China Men

When my youngest was six weeks old, my husband went to China for two weeks.  It was a long two weeks.  He was able to do about a week of sight seeing before the major work stuff came into play.  He was able to see a lot of neat things.  This past summer, I finally got around to getting the pictures in a scrapbook.  I put them in an 8x8 album, and I love to look at it.  I finished it right around the time of the summer Olympics, so it was neat to hear the news anchors talking about the places that I had just scrapped and that Bryan had just spent time telling me about. 

When he came home he brought my daughter two adorable outfits - one blue dress and a pink shirt/pant combo.  She wore the dress to church and loved all the attention it brought to her.  Unfortunately, it lasted only a few weeks before coming apart.  He did good and brought me a beautiful black and silver necklace and a strand of pearls.  For my oldest, he brought a set of Terra Cotta soldiers. 

Like the real soldiers, ours are crumbling.  They were in the living room and my son's bedroom at our old house, and we carefully wrapped them up to move.  I don't know why, but we hadn't opened the package they were in until this week.  One piece didn't survive the move - the horse.  He was in too many pieces to stack back together like the men.  One man out of five is still in one piece.  Two have heads that have fallen off and one has lost his head and broken at the waist, and feet.  I pulled them out, photographed and stacked them carefully on the piano.  I pray that the piano wont wiggle to much and cause them further damage. 

I think that these hold a special place in my son's heart.  Something that Dad brought when he was gone for so long.  I don't imagine that they will survive for many more years, but I am glad to have the pictures so that we will always remember.

Here are a few pictures that Bryan got while he was in China, and here you can learn more about the Terra Cotta Soldiers.

I have never really wanted to do much in the way of international travel.  I'm to picky about my food, and would rather be where I can speak the language.  This limits my travel options though. I do think that seeing so much history would be amazing.  I loved hearing Bryan's experiences with the food, the markets, seeing the Great Wall, Tienaman Square, and everything else.

Do you do much international travel?  What's your favorite souvenir from your (or someone else's) travels? Ever been to China?  Planning on going?