It's a 3 hour flight or so from Beijing to Taipei. I was just going to have us take a bus from the airport into the city, but apparently I am not to be trusted with public transit in foreign countries, because my mom sent my grandma and uncle to get us. =D

They took us to a fancy restaurant for dinner and ordered sushi for me. Isn't the presentation gorgeous?

Then my uncle stopped by a street market to grab us fruit for breakfast.  And this is the theme of our Taiwan trip. We ate our way across Taipei. LOL

He went for the weird fruit we don't get in the U.S. This is a sugar apple. Funky!

The next day we went to the Flower Expo that was going on in Taipei.

I dunno how he does it but Marcus always manages to get perfect framing when holding the camera on these photos.

They had these vases everywhere painted by different artists.

The expo was huge! And it wasn't just flowers. There were buildings too...

I love how they did the stylized cloud rocks to look like a Chinese painting.

Of course we had to take a photo with the cow. =D

Pretty cobblestones

A cool wall in one of the pavilions.

There was a section where a bunch of different countries had been invited to build their own display.

This was the USA one. LOL

For some reason only Montana (land of the meese) was represented. =D

These weird things had eco-friendly living habitats built inside them. I don't even know what was going on with the outsides though...

The expo mascot.

I couldn't resist taking a photo of this guy's shirt. ^^;

We watched a lion dancing performance. It was one of the best troupes I've ever seen!

One of the lions actually climbed up this pole. @_@

The little blue itty bitty lion had a kid of maybe 6-7 years old in the costume. He was so cute!

And photos of roses! (For Aimee.)

Pretty colored peppers.

The metro in Taiwan is so nice! Reminds me a lot of Tokyo. It was such a nice change to see people standing in orderly lines after the total mosh-pit "lines" of Beijing.

Anyways, here is day 6 in Beijing in which we met up with fatwetdog and her husband, Nick, who speaks better Chinese than both me and Marcus. =D They took us fabric shopping and then we checked out Beihai and Houhai.

We started off the day by going shopping in the fabric district of Beijing. It's a bit tricky to get to because you need to take a cab and some cabbies (like ours) had no idea where to drop us off, but if you are ever in Beijing, try to go!

They have lots of prints we don't have but the main reason to go would be to get silks and brocades.

The silks and brocades were in a different alley from the one we started on.

We went a little nuts. It's hard to resist when the brocades that run $12-25/yd can be had for $3-5 a meter. ^^;;;

Judy made this guy get up there like 4 times. LOL. But she bought a lot in his store so I'm sure he was happy!

Marcus holding up some of our purchases. To give you an idea of how much we got: all the fabric went into it's own duffel bag with half of Judy's mahjong set. It weighed in at 40 lbs at the airport! (Ok granted a mahjong set is heavy, but still!)

Then we decided to go Beihai park which is this huuuuge park in middle of Beijing.

It was a bit cloudy that day but it didn't rain which was great.

It's a beautiful park. It's a little hard to believe it's smack in middle of such a big city.

We decided it would take too long to walk all the way around the lake so we took the ferry boat to one of the farther sections. Yeah, that's how big the park was.

There's a famous temple on the island in the middle of the lake.

And lots of beautiful gardens.

There were a lot of local kitties! We spent a good ten minutes just walking them stroll around on these rocks.

I think I remember taking this exact same photo in Tokyo...

This kitty is very very happy about this rock. LOL

After Beihai, we went to Houhai, which is a pretty area with a lot of bars and cafes on the water.

There were quite a few restaurants with a ton of brightly colored couches outside. I'm guessing they just leave them out in the rain cause where would you stack all those couches...?

o_O

We were getting really tired from all the walking so we finally stopped for some sustenance. Before food....

After food...

And dinner!

With cute little birdie desserts with red bean paste inside.

Then it was off to the hotel to pack up as we were all leaving the next day.

The next morning, Judy and I went out to get some breakfast pastries. It only rained on our last day in Beijing. We got really lucky with all the beautiful weather.

We hadn't taken a pedicab the whole trip so we decided to take one back to the hotel. I don't know why we keep doing this to ourselves. It's always terrifying... doesn't matter if  it's San Diego or Beijing. -_- Yes, this is him driving us down the wrong side of the road.

A couple final shots of our hotel...

This was in the Beijing Airport. Pretty huh?

Marcus and I took a flight out to Taiwan, and Judy and Aimee caught their flights back to the U.S.  And that was China! It was beautiful and there are so many amazing things to see with so much history. I would love to go back again to see more places like Xian and Suzhou.

We woke up bright and early and got into make-up and hair. We actually debated if we wanted to walk through the street of Beijing looking like idiots, but there was no way we were going to manage hair and make-up there so that was decided pretty quick.

We got stared at a lot. Although Marcus (who walked behind us the whole time just so he could see it all) said it wasn't any more staring than Judy and Aimee were getting every other day we'd been in Beijing.

The Summer Palace is HUGE. I think it would take at least 2 full days to see it all. We decided to do the canal section first with the cute village along the water.

First order of business: find an out of the way area to change! Good thing we're good at changing anywhere. o_O  BTW, a husband is the best cosplay accessory ever. He doubles as a clothing rack and sherpa! <3

The people who worked at the Summer Palace were thrilled to see us. Some of the shop keepers chased us down for photos. It was really cute. =D

We found a pretty rock formation to take photos on and Marcus got a crash course in how to use my Rebel.

One of the shop keepers selling wind instruments. I kind of wish I had gotten a flute. Not sure what I would have done with it but it was so pretty looking and sounded cool.

The boats on the canal were driven by that one oar in the back. I was pretty psyched to see it cause I've actually never seen it done in real life, I've only seen it in movies. =D The pedestrian walkway had a little drawbridge too so the boats could get out.

