyed some adult time while listening to the kids chatter and laugh nonstop.  This was the end of their European adventure so we had fun hearing about their travels and getting some tips for future stops.  After looking forward to this for six months, those short three days together just went by too quickly.  The morning we parted felt like kind of a punch to the gut, but on to new adventures...

China Finale

So, I had heard all the stories about websites not being available in China, but in our Shanghai apartment I thought that was all just rumor.  Little did I know the minute we moved on from there, all my Google services would disappear--gmail, blogger.  So I'll try to wrap up China in one long post.

Swee Lee, our friend in Shanghai, took us to a quaint shopping neighborhood called Tian Zi Fang.  It was mostly filled with nice Chinese things (pottery, etc.).  But it also has this toilet restaurant which we found pretty entertaining.

She also took us to a "wet market"--so called because they hose the floors down  So interesting to walk around and see all the different meats, seafood, produce.

Frogs for sale!  Get your frogs for sale!

And if you want a fresh chicken, he'll butcher it right on the spot.  No problem with his handy-dandy "guts bucket"

On Sunday, we attended another house church (and this one truly was a "house" church).  The pastor spoke in the LH back room, but the room on the right side and this front room had screens so we could see the "stage".  See the thermos on the table under the screen?  These were filled with hot water all throughout the service and people were liberally filling up their tea bottles with fresh water.  As we walk around with water bottles, the Chinese carry around a bottle with loose tea leaves.  And more common than drinking fountains are hot water spigots.

This was their hymn book.  I had so much fun figuring out the code and by the end could at least hum along.  The numbers are the note.  A dot over it means an octave lower.  A dot between means you hold the note one and a half counts, etc.

The church was up on the 14th floor and this was the view of the surrounding neighborhood.

On Monday, we took a bullet (high speed) train from Shanghai to Beijing for our final week.

We averaged about 300 km/hr and traveled the equivalent of Grand Rapids to Atlanta in five hours.

We visited the Beijing Olympic Park.

In the evening we walked through a lively area with lots of street entertainment.  Another surreal experience when we saw this Chinese couple country line dancing to "Mr. Postman".

The next morning we prepared for our big sightseeing day at the Forbidden City.

We started with breakfast at one of these sidewalk restaurants.

It took us a few hours to tour the Forbidden City.  It's the largest palace complex in the world and contains over 800 buildings.  Such interesting and impressive architecture.

We visited a clock exhibit where they displayed hundreds of clocks given to the emperors as gifts.  I couldn't believe how many people walked around and snapped pictures of each and every clock.  There may be a lot of pictures on this blog, but at least they're not all of clocks!

So I'm hoping my last post didn't come off as being critical of the Chinese.  Wherever we travel (even in the US), there are funny things and odd things and beautiful things and quirky things.  I smile at the beauty and puzzle at the unusual and laugh at some of the funnies.  Here's one of the things that made me laugh:

This impressive stone carving leads up to one of the halls at the Forbidden City.

After admiring the carving, I read the sign and laughed at the explanation for its creative name (see sentence 1)

We also visited Tiananmen Square (no great pictures of that since it was just an enormous concrete square!) and the Gate of Heavenly Peace, where in 1949, Mao Zedung announced the new People's Republic of China.

The next day was another full one, visiting the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven.

The Summer Palace is located in the suburbs of Beijing and is where the emperors would go to escape the city heat.  Beautiful grounds with lots of pagodas, walkways, bridges, etc.

Many of the bridges were being repaired.

Hmm, let's try that one more time.

So at the Summer Palace, we were laughing about how flowery all the building names were--Hall of Jade Ripples, Pavilion of Blessed Shade, Hall for Listening to Orioles.  We were attempting to name the bathroom in the same way and Celia dubs it "Hall of Long Dropity".  Her quick wit often makes us laugh.

For lunch, we went to a hotpot restaurant.  You first order a flavored broth which they put in the burner in front of you.  Then you order meat, veggies, and noodles which you cook right in the pot.  Took us a while to figure out the process, but really good!

After lunch we headed to the Temple of Heaven and were shocked to step out of the subway and see that there was pouring rain (it had been sunny in other parts of Beijing).  It was a quick, wet stop but at least we got a taste of it.  This was the place where the emperors would worship and pray for a good harvest.

Both the Summer Palace and Temple of Heaven have an area called the Long Corridor--a really long, covered walkway.  Because of the rain, we saw lots of people gathered like this, either playing cards or tiles.  I loved to see how the Chinese would make a day of it--packing picnic lunches, just sitting and taking a nap for a while.  There's no sense of hurrying through a tourist site.

For our last two days in China, we traveled an hour or so outside of the city and stayed at a little cottage at the base of the Great Wall.  This is one of our great stories of the trip.  In Thailand, we met a vacationing Danish family who live in Beijing.  It all began because the dad, Jesper, asked Faith to join them in playing beach volleyball and Faith said yes.  Mike joined in and got talking and Jesper invited us to use their cottage at the Wall.  It was so interesting and relaxing to spend some time in a small village and we really enjoyed getting to know their family.

Here's their rustic, traditional cottage

Trina immediately headed for the trampoline!

For dinner, we headed to a little restaurant a couple of doors down.  It was a simple mom and pop operation with amazingly good food.  "Grandpa" roasted and seasoned a fish over these coals.  We all agreed it was one of the best things we've eaten in China.

On our first day, we visited Mutianyu, a more touristy restored part of the Great Wall.  OK, in all my years of seeing pictures, I must not have been looking closely enough.  I pictured it as a ramp-type thing that you just walked along.  No way!  It was steep and filled with steps and snaked up to the peak of the mountain.  We were exhausted!

But the views were definitely worth it!

We took this chairlift up to the base of the wall, and later rode this luge down from the base.  The luge was long and fairly steep and lots of fun.

The following day Jesper's family came up to the cottage.  Jesper and his 8 year old daughter, Laura, led us on a hike over an unrestored part of the wall which began near their cottage.  Wow--quite a different animal than restored wall!

Here we are with Laura at the beginning, still all happy and fresh, having no idea what kind of beast lurks behind us!

Some stretches involved rock climbing on crumbled pieces of steps.

While other areas consisted of navigating through overrun bushes and thorns.

We rewarded ourselves with another great Chinese meal of sushi (raw fish filets) and lots of other dishes.  That's Jesper and his wife, Charlotte, on the right.

And in closing, some parting memories of China:

Most babies/young toddlers here wear these pants with an open slit.  This way they can just easily squat and take care of business.  I like the simplicity of it (no diaper changing), but the surprise of whenever/wherever is a different story.

Look at this cool self-service library!

Doing some grocery shopping.  The girls and I have gotten pretty good at dividing and conquering.

Whoa!  Forgot all about the old pull-tab!

Ahh--no language barrier here!

As you read this, we've made a huge leap.  We've traveled from Asia to Europe and are spending a few days with Mike's brother's family.  Such a great time of catching up that we've looked forward to for months.