Summertime… part 1

Similar to how we posted our “day in the life” series, over the next couple of months we will be sharing/posting about what life has been like during our first summer in Xi’an.

I feel like the best place to start is to try and describe to you how hot it is here.

Xi’an is considered one of China’s “Furnace Cities”. As a matter of fact, as I’m writing this, the temperature is 107 outside. The “high” has been over 103 since July 4th. Now, I know all you Texas people are thinking… “yea, it’s hot here too”; but let’s remember how Texans beat the heat. You go from your air conditioned house to your air conditioned car to the air conditioned grocery store, ect. Then there’s a swimming pool in most neighborhoods/backyards. Unfortunately, we don’t have that luxury. Plus, this is a city of 10 million (2x bigger than Houston) and full of concrete. Anyways, enough comparison, y’all get the hint 🙂

So, how have we been beating the heat? We’re not… it’s winning. It’s hot and when you have a child that insists on going outside, there really isn’t much we can do. We are in a perpetual sweat.

This is how we know Elise wants to go outside… she points and won’t look at us until we respond with a yes!

How she responds when we say Yes, to going outside!

After setting off, Elise is always making sure we are still with her. Most of our morning walks are around this pond (see below) as this time of year it is filled with lotus flowers in bloom. The other option is to head to a park just outside the city wall in order for Kristen and I to touch up on our pingpong game… can’t wait to teach Elise!!!

At other times, we keep our eyes open for construction sites that have been converted into temporary water parks… like this one…

Upon arriving at this water park, we had second thoughts… but you can’t beat the $1.50 entry fee. So we decided to check it out.

I learned something about Kristen that I never knew. She loves water parks!!!

Another bonus, they were blasting American music…

At some point, I was at the top of the slide when the water park’s electricity shut off. It immediately started collapsing. The worker started yelling at me to hurry up and slide down… by the time I reached the bottom of the slide, this is what it looked like…

In all, we had a blast and plan on going back soon.

Another “cool” thing we were able to do was spend a weekend in the mountains with a few friends. This was our first trip outside of the city (besides having to leave the country every 60 days for our visa run). We hiked and enjoyed breathing in the fresh cool air. Elise wasn’t as impressed as we were.

One thing that still amazes me is how you can be up on a mountain and find Chinese women wearing high heels…

We tried to hike as many trails as possible, but here is one trail we ended up skipping… yikes!

We do have our heat limits, and we’ve decided that we will not go outside when the temperature reaches a point that dogs quit walking…

So at that point, we keep Elise inside… and spend our time reading, playing games, taking selfies, yelling, and learning Chinese (see video compilation below)!