We were popular with the other tourists! =D

Except for Aimee's purse, it could be a scene from a period movie! =D

You can't tell in these photos because we tried to pick less populated spots, but it was bananas crowded that day. I dunno where all the people came from. It was a work day!

A couple photos that aren't on the HCC LJ.

We decided to climb up to the temple way up there.

Kinda steep!

Hi Judy!

Look at the smog. Ugh. It wasn't even as bad as it could have been when we were there because it was still early spring.

We took 2 different versions of this shot and the other one came out better, but I thought I'd stick this one here too. You can kinda see Aimee and Judy crouched on the other side holding my ribbons. =D

One last photo before we de-bunny.

And then it was food time!

Look, someone else in costume! We got the sense there were places you could rent costumes to walk around in because the people we talked to weren't surprised to see us in costume, but were pretty floored that we had made our own costumes.

The Dowager Empress' theater.

I wouldn't want to ride in one of these. Hi claustrophobia.

The infamous Marble Boat. The Dowager Empress was given money to build a navy to defend China and instead, she spent it on building this marble boat (that doesn't really do anything other than look good.) Needless to say, she was one of the last rulers of China before the revolution.

The boat really was pretty though...

The flowers were blooming all over Beijing and Aimee took a lot of photos of the flowers. =D

A couple last photos of the canal area.

And we finished off the day by teaching Aimee how to play mahjong! =)

A shot of the hutong where our hotel was located.

The sculpture right outside the metro stop. ^^;

We took the metro to the Temple of Heaven and decided to stop by a bakery across the street for breakfast. Look at all the cute pastries!

Our breakfast choices were a bit more mundane.

And then it was off to the Temple of Heaven.

It seemed to be a popular hangout spot for the locals. There were all these people hanging out in little groups doing things like knitting, kicking the chinese equivalent of a hackey sack, doing tai-chi...

Lots of chinese chess going on.

There were a LOT of temples in this area. Honestly, I can't even remember which one was which so I'm sure these photos are a bit jumbled up. ^^;

 All the details were just amazing and the manpower that must have gone into building these places is just mind boggling...

Dragon babies! Ok actually, my aunt explained this to me. The number of little statues and the types of statues on your roof are an indication of your rank. The more you have, the more important your status and obviously, the emperor and his family get the dragons. Cool to know!

The pretty gardens on the grounds.

 We saw a couple doing wedding photos. There doesn't seem to be many rules or need for permits to take photos in these locations which is awesome. Wouldn't it be fun to get wedding photos at a place like this?!

 The big temple at Tientan.

 Even the trash cans are pretty.

 Marcus being amused by how many times me, Aimee and Judy took photos of the same exact things.

 So story about the next photo: There's this disk on the ground that marks the very center of this temple where the emperor would stand to make proclamations. When we got to this location, people were getting up on the disk to take photos and we thought: well we're here, we should do it too. So we got in what we thought was the line only to realize 10 minutes later, that there was no line. It was kind of a free-for-all. People were just charging up there and posing for photos.

So we politely waited for the 2 people who obviously had gotten there before us to take our turn and just as the three of us got on the disk, this guy (who you can see in the photo below) gets up there too and tries to crowd us off. -_- Me and Aimee were like: DON'T THINK SO BUDDY!! And the two of us kind of... pushed him off... and then told Marcus to take the photo quick! ^^;;;;

As we were walking away, I told Marcus that I hoped he had gotten a photo of the disk too or that whole tussle match would have been for nothing. LOL

(And hey there's the disk in the photo! Never should have doubted him!)

 On our way out, we saw this totally random sign sticking out of a wall. I told Marcus to go stand under it like a WoW NPC quest-giver. /dork

 Then it was off to lunch. We were craving western food so we found a recommended restaurant in the guidebook that took us forever to find but was very yummy.

Random smoking mushroom on the street...

 Marcus very happy to not have Chinese food for this meal.

 Then we went to the silk market plaza which was full of kitsche little shops where you have to bargain for everything. It's kind of exhausting but fun. I don't think the shopkeepers much liked having us around because Marcus is a pretty good haggler and there seems to be some automatic discount if you speak Chinese. LOL

 Exhausted after shopping 'cause wow, we bought a lot of stuff! Among them being a mahjong set for Judy, a jade bracelet for me, and a bunch of masks and statues for Aimee.

Dinner was at a cool ex-pat pub that I forget the name of now. Supposedly the burgers were awesome but I couldn't tell you since I (obviously) didn't have one. =D  This photo was taken cause the signboard on the wall is hilarious.

And that was day 4... day 5 was braving The Summer Palace in costume!

This year, we ate our way across Dickens Fair. We started eating as soon as we got through the entrance and just continued eating the whole day. Sadly, one cannot eat that much in a corset. I really need to go back in muggle clothes so I can have more food (which is really good at Dickens Fair). =D

As always, it was kind of dark inside which made it hard to take photos. I'd like to go to the historical park in San Jose in the spring and get nice some nice photos of this dress.

Judy made my hat for me and it's really pretty. Not sure if  you can tell but there is a bird on it! It needs to be tilted down a little more next time I wear it.

Last year, my friend, D, borrowed one of my victorian dresses, but this year that she decided she didn't want to wear a corset and made a maid outfit. I was mildly jealous of her by hour 3 because I'm pretty sure she was WAY more comfy than I was. =D

Judy and Aimee made these awesome polonaise out of this cool brocade we got in China. I have the matching fabric in another color, so I need to make another victorian to match them.

We were admiring Judy's.... trim.

 praedestinatio's first victorian dress! Isn't it awesome?!

sihaya_chan in a really pretty mid-victorian dress.

Aimee's hat wins.

The Greater Bay Area Costuming Guild meet-up.