CHINA - BEIJING (part one)

It has been a LONG time since I travelling without children and it was amazing!  Not the part where I missed them, but the part where I only took a little backpack for a week and got to watch movies on the plane and eat before my food was cold! It was so nice and relaxing.  My flight leaving Brisbane was delayed for 4 hours, so instead of me having to wait a few hours for Amy to arrive in Beijing, she had to wait for me, lucky girl.  It had been about 9 months since I saw her last and it was so nice to see her!!  We were ready for our adventure.  We took the train in and then transferred over to the subway to our destination - Llama Temple Station.  We walked for a bit and eventually found our Hutong, with lead to our AirBnB, which was in a neat little back alley.  Then we explored!  The area we were staying was really neat!  Lots of people out and about and everything was just so foreign and neat to us.  And wow super nice cars everywhere!!  I have never seen more Teslas, Mercedes and BMWs in one place in my life!

It was hard to find any food that looked edible (mostly just scary looking meat in windows) and we were so tired from our flights that we just crashed pretty early.  We had a Beijing City Tour scheduled for the next day and we were getting picked up at like 6:30am so we needed our beauty sleep!  As usual blogger has decided to upload my pictures in random order... oh well.

Temple of Heaven

A picture at the Forbidden City with almost no one else in it? A miracle!

Random strangers would thrust their children at Amy to have their pictures taken with her (also random people too, the white girl is not just for children!)

We opted for the cheaper tour which included mandatory stops along the way, like this chinese medicine school where a doctor would come in and check your pulse (with three fingers because that is the proper way to do it) and have you stick out your tongue and then through a translator would tell you your diagnosis, followed by a forceful "do you want the medicine?!?" of course it was for a ridiculous price and who knows what it actually is... good entertainment though!  We also got to soak our feet in some brown liquid and get a foot massage for $2

Last stop was the Summer Palace!  We had almost no time there because we had to go to a pearl factory first (dang cheap tour!) but we loved it so much we took the subway back the next day (to be recounted in part two!)

No international vacation is complete without McDonalds ice cream!

Again at the Summer Palace

Going home through the back alley 

A lion you might think? Nope, a dragon! 

Forbidden City gardens, the emperor had like 2000 concubines, so they needed somewhere to hang out! 

Luckily most signs had english as well!

Amy managed a super cool heart bun! 

There was this one really neat area of Beijing, where there was a huge mall and the crazy food market and a blocked off street filled with people hanging out.  So many people out all the time! Late at night! With their children! Maybe because their homes are all small apartments they need to get out? Its a theory... 

I felt like I needed to take a picture on my stopover in Hong Kong and this rubber duck made out of cans was the winner!

And then I took another picture as well... it was so smoggy there you could barely see anything!

The back ally to our house

I had to take a Tesla picture for Andrew, its his dream car.  There were so many of them!

Lots of entrances to everything had these cool things over top - not sure what they're called? 

People people everywhere!

Forbidden City 

There was a crush of people to get a look inside - it was seriously ridiculous like you were body checking old ladies out of the way and they were merciless back!  I'm surprised no one was trampled to death no jokes. 

And this was what was inside - a throne?

The mall had a freshly squeezed orange juice maker - so yum!

At the big mall we had to do it to be cool! 

Crazy food market selling all sorts of crazy things like fried scorpions and beetles and other random bugs and sea creatures and just really anything.... we weren't adventurous because we didn't want to get sick and I don't even regret it

YUM!!!

Well that was about it for our city tour!  We did a lot of driving through the city to get places and that's always fun!  Beijing is a lot more spread out than I imagined and there is a lot of green space and trees.  I though it was going to be a concrete jungle for real!

Burtenshaw Parents in Australia: Part 2

Despite the hurricane that followed my parents to New Zealand they still saw a lot and had a good time!  We were sure happy to have them back though, Charlie and Elly love having visitors.

She is the cutest!  I think these next few pictures are from before  they left!!

These kids love picking up big rocks!

So strong!

A day or two after my parents come back we headed south to see Springbrook National Park - unfortunately some of the places were closed because of the hurricane that passed through, roads and bridges were washed out and everything! Luckily we still got to see some things! 

This trail to Purling Brook Falls was actually closed, but it didn't seem too dangerous so we hopped the fence.. 

Cheeky boy holding back his smile!

I I had to get Charlie to recreate this picture, the original is one of my favourites!  He is getting so big! Original is from April 6, 2015 and the copycat is from April 10, 2017

Of course Elly wanted to get in on the fun!

Purling Brook Falls

Next on the list was the "Best Of All Lookouts" - it is a really neat path to the lookout, past some Antarctic Beech trees!

At this point it had already been a long day!  Charlie was ready for a rest

The lookout - you can see the ocean and into NSW (I personally don't think it's the best of all lookouts, but it's pretty good!)

There are also really great rocks to play on up there

Elly is obsessed with her Teddy! 

Hide and Seek! I was a bit nervous he'd find a snake in here...

We stayed the night on the Gold Coast - Burleigh Heads - at an AirBnB.
The place had an awesome pool and hot tub which the kids went crazy for.
We didn't stay on the beach long so we could go to the pool!

The next morning we kept driving to Byron Bay - man is that place so packed, I swear every time I go it's just busier and busier!  And the free parking place we scored last time has been turned into paid parking!  But it was full anyways so it didn't really matter.  We managed to find a free spot on the other side of the lighthouse and took a fun little walk up - Charlie did awesome!

Grandma and Grandpa went on the lighthouse tour while we hung around.
Charlie was so upset he couldn't go up too! It's hard being little

Yes, this was totally staged and Elly was not happy about it!

It was super windy up at the lighthouse!

Charlie got a ride on the way down!

I got a lady to take a picture, but she missed the lighthouse....

So I had to take a selfie!

We figured we had enough time to play at the beach for a bit before leaving and the kids loved it!
We weren't planning on swimming so we didn't get out the kids swimming suits....

But they couldn't resist the water!  We took over a little pool some people had left behind!

It was was a great little trip and my parents got to see a bit more of this diverse country!

On the last day my parents had we decided to go back to Southbank and eat at Nandos!
(It was also convenient I had to go downtown to pick up my visa for China!)

Charlie is a little monkey!  He is such a good climber!

And then it was over!  It was so nice to have my parents come a visit, and have Charlie and Elly get to know them better.  It was really hard to say goodbye since we don't know when we'll see them again.  Andrew has been accepted into the Rural Generalist Pathway here in Queensland, and that means 5 more years in Australia!  The last (almost) 4 years have gone pretty quick so hopefully these next ones will too.  

Thanks Mom and Dad for a great time!  You should come back soon!