Woche 11-12: Halloween and short trip to Datong

October is coming to an end, which means it's time for pumpkins, witches, and ghosts. Halloween!

It's also well-known here in China. You can buy Halloween candies and decorations in every small store. Several shopping centers, including our East Gate entrance, are decorated in a spooky way. As big fans of Halloween, we were very excited about it. Halloween nails were a must-have too.

On October 31, 2019, starting at 5 p.m., the children from the East Gate in our residential block went from floor to floor dressed up. Many entrances were decorated, including ours. We carved out a large pumpkin and cut out a spooky mask, as well as decorated everything with spiders and pumpkin garlands. Leonie and Finn returned after the tour with plenty of treats and were happy.

In the evening, we enjoyed a delicious Halloween menu (see photos) and watched the Disney classic: 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'. There was also a great Halloween party at school. We ended the week by finally going out for teppanyaki dinner with friends. It was super delicious.

In the first week of November, we went on a hike with the mentor group, this time to the Silver Pagodas. We started after a 90-minute bus ride on a steep climb with a climbing passage. We reached a viewing platform with a beautiful panoramic view and a view of the pagodas.

We descended in switchbacks to the pagodas. It was a successful day, including a delicious coffee.

Of course, we always went to the Christmas angels for crafting on Wednesdays. The Christmas season is about to start, and so is the big charity bazaar at the German Embassy.

On the second weekend of November, we went to Datong. It's about 300 km away from Beijing.

We arrived at our first destination on Saturday afternoon:

The Hanging Monastery of Datong.

The peculiar wooden-structured hanging monastery, which was built over 50 meters above the ground on the cliff at the foot of the mountain over 1500 years ago, is unique in its construction worldwide. We were amazed. We were in the middle of the mountains, and the temple complex was high up on the mountain. Luckily, we had scarves and hats with us because it was quite cold. But that also meant it wasn't too crowded. First, we had some delicious sweet potatoes, nuts, and smoked bread from various street vendors. Then we started. First, we bought tickets because, of course, nothing is free here either. From the observation platform, you could see the complex from a distance and then climb it yourself. It was amazing, a narrow path led around the complex at a high altitude. It's good that we don't have acrophobia. A great experience. Now we continued to Datong City. Datong is an old coal city. You can unmistakably see that. Nevertheless, a lot has also been done here: a beautiful old town has been restored and appears in its full glory again, with nice restaurants and shops, surrounded by a magnificent city wall. In the middle of it all is the Xunhui Hotel. We had a beautiful family room with an Indian tent for the kids (well, actually just for Finn). A typical delicious Chinese meal rounded off the day.

Since a Chinese breakfast is not really our thing (at least not for the kids), we started the day at the Golden Seagull restaurant. Everyone was satisfied. At least we had good coffee to start the day. Perfect.

We went to our second destination: the Yungang Grottoes, with their magnificent Buddhas.

When we arrived, the WOW effect was great. We hadn't expected such a huge complex. A huge area stretched out in front of us.

The construction of these grottoes took 50 years, and over 40,000 people participated in the project. There are now 53 grottoes with 51,000 remaining statues. It is one of the largest grottoes in China. It's all set in a beautiful park with a museum where you could have very delicious coffee and several kiosks where you could try all sorts of delicious things.

With great impressions in our luggage, we returned to Beijing in the afternoon.