Family Visit

The excitement of this month was my parents coming over to see me. After their direct flight from Edinburgh (爱丁堡) to Beijing (北京) I was there to meet them after staying overnight in the airport (机场) for their arrival at 5 am.

Our time in Tianjin was extremely busy, fitting in as much as possible within the time between my classes. In Tianjin, we visited some European styled areas, Wudadao and the Italian quarters which is always a nice change to the tall buildings we're usually surrounded by. One afternoon we took the river cruise on the Haihe river and stopped at the main tourist parts in Tianjin such as the Ancient culture street where my parents tried some Chinese snacks. We also went to the porcelain house which is a building made up of over 700 million porcelain pieces.

On one of the days, we took the high speed train to Shanhaiguan to see the Great Wall (长城) at the sea. We met a nice lady that said she would take us to the 长城 at the sea so we eagerly hopped into her car and off we went in the complete opposite direction to where the sea actually was. After a 40 minute journey, we arrived in the middle of the mountains with another wall except much quieter than any other places we had been. It was a nice surprise to see the great wall in the mountains as my parents wanted to but we didn't have time to go in 北京. After finding our way back into Shanhaiguan we made it to the section of the 长城 that we had originally planned on seeing where we saw the wall stop after going into the sea 22 metres.

With my parents wanting to see as many places in 中国 as possible in the time they were here we took a weekend trip to Xi'an (西安). Of course, we went to all the main attractions in 西安 and I can definitely say that it was considerably busier than when I went in January. With my parents being away from Aviemore and their mountain biking, we had to cycle around the city wall so that they can say they've cycled in China. On one evening we visited Nanhu park which was the prettiest park I've ever seen. As it was April there was white pollen falling from the trees giving the appearance that it was snowing in the 20-degree heat.

For their last weekend in 中国 we went to the capital of 中国, 北京. We didn't have much time to see many things in 北京 so we only managed to see the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Temple of Heaven and a trip to Beihai Park.

For Easter, Kayleigh, myself and our Chinese friend Julia all went to the food court and gave Julia her first ever Cadbury's cream egg and a Smarties Easter egg.