Field Trip 2, Part 2: Zhonghua Gate

After seeing the palace, we went to see part of the Nanjing wall, more specifically, the southern gate. It is one of the most complex and oldest (600 years old) gates still in existence. It is called the Gate of China. At one point, there was a huge wall all around Nanjing, to keep it safe. Wikipedia says that it enclosed the largest area of any walled city in China. Neat. The wall is really thick- 14 meters thick, and 14-21 meters tall. I would feel safe with this wall protecting me...unless there were zombies who could climb walls at a really fast rate, then no one is safe.

This old lady loved Peter so much. She came up and hugged him and just kept chatting with Jonathan about how wonderful he is. 

Here you can see 4 archways- each of these arches are really thick and back in the day they had a really big heavy door that could shut. Also, the first archway had little secret side tunnels so the Chinese could enclose their attackers with the heavy door and then come out of the side tunnels and kill the attackers.

Here is a view from the top, the entire flat area you see is the top of the wall.  

Jonathan says this reads, "Welcome and thank you for gracing us with your presence."

There was a sweet little archery place that you could buy 6 arrows for 10 rmb ($1.60). We bought some and gave it a go. I learned that Jonathan is a pretty good shot- he hit the target twice and just outside the target once. I also learned that I am a terrible shot. My first 2 arrows went into the ground, not even close. But then the archery man came and gave me a few pointers... I still missed the target, but I hit the 1 above it. It was a great improvement. I feel like I could get into archery as a hobby. It's pretty fun.

This was, so far, my favorite field trip. It was a cooler day, and we didn't have tons of stairs to climb. Also, we got to know more of the other flagship students (outside of the BYU students) a little better. It was fun talking with others and passing Peter around. I think I held Peter the least on this trip. It also seemed like this trip was more relaxed, and the archery brought everyone together, all rooting for people to get a good shot and cheering them on was fun. It was neat to learn more about this city that is home.

Field Trip 2, Part 1: Chaotian Palace

I broke this trip into 2 posts, because there are lots of pictures. Our first stop was to the Chaotian Palace which was the home of the emperor back in the day as well as a school and a worship place for Confucius. During a rebellion, much of the palace was destroyed, but then it was rebuilt after the fighting. The palace is now home to the Nanjing City Museum which contains old artifacts and explains some of the history of the area around where we live. 

If you look closely, you will see that Peter is also giving the typical Asian photo peace sign.

Confucius statue

Peter being photo-bombed quite nicely by our friends Katie and Jennifer.

The next few pictures are of some of the things that I thought were neat in the museum. There were lots of old swords, dinner ware, tools, and pottery in the museum. There were also scenes depicted of  what life may have been like during the different time periods with wax figures and neat props.

Giant Lion

These pieces of pottery had extremely intricate work at the top of building, animals and people. I was impressed by it.

These are license plates from taxis. 

This pagoda is one of the first things that was built in the city (I believe), so it's pretty important.

Jonathan and Peter by the pagoda.

Jonathan carries Peter around like this frequently, and sometimes it scares the Chinese, but sometimes he can almost go undetected, until he calls out to us. 

Peter rides bareback, like a champ.

While we were waiting for the bus to go to the second half of our trip, Jonathan put Peter in Marshall's stroller with him. These 2 babies love each other. Anytime they see or hear the other one, they will start looking around and calling out for their friend. Within seconds, we had a mob of people surrounding us, all taking pictures and saying how cute the babies are. The boys were not phased a bit but continued being friends and even swapped binkies for a bit. They are precious.

Baby head bump

Field Trip 1: Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum

We get to go on a number of different field trips with Jonathan's program, this one happened a while ago, but I think it's better to write about it late than never at all. Our first trip was to see Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum and the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum on the Purple Mountain. 

Sun Yat-sen was the first president of the Republic of China and he was very influential in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. He is know as the "Father of Modern China." He died in 1925. I read about him some, and he has a fascinating history. Anyway, the mausoleum they built for him is quite fantastic. There are 392 stairs leading up to his tomb. The day that we went there was pretty hot, so it made the climb seem really long, but it was a neat view once we got to the top and looked down the way we had come. 

