China – Guilin – Mountains

Beautiful Guilin

Originally uploaded by shengangxi

China – Guilin – Longsheng

Guilin – Longsheng

Originally uploaded by jackfrench

China – Guilin

Today I had lunch with a friend who grew up in Beijing, China.  So I asked him where I should visit in China.  He asked me if I was taking the kids and when I responded in the affirmative, he told me not to go.  He felt that the country was too crowded and therefore wouldn’t be  good for the children’s respiration, unless maybe they received many vaccinations.  When I pressed him for a place anyway he suggested the famous mountains of Guilin.  You know, the ones that kind of look like drip sand castles set in deep green, fog shrouded forests?  Looks cool so we’ll put that on the secondary itinerary.

We’ve been thinking of visiting China, but it hasn’t officially made it to the Itinerary yet because of logistics.  We plan to be in that region around the December/January time frame and we really wanted to visit Beijing.  Then we noticed that Beijing was pretty far north and it definitely violated the temperature rule!  We don’t feel quite as strong of a pull to China as Phillip Bauer did in season six of the 24 TV series.  But who does and anyway we want to go.  Hong Kong is high on the list for a brief stop.  I had a few memorable visits there during my time in the Navy and I love to take the family there.  I remember the zoo in the middle of the city, the funicular to Victoria Peak, Stanley Market, Kowloon and Lantau Island (home to the world’s tallest sitting bronze Buddha.)

Missionary visits

After Sunday service this morning, Heather had the great idea of tying in some visits to our church missionaries around the world perhaps in China and/or the Philippines. She thought that this would give the trip additional meaning and I would agree. Although it may may logistics a bit more challenging I think it would be worth it. As I have have read in some other places, one of the challenges of seeing the world is confronting the kind of living standard that we here in the US enjoy and take for granted. Getting personally involved through volunteer work might be just the way to help us make some sense out of the experience.