China
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Flying Standby to China
Recently I had the opportunity to fly standby to China. I'd never done an international standby flight before and it was definitely a different experience. A little stressful at times, but totally worth it. #TBIN
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Biking Around the Xián City Wall
I really love traveling internationally. There is so much to see, do and learn. It’s so fun being in other cultures and seeing how other people live. The most amazing part of international travel is that there are TONS of things you can do in other countries that you really can’t do in the US. Like climb around 12th century ruins, explore castles and actually SEE ancient mixed with modern. It’s really great. When we were in China, we got to have a pretty fun experience. I was a little iffy about it at first. I mean, I wanted to do it, but my thought was, “Okay, we’re going to…
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Leshan Giant Buddha
In 693 AD one of the most colossal undertakings in pre-modern history began taking place. A Buddhist monk named Haitong decided he wanted to build a Buddha statue in the Sichuan Province of China. But it wasn’t going to be just any Buddha statue. This Buddha statue was going to be carved into the side of a mountain next to a river in hopes that the Buddha would be able to control to tempestuous river spirits and allow safe passage to the numerous travelers of that river. After saving alms for 20 years, Haitong saved up enough copper coins to begin building this monumental statue. He enlisted help from other monks, masons and his…
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Temple of Heaven: Circular Mound Altar
After we finished up at the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests we decided to wander around the grounds as the sun went down. We hadn’t done a ton of research as our trip to China wasn’t planned far enough in advance to do more than list places that looked interesting, so we didn’t really know what all was on the grounds on the Temple of Heaven. We saw people heading through a gate opposite from where we had entered the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests area and decided to see where they were going. We had no idea what was there and were excited about being ‘surprised’. The first thing we…
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Temple of Heaven: The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests
If you ever go to Beijing, one of the places you’ll want to visit is the Temple of Heaven. It’s a 15-minute drive south of the Forbidden City and close to several other areas of interest. We did a circuit where we visited the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and then the Temple of Heaven in one day and felt like we were able to enjoy ourselves at each one without feeling rushed. The Temple of Heaven began construction in 1406 and was completed in 1420, just 4 years before the Yongle Emperor died. The complex is made up of two sections, the inner section and the outer section, covering 660 acres. The outer…
