Hoi An, Vietnam

Before I get to the fun stuff. Let me tell you about the important stuff. Although Vietnam is a country that will issue a visa upon arrival you have to apply for the visa before you leave for your trip. 

It was in the Bangkok airport that the ticketing agent asked us for proof of application for our visas when we gave her the 'deer in headlights' look. We were clueless. Long story short, you can apply for a visa online while standing in the Bangkok airport, pay a fortune, and have your visa application expedited within 15 minutes. Once you receive the oh so very important email showing an application for visa, show the email to the ticket agent and they will issue your boarding pass.

Special thanks to the Air Asia ticketing agents who helped us through the process of finding an online visa application (he had to try 3 different websites), who hotspotted us with their personal cell phones (the free airport WiFi wasn't cuttin' it) and who got us on our plane with 3 minutes to spare. Don't worry about feeling like a boob if you make it to the Bangkok airport and have no idea about the visa hassle. Just look around at the dozen of other teary-eyed travelers who are also in fear of missing their flight. 

We caught our flight with minutes to spare and made it to the Hoi An Lantern Festival! The true lantern festival happens twelve times a year on a full moon.

For 300,000 Vietnamese dong ($11 usd) we rented a boat for the four of us and sent lanterns (wishes) down the river. Don't worry if you can't make it to Hoi An during a full moon, they perform smaller versions of the lantern festival every night. 

Hoi An isn't a very large town, yet packs in tourists from all over the world. The first few hours we were there our eyes were like saucers....we weren't the only expats in town. "Where did all these people come from?" A far cry from living in China.

In Hoi An spend a few bucks and get the museum pass which allows you to visit 5 different places of interest. The Hoi An Folklore museum was a great place to see exactly how the fine silk is made. At first we thought the silk spinning wheel was a prop, thankfully it had live silk worm cocoons in warm water producing silk, and the local woman was using the wheel. Don't expect too much from the museum or other points of interest and you won't be disappointed. 

If you're looking to avoid major crowds (this coming from someone who lives in China) then get out and see what you want before 3pm. We had the streets to ourselves each day if we started early enough.

Hoi An is a great place to shop and eat. Then eat and shop. Then eat some more and shop. Shop keepers will start at a ridiculous price, we start at a rock bottom price and hope to meet somewhere in the middle. Locals try to take advantage (and do) of the ridiculous exchange rate (23,000 to 1) knowing that most people can't calculate the exact price. 

Japanese bridge

In Hoi An definitely try to get lost walking through little ally ways tucked between buildings. I'm not one to take pictures of food, but the local Hoi An food is amazing. Cao Lau is a local dish, only found in Hoi An. Cao Lau is comprised of noddles, pork and local greens. Something we weren't expecting was how refreshing the local food was going to be. Dishes are made with mint, cilantro, lime, and cucumber. 

The Cao Lau in Hoi An is unique in taste and texture because it is made with water from a Cham well located near the city. For all we know, the restaurants used bathtub water.....still tasted great. I am not a sandwich fan at all but you have to try a banh mi sandwich if you come to Vietnam. Sandwiches made on a small french baguuettes with all of the fixins you want. If you eat a banh mi in Hoi An, you might as well go the restaurant featured on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. Plug Banh Mi Phuong into your Google Maps and head towards the center of town.

Local eateries inside the day market

We chose to stay on the tiny island An Hoi which is separated from Hoi An by the Thu Bon river. We're glad we stayed out of the center of town and had some peace and quiet at night. Hoi An is a night city....the place starts to open up at 3pm and goes till 1am. 

Prices in Hoi An (which is expensive compared to other non touristy places) $1 bike rental, $1.50 plate of food, .17 cent beer for "fresh beer", .75 cents for beer, $10 for a (backdoor)North Face jacket, and $6 massage.  "Fresh beer" is less than desirable tasting "beer" that's poured out of a plastic bottle. One was enough for me. Backdoor North Face is said to be all the real North Face manufactured items that slip through the back door and end up in the night markets. 

Tianping Mountain, Suzhou

For people that have lived in the tropics for the past 5 years, it was tough waiting for the opportune time to see colorful autumn leaves. The best time to see the leaves at Tianping Mountain is late November or early December, although the leaves in town start to turn in October. 

As with everything else in China, the place was crowded yet pleasant and worth the trip. Tianping Mountain is a walkable distance from the last subway stop on Line 1, Mudu. 

For less than $5 USD per person entrance fee, there's quite a bit to explore especially if you like to hike. A small hike up to the top will reveal fall colors with the tiny little village of 10 million people (sarcasm) of Suzhou in the background. 

So there you have it, fall leaves in China. Check that one off the list!

Exploring Beijing during Golden Week

Beijing, China's capital is the perfect city to see where old China and new China meet. Our first stop was to the Dongyue Taoist Temple.

