Ok……today was the most amazing day ever. Whenever we travel we always try to find some way to give back and we found this organization called One Horizon who does amazing work with the people of Kenya. We booked a tour with Intrepid Urban Adventures Nairobi and booked the In Focus: A day in the…
Author: Chuck
Our Intro to Nairobi
We arrived in Nairobi at 9PM so we didn’t get to see much on the way to the hotel. The one thing we did notice was the smog. We knew it was going to be bad but it wasn’t as bad as we expected. Beijing was much worse. We arrived at the Radisson Blu Upper…
Surprise…It’s a Boy !!!
We are excited to announce…
Leshan Stone Buddha
Thought I would share an observation about China before talking about this excursion. Our tour guide mentioned that in China, they handle plurals of words differently than we do. For example, we say 2 apples, the Chinese say 2 apple. The number 2 implies plural, so adding the “S” is redundant. May explain why Chinese…
Shaanxi, Terracotta Warriors
After a very busy morning and another Over Abundance of food at lunch, we headed out to the Lintong District of Shaanxi China. The warriors were buried with the First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Quang in 210 – 209 BC and were buried with him to protect him in the afterlife. They were discovered…
Xi’an, Small Wild Goose Pagoda
The Buddhist pagoda was built between 649 and 683 for the Emperor Gaozong during the Tang Dynasty and stood 177ft tall. Empress Wu Zetian had the pagoda rebuilt and added 5 new stories by 704. In 1556 it was damaged by an earthquake and 3 stories were lost. It has not been rebuilt since then….
Xi’an, Xingqing Park
Before going any further, I would be remiss in not talking about the driving in Beijing and Xi’an. We think drivers in the US are crazy, here there seem to be no rules. Staying in your lane does not happen, they literally drive right on top of each other. Crossing the street you have to…
Day 2: Beijing, Summer Palace
After a very busy morning and another awesome lunch we headed to the Summer Palace. We were fortunate that the drizzle stopped and we just ended up with a cloudy day. The crowds were very heavy today and it is still hard to get used to how the Chinese culture is so different from ours…
Day 2: Beijing, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City
We started the day at 7:45 and were at Tiananmen Square by 8AM. Â We had a light drizzle to contend with but we were fortunate that it never got worse, just very gray. Â Between the drizzle and the cloud cover pictures seem a little dull. Smog was not bad today, they say the rain helps…
Beijing: Day 1, The Great Wall
After our visit to the Temple of Heaven, we stopped at a local eatery and had an awesome lunch. Â Mark is posting about all the food. Â The next stop was the Great Wall; Â we were so looking forward to checking off another item from our bucket list to see all of the modern-day Great Wonders….