A view from the bottom, to me it was reminiscent of Kung Fu Panda, when he has to climb all the stairs to see the choosing of the next Dragon Warrior.

Jonathan standing in front of Chinese characters, which might say something important about where we were.

All the time I say, "Jonathan, stand here." and then I take a picture. He's a good sport.

All 392 stairs, and so many trees. It's really green here, which I love. There were lots of people there, and Peter got some attention, but as long as we keep walking, then we are fine. 

On to the second mausoleum we visited that day. Now, I'm not as certain what this one was. The teacher only speaks to the group in Chinese (which makes sense because the program is designed to help everyone improve their Chinese, but then I don't really know what's happening sometimes). Jonathan translates if I ask him too, but it's hard to keep up in translation sometimes. So, I did a search on wikipedia, and this is what I learned. This mausoleum is the resting place of the Hongwu Emperor. He was the founder of the Ming Dynasty. He died in 1398. Since Nanjing was the capital during the time of his leadership, he was buried here. It's possible that other important people are buried here, but I'm not positive.

Peter and I in front of one of the gates.

The Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum

We had to go up more stairs, this time through the wall, it is really really thick to keep out enemies.

I love the brickwork on the ground.

Lion door knocker, I love the red door with the golden...things.

Baby paparazzi...just a typical day for Peter. 

Told you I loved the brick work. It was like this on the ramps on both sides of the mausoleum. I imagine that would take a lot of time and energy to get it to look like this.

After seeing the mausoleums, we took a walk and passed this pagoda. Maybe it is important, maybe not. But it looked neat, so I photographed it. 

I also made Jonathan pose in front of it.

This field trip wasn't my favorite, probably because it was very hot and we got very sweaty and my legs were very tired by the end. We also almost missed our train to Shanghai because the trip was a little longer than we expected. But, I'm glad we went. It was neat to see some cool building and learn a little more about China. 

He Climbs

Turns out my baby is part mountain goat. He has recently learned he can climb things, and climb he does. It began innocently enough. He could climb into bear chair's lap. He was not so steady at first and took many topples off bear, but he soon learned how to distribute his weight and have a tight grip.

 Hey Mom! Look at me and bear!

 Just trying out the legs...steady.

 He then progressed to climbing into things, like the closet. 

 Even though the ledge is small, he gets trapped in there. He'll call out to me until I come and get him.

Closet climbing progressed to cabinet climbing. There used to be more things in our lower kitchen cabinets, they have slowly made their way into higher places. He also gets stuck here, but he will yell really loud because when he gets stuck it scares him because he can't sit up.

Then one day this happened....

Hey Mom, I'm just inspecting this nightstand. 

I think that maybe if I can just reach my knee up here...

Yep, I can totally get on the top of this thing!

Once he learned that, there was no going back. He crawls over to that nightstand as many times as he can each day. He has also learned he can reach a light switch that way and also that he can climb onto the bed...oh the danger.

Here he is in the morning, making his way up. 

 Victory on the top! He's gotten much more sure of his abilities now and his little leg will stretch out for the bed and then he kind of throws his body forward onto the bed and takes off crawling at lightening speed. It gives me mini-heart attacks. 

Then, we got a new rice cooker (the other one broke) and it came in a nifty box. I thought it would be too tall to be a new climbing apparatus for Peter. He proved me wrong. He climbed the box so he could touch the tv. The television has now been placed on the desk, much higher = much safer. 

 He also tries this approach- putting the whole foot onto the box. It works. He can get up really fast now.

 Then he learned that he could push the box towards something and use it to reach things previously unattainable. To the couch he went to climb on Mom.

 He also now just will climb onto the box and then sit on it. It looks like I'm holding him up, but I'm not touching him at all in these pictures. I was just worried he'd fall off. He proved me wrong. He can get up, sit there with his cute little face and then get down off the box without injury.

It's incredible for me to think that when we arrived in China, Peter would still sometimes fall over when sitting, and now he can crawl, walk along things and climb onto anything. It's crazy how skilled babies become in such a short time. We're taking bets on when he'll start walking... Other recent skills include: waving hello and goodbye, playing peek-a-boo, and clapping. Oh, and he is now sporting 5 teeth, with another on its way. He's growing and learning. Pretty neat.