Old and new mixed

We have never been to a taoist temple before...what a trip! We highly recommend going to check out this temple as it was really interesting, colorful and full of awesome weirdness (is that a thing?) The temple displays 76 different departments of death.

Each chamber is completely different with colorful statue looking things and totally worth the time and entrance fee (less than $2 USD)

Sunday we opted for the weekend only Panjiayan antique market and hoped to find some real treasures. The antique market is on a blacktop parking lot with all sorts of stuff displayed. Regardless of what we asked to see it was $100 USD. Small perfume bottle? $100 USD  Necklace? $100 USD...didn't matter...their starting price was the equivalent of $100 USD.

Being that this was an "antique" market, the one English word every seller knew was "OLD". As we would laugh at their insane price, they would insist that the article in question was old. Ya sure...right. I saw a necklace that was really cool and although I already knew the price (everything starts at $100 USD) I asked the lady anyways...How much? She thought about it for a second and punched in to her calculator 700 yuen (about $100 USD). We all laughed and walked away. Every seller next to her was screaming at her....telling her she asked too much. They were reprimanding her as we were walking away. Although we don't speak Chinese...we got the drift that they had told her she should have learned from others mistakes...DON'T START AT 700 yuen!!

Before leaving the market, I saw one last items I was interested in. A small fish necklace charm. Again the guy started at 700 yuan, claimed the piece was real old and we laughed. But I really wanted to charm. We were walking away for good when he stuffed the calculator in Phil's hand and asked us to make an offer. I told Phil I only wanted to pay 100 yuan ($15 bucks). Phil thought that was too insulting. Jessica grabbed the calculator from Phil, punched in 100, and showed the seller. He agreed to accept 100 yuan. The surrounding sellers were cheering. I got so excited I had to take a picture. Someone had finally sold something to the white people! Success..or maybe not.

As we walked away from the "antique" market where Phil kept muttering, "I swear they just throw this crap in the dirt to make it look old" we came walked into the Panjiayun daily market. HOLY COW....rows and rows of crap (er, I mean good stuff). And well, what do you know? The same crap (uh, I mean, "antiques") that people were selling around the corner on the blacktop for 20 times more! And what else do you know....my fish necklace charm that I had just happily paid 100 yuan was being sold by someone who's first offer was to sell his for 30 !!  Whatever. The man has a family to feed and I'm happy with my $15 USD fish charm....even if I could have purchased the same one around the corner for $3.

Monday we went to the Great Wall and it was spectacular. We literally couldn't have asked for a more perfect day. 75 degrees? Check. Crystal clear skies? Yup. Only a fraction of the people we were anticipating? Thank Gawd yes.

How's this for steep?

We went to the Mutianyu area of the Great Wall, 2 hours from Beijing. Most people go to the closest area, Mutianyu is NOT the closest area which means it's also less crowded, by a few million people. We chose to take the gondola up to the top of tower 16 and then walk to tower 19 and all but crawl to tower 20. 

The top of tower 20 was nothing short of breathtaking. As if experiencing the Great Wall with our family wasn't gratifying enough, being there with Emma was exceptional. We've never seen her so happy. To be standing on the Great Wall in her home country. Beyond awesome. 

We spent about 4 hours on the Great Wall, which went by fast. With every step we would look at the new incredible view. Although we had purchased gondola tickets for the ride down, Emma insisted we walk...all. the. way. down.

Sweet Jesus, the day after first crawling up to Tower 20 and then walking all the way down off the mountain, Phil and I were feeling old. Real old. Like we could hardly walk the next day old. Shit we do for our girls.....

I'd love to show you pictures of the Forbidden City, but we don't have any. We suck and didn't buy tickets in advance. Although all of our co-workers told us we were insane for going to Beijing during the Golden Week, due to the enormous crowds, for some reason that didn't translate into pre-purchasing tickets to one of the most popular attractions in all of China. We are considering going back to Beijing for Christmas.

Before heading home, we went to the Lama Temple. We love the different temples. They're so colorful. Peaceful. Less crowded.

3 story Buddha in the temple. Stunning

Smoke from prayer sticks filled every temple

It is possible to enjoy China during the Golden Week, so long as you arrive at your destination on Saturday and get the hell outta dodge by Tuesday. China makes people work on the first weekend of the holiday (in order to take off the full week) so while everyone else is at work, places are less crowded. By Tuesday the crowds of millions show up...and the fun is over. 

While Phil was buying our subway tickets back to our Airbnb, the girls and I were standing behind the row of ticket dispensers next to a wall as it was the only place to be without feeling like we were going to be crushed. I felt a hand in the middle of my back and was shoved out of the way. A new walkway was forming behind us with the influx of another million people into the subway. These people were squeezing themselves between a wall and a row of ticket dispensing machines!! I've never seen crowds like we did in Beijing. Living in China brings a whole new meaning to the word, CROWDED