the nielsons

Our brother-in-law Scott and Lindsay's sister Jennie and their two girls, Kate and Caroline live in Beijing. They will be there for the next 2 years. Scott works for the State Department as a Diplomat. They are doing great over there!!! We had the opportunity to go visit them for about 10 days in October. We love them very much and had a wonderful time!

Here are pictures of the things we did while in China:

(This is a bit lengthy!)

Silk Market.... This was a blast... They had clothing, electronics, jewelry and everything else you can think of. Negotiating for everything was tiring but it was a cool experience.

Acrobatic Show... this was like Cirque du Soleil. Very cool... talented people!

Underground Beijing. Mao had this made in response to potential nuclear war during the "Cold War" era.

Monk at the Lama Temple. This temple is active today. (The picture on the top of our Blog page is also from the Lama Temple and shows where they kneel to worship buddah with incense)

Nice man in the Hu Tongs - their "suburbia".

Another residence in the Hu Tongs

Chairman Mao Memorial

Tienamen Square

Forbidden City Entrance

Close up on a building in the Forbidden City.

We met a nice Beijing Student named Jim who gave us a great tour of the Forbidden City.

Throne of the Emperor in the Forbidden City

The Yang of the "Ying-Yang"

Calligraphy by Jim, who attends University of Beijing.

Summer Palace (Where the Qing Dynasty emperors went when it got too hot in the Forbidden City.)

Scott, Jennie, Kate and Caroline at the Long Qing Gorge

Scott, Kris and Kate (Long Qing Gorge Temple)

Kris, Lindsay and Kate on a Gondola (Long Qing Gorge)

Kris, Lindsay and Kate (Long Qing Gorge hike)

Linton Family (Long Qing Gorge hike)

Street Food Market (Great Wall)

Kris, Lindsay and Jennie (Great Wall at Mutianyu)

Lindsay loving the wide assortment of produce that they have available to them. This was amazing... Safeway, Albertsons, Fred Myers, Krogers, etc. don't even have half of what we saw here in one of the "smaller" food markets!

Longest green beans I have ever seen in my life

Kris and Caroline at the Beijing Zoo in front of the Panda Exhibit.

The Temple of Heaven (Ancient Temple in Beijing) Fascinating... many parallels to Solomons Temple and the ancient tabernacle in Israel.

Taxis everywhere... This was how we all got around... very fast and aggressive driving. I thought it was pretty fun... a little crazy at times though!

Tuk Tuk. Bikes with platforms on the back for cargo.

As you can see here the people are beautiful. They were my favorite part.

Linton Home (Thats Jennie by the door and the Tuk Tuk :)

Waffles for lunch at the house

Halloween: Scott and Jennie live in a neighborhood of mostly government employees and business people from all over the world. Many Americans live there and were excited to celebrate Halloween eventhough it's not a chinese holiday. Kate and Caroline had fun trick or treating and really enjoyed the candy:) Some of the neighbors from other countries joined in the fun...so there was a pretty constant flow of kids at the door for candy!