My Journey to China Day 1

This January I had the privilege to travel to China with some great people and visit some amazing ministries. I hope to use this forum as a way to share my stories and pictures with all of you.

Day one: We traveled from Seattle to San Francisco and then to Beijing. The flights were all smooth and everything worked just right. We had a terrific guide in Pastor Peter Chen from Issaquah. It was really exciting to arrive in Beijing and look forward to traveling in China. But the time difference is very disorienting and the evening we arrived we all immediately went to bed.



Our real first day in China was a tourist day in Beijing. We had a guide and a diver who shuttled us around in a small van. Driving in Beijing was insane. Traffic was crazy and the rules of the road are a bit different from what we're used to. I was grateful for someone to drive us around. We did a whirlwind tour of Beijing and you're going to think this sounds crazy--at least we did. In the morning we went off to see the Great Wall, then to Tiananmen Square, and finally the Forbidden City before dinner.


This photo is taken from the car. The building is built to look like a dragon. This is very close to the Olympic Center with the bird's nest stadium and the swimming facility but my camera was not ready to get those pictures...

We drove out to the section of the Great Wall and I was immediately impressed by the sense of history. The wall is huge and impressive. But the thing that first came to mind was, "man you can see this from space!" Also I realize it's a pretty tremendous historical site. The section we walked/hiked was very steep.


The view from the Wall was beautiful. We had a great day, it was chilly but once you started moving up those stairs you warmed up right away.


You can see the section we hiked up behind me in the distance.

Some beautiful views from the wall:








This was only the beginning of signs that are probably helpful but poorly translated.


Tiananmen Square



Entrance to the Forbidden City


It was amazing to think that for the majority of the Forbidden City's history we would not have been able to walk right on in. Like the Great Wall there is a tremendous sense of history here.



Walking into the city you go through gate after gate. Between each gate is a large courtyard. It's a huge facility and very ornate.


I tried to capture the juxtaposition between ancient and modern in this photo. You can see the inner court of the Forbidden City with the modern skyline of Beijing in the back ground. In some ways this is what our China experience felt like. The country is steeped in ancient tradition but since the cultural revolution everything has been modernized/westernized. I'm not an expert in Chinese history but there seems to be a bit of a struggle right now with their national identity. There is a tension between their long and rich history and post revolution modern society.




Huge court yards and very ornate details.



It was neat to see soldiers march around in lock step.


So that was day one--I'm tired even thinking about all we did that day. It was a tourist day and while it was great to see the sights we were all looking forward to seeing the ministry sites. Our next day we went to Chengdu and did a bit more tourism and then started to meet some church leaders and get a glimpse of the church in China.

I'm not sure how I felt about finding a Starbucks in Beijing but it sure was nice to have a latte...


See you tomorrow