China
One day while we were doing ministry in
China, we decided to head to the Longmen Grottoes, a 1600 year old
historical site home to over 100,000 carvings. It was a few hours
away and we rented a bus to take us there and back. It turned out
that all the kids that lived with Jon and I were able to go too.
It was surreal to be around such old
carvings. I’m fairly certain it is the oldest man made thing I’ve
ever seen. There were so many statues though that after awhile I
became a bit spoiled and didn’t really appreciate what I was looking
at. I think there is a lesson in that for me.
I have had so many blessings in my life
both before and during this trip that I take them for granted. I
find a Tex-Mex restaurant for my birthday in China, but I yearn for
the fajitas back home. I see a spectacular sunset in Thailand, but I
compare it to the slightly better one in Haiti. New goal:
appreciate every moment for what it is not for what it isn’t.
After we finished up our ministry time
In China we headed to Beijing to spend a couple days relaxing before
heading to Thailand.
About a year ago I read a few articles
about the high speed trains in China and had two thoughts on them.
One, I wish there were trains like that in the US, and two I want to
ride the trains. Well it looks as if the first part won’t be
happening anytime soon, and with our limited travel budgets the
latter looked impossible too.
We rode one of the slow trains for
about 16 hours to get to our ministry site and it was pretty insane.
The seats are too small for an American sized man, and to make more
money the train company sells standing room tickets, so the isles are
absolutely packed with people and bags.
Well God had other plans, and the fast
train tickets weren’t as expensive as I would have expected, so we
got to ride on the nice train to Beijing. I was so thankful for that
opportunity.
I decided that I would have time to
sleep on the plane, so I resolved to spend the three days in Beijing
seeing as much of it as possible. I also found out that the last
two Elite Eight games would be on in the dead of night the first
night we were there, and well March Madness is probably my favorite
sporting event, so Blake and I watched at 2am as VCU knocked off
Kansas, and then at 5 as Kentucky beat UNC.
I then left to see the Forbidden City
and Tienanmen Square. Tienanmen Square was on high alert due to
threats of protests, so there were police and cameras everywhere and
you had to get your bag scanned to get in. The Forbidden City was
also amazing. It is really incomprehensible how big it is. It takes
a couple hours just to walk the length of it. It was so cool to see
all the old buildings and the gardens were especially nice.
The next day was our trip to the Great
Wall. The part we went to was deserted and had both a restored wall
and an unrestored part. I pretty much sprinted to the top and after
about an hour was in the first group to arrive at the highest point
on the wall. The view was amazing and the challenging climb made it
all the better.
The last day started off with me
traveling across town by subway. (By the way its probably the
easiest subway system I’ve ever used.) The power connector on my
laptop had broken and it needed to be fixed because I could no longer
plug it in. So I had to head across town to a computer center to get
it repaired. I also found out that the Summer Palace was only a few
minutes from where my computer was at. So I spent all day carrying
around a 20 pound backpack with my laptop and camera.
I really hadn’t planned on seeing the
Palace, but I’m glad I did. It was without a doubt the coolest thing
I saw in Beijing. The gardens and the ancient buildings were awesome
and the huge lake was great too. And there was a live brass band
playing classic Chinese tunes that we got to, or rather were forced
to dance to.
Then we went in search of Beijing Duck.
Which is roasted duck and is the dish to get in Beijing. We had
heard from Donna about a place nearby so we set off to find it. I
forgot the exact directions, and we eventually found a man that spoke
English and lead us to a river-walk kind of place. We got some
amazing duck on the shore of a man-made river and then headed to the
Olympic Grounds.
I thought pretty much everyone in the
world watched the Beijing games and were familiar with Michael Phelps
and Usain Bolt, but Will and Carrie, who were with me, both managed
to miss them entirely. After getting off on the wrong side of the
subway stop we had to walk for about 20 minutes to get over the
highway separating us from the Watercube and the Bird’s nest. It was
really great to see the places half way around the world that
captured my attention two years ago.
I really liked Beijing and loved the
history and the people I got to hang out with there.
Thailand
The place where we were in Thailand is
best known for being the setting for the movie The Bridge Over the
River Kwai and we were fortunate enough to get to see this tragic
part of WWII that was until now unknown to me.
During WWII Japan was having trouble
supplying its troops in Burma and decided to construct a railroad
from Bangkok to Burma. This took it though the mountains and jungle
of Kanchanaburi. During construction over 100,000 people died. Our
contacts took us to the Hellfire pass memorial and the bridge over
the river Kwai. The memorial did a good job of telling the story of
WWII in Southeast Asia and the railroad.
After working hard in the heat for 8
hours a day and being well fed and equipped with medical supplies and
having access to doctors the 20 of us guys were in pretty rough
shape. It was hard to avoid infection especially in our feet and the
bugs didn’t help much. It is surprising that anyone survived 20 hour
work days with meager rations, limited water, and almost no medical
supplies. I guess its just
another testament to how magnificent our bodies are and how great our
creator is.
Also check out my Thailand album
.
