Longqing Ice Festival

We went to Beijing Friday night and ordered Uncle Otis' chicken to be delivered. Once it arrived we took it to the room to eat and watch a movie. We watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Still a dumb movie.

Saturday morning we got up and went to breakfast. We left at 9. We stopped by the grocery store by Fatburger to pick a few things up and then we met Carrasco's at Chaoyang Park. We all jumped into the rickety van and they took us back to the snow activities. All the kids jumped on the little toy horses and tried making them move. We paid for tubes and started up the hill. Alejandro sat in the tube while I pulled him to the top. I had to walk up the snow steps pulling him. It was hard. The whole time he was yelling "I'm scared. I'm going to fall out". We made it to the top but I told him he had to walk up the steps for the rest of the day. I sat down and he jumped on my lap. Off we went. He was laughing. At the bottom we hit the "stopping hill" and he immediately yelled "lets go again". Back up. The boys each had their own tube. We were about to get another tube so Ale and I didn't have to share with Marcela but she decided she didn't like it. She said it was scary.

Watching tv and waiting for Alfredo.

The Wallace's and Carrasco's are ready for a fun day.

The boys look happy.

Getting in the rickety van.

Riding the horse again.

Here they go.

This is the stopping hill.  It flings you to the side.

It was hard work pulling Alejandro up the steps.

Marcela, Me, and Ale going down the first time.

Everyone at the bottom.

The boys were running back to the top.

Me and Ale again.

We tied together with the boys.  It was fast.

Cutie.

All the adults took turns going with Ale...except for Todd. Marcela decided she would go with Ileana but when they got to the top, Ileana sat down and Marcela pushed her down the hill. We all started laughing and Ileana was screaming and laughing. When she got to the bottom she hit the stopping hill and when it flung her to the side she wiped out a guy standing there with his big camera. Now that was really funny.  The guy and camera were fine.

Todd said "Get your picture taken next to the ass".
Cameron, standing next to it, said "Hey, nice ass". 
Yep, he got in trouble.

When our half hour was up we went over to little motorized vehicles. It was 100 rmb for 4 laps. Little pricey but we still did it. Cameron took Alejandro with him and Marcela and Alfredo each did two laps. Well, actually, when the boys came in for their last lap we had Alejandro jump off and told Cameron and Alfredo to take a 5th lap. The worker guy stood there looking confused. The boys stopped the next time. Todd said "What are they going to do kick us out?"

These little vehicles were pretty cool.

A snake made out of snow.

We jumped back in the rickety van and went back to the front of the park. As we were walking out Cameron realized he dropped one of his gloves somewhere. We had no idea where. So instead of looking for it Todd said he would just run to Yashow Market and buy a new pair. We all jumped in our vans and went to Annie's for lunch. We ordered while Todd ran to the market. Todd made it back to eat and had a new pair of gloves.

Like how they spelled activities?

At Annie's kids get to make their own mini pizza for free.

Cameron made a smiley face.

After lunch we went to the hotel. Carrasco's needed to check in and we still had plenty of time before we needed to head to Longqing to the ice festival. Up to our rooms to rest for an hour.

In the lobby of our hotel.

Todd's friend William works at the hotel.  He use
to work in the lounge in TEDA when Todd was staying there.

2:30 we were back in the vans making our way to Longqing. The last time we went there it took almost 3 hours. This time it took 1.5 hours. Much less traffic since people weren't visiting any of the Great Wall sections up that way. We jumped out of the vans and started putting on all our winter gear. It wasn't bad because the sun was out but we knew once it got dark it was going to be cold. We asked our drivers to go with us and they were pretty excited. They were taking pictures and videos of us all getting ready. They only had coats. We probably should have told them before leaving TEDA they could go with us. Maybe they would have hats and gloves.

All of a sudden Todd was throwing something at us.  He threw it towards Ileana and said "Dance". It made a huge pop sound. It startled us at first but then realized he bought what I thought was those pop things you throw on the ground. Ileana at first didn't want her kids to throw them and I said "they are just little pop things." Todd said "Actually these are not like those. These are like little sticks of dynamite". They were still harmless...pretty much. They make a huge pop sound but sometimes when you throw it down parts of it shoot back up. The kids had a blast with them. There were plenty of adults to make sure they were safe too.

Nice picture of the kids with the mountains.

Todd passing out the pop things.

We are ready to head to Longqing.

Mr. Xue and Leo joined in with the Wallace's and Carrasco's.

We had to walk a little ways to get to the ticket booth and the bathroom. This is where the big bummer was. We had just put all our snow gear on and now we had to use the bathroom. What a huge pain trying to hold all the snow pants and clothes up while trying to use a squatty potty. We all survived but it was a mini workout that's for sure.

All 10 of us jumped on the golf cart sort of vehicle. It took us up to Longqing. It was a little chilly with the wind but we survived. We bought the entrance tickets and we were finally in the Gorge. It was still light out at this point. There were some ice sculptures as we made our way to the big stuff. Once back by the dam we started seeing bigger ice sculptures and snow sculptures. Then we went inside a huge tent type thing. This is where they had all the lighted ice sculptures that were sort of like Harbin. It was pretty cool. We took lots of pictures while checking it all out.

We were all excited to see a deer made out of snow.  However, it was plastic.

The kids climbing a big, fat snowman.

Cool picture.

We had some Chinese join in our picture.

Another neat picture.

Cameron picks his own nose and others.

Enjoying the ice sculptures.

My family.

I bet there booty's were cold.

Cameron had no idea what sculpture this was.  When he was
done I said "Hey, your head was on her booby".  He stepped
back, looked, and started freaking out.

Ice building.

The snow in the back was neat.

Another picture with our drivers.

The Wallace's with Mr. Xue.

Cameron was posing like this guy.

The Wallace's and Carrasco's minus Todd.

This one of all of us turned out cool.

Once we had seen everything inside we went back out and went to the other side. There they had some ice bumper cars, a little ice slide, and a hill for sliding down. This is where the kids really started to enjoy themselves. When Marcela saw it she said "finally something fun to do". They slid around for at least a half hour until we finally said it was time to go. By this point it was dark and everything was lit up. It was pretty. They had little campfires lit all around to warm up by. We didn't do that but a lot of Chinese people were doing that.

The dam is behind.  In the face is where we walked to go inside
to see the ice/snow festival.

Ice slide.

Everything outside was lit up.

It is almost the Year of The Snake.

Where we were.

We jumped back on the golf cart thing and went back down to the vans. We hit the bathroom again for another mini workout. When we came out Todd had a bag. We asked what it was and found out he bought a whole bag full of the pop things to take back to TEDA with us. He enjoyed throwing them more than the kids I think.

Back to the van, took all our gear off, and headed for the hotel. We had pizza and salads in the van to eat on the way back for dinner. Alfredo was happy he rode with us because his family left their food at the hotel. He shared Cameron's pizza, fruit, and string cheese.

Back at the hotel everyone went to their own rooms because it was 8:30 and they still needed to eat. We watched some tv then went to bed. It was a fun day.