Chengde
After Beijing we headed to Chengde for a couple days. It is about a four-five hour train ride outside of Beijing. Chengde was the summer getaway for the royal family. There is a huge mountain resort and then the Eight Outer Temples around it that are all considered part of this resort.
Putuo Zongcheng Palace
This was built to resemble the Potala Palce in Tibet which was the home of the Dalai Lama until he fled to India. It was built for the Emperor's birthday, what a gift.
Sledgehammer Peak
The taxi driver dropped us off and pointed to the ticket office. When we got there we thought we were paying for entrance to a temple. Apparently we bought tickets for the funicular that takes you up to Sledgehammer Peak. We were thinking about hiking up to it anyway. We took the funicular up and hiked down. We eventually found the temple that we wanted to go to after a couple hour detour. Misunderstandings happened like that occasionally. Like not realizing that you had order food until it was brought to you, yeah that happened.
Auburn and her buddy Ryan at the Pule Temple. This is where we were trying to get to before our little adventure. We hiked around back and got the best view of the temple.
playing and chilling at the hotel
a wooden pagoda
Auburn turning the prayer wheel at the Puning Temple.
A Chinese girl showed her that you turn all of them as you walk by.
The Puning Temple
This houses the world's largest wooden sculpture of Buddha. There were no pictures allowed inside, but it was pretty awesome. My children really enjoy pointing out Buddha when they see him.
After Chengde, we headed to Tianjin on one of the Chinese bullet trains. It took an amazing thirty minutes. Auburn was happy to ride on the fastest train in the world.
This was the display on the train. It would show the changing speeds.
This was the highest point that it got to, pretty impressive.
(roughly 184mph)
Conley wasn't feeling well as we left for Tianjin. When we arrived at the hotel the poor little guy had a fever. I stayed back at the hotel with him, while the rest of the gang headed to another game. Conley fell asleep super early and I was grateful for the one English channel on TV. Auburn had a great time at the soccer game with Daddy and Ryan. She sat right between them and apparently was a delight the entire evening. She kept asking for more games during the trip.
Datong
Datong was kind of audible of the trip. We finished Beijing a little fast than we thought and were able to get train tickets bought. So we headed there on a night train. We hit two of the main sites here.
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Yungang Grottes
There are some 51,000 Buddhas carved into the caves and recesses here. Apparently some of the damages occurred to the cave during the cultural revolution.
Conley was still getting over his sickness. We didn't get very many smiles out of him for a few days. He was kind enough to share it with all of us. Ryan was the next and then the rest of us got it in X'ian. It wasn't stomach related, just a nasty flu. He did enjoy this place enough to give it a thumbs up.
The Hanging Monastery
Before we headed to the Monastery, we said goodbye to Ryan. He was headed back to the states. We had a blast with him and appreciate his patience with travelling with two small kids.
This Monastery has 40 rooms and is lodged on the side of a cliff. It is really in the middle of nowhere. It was kind of fun to do something off the beaten path.
The kids and I waving at Daddy.
(Yes, I am very strong to hold both of them at the same.)
After the Hanging Monastery we had to catch an overnight train to X'ian. We had some false information about the buses returning back to Datong, coupled with bus driver who stopped for everyone, and a traffic accident we barely made our train. It was incredible stressful, but it was a huge blessing that we made it. This is the only train that goes where we were going and we had to catch it because we a flight in the next city. We slept on three trains during our trip. Auburn still talks about how fun it was. It was not the most restful sleep of our vacation, but not a bad way to travel while the kids are sleeping.
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