Field Trip #14 CHINA

I'm all caught up with my posts! YAY! I felt so far behind when I was posting Halloween picts at Thanksgiving and had the busiest time of year yet to come. But I'm finally current in all my postings and just in time for Mikie's big birthday celebration coming up next weekend.

I have my sister-in-law, Tammy, to thank for this field trip. When she heard that Mikie was reading the Magic Tree House book Day of the Dragon King about ancient China, she suggested we go see the Terra Cotta soldiers at the National Geographic Museum. I didn't even know there was a National Geographic Museum, but it is now one of my bookmarked sites! While this field trip wasn't exactly as exciting as the Medieval Times or as unexpected as finding the Ghost Town, this one was SOOOO relevant to the book!

We met Michael in D.C. after work and rode the metro to the museum. We arrived right at 3:00 and were able to get tickets to enter right away. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the actual exhibits but they did have banners and a replicated soldier that we could take pictures with.


As we were taking this picture of the banner, one of the museum workers (Ronnie Mae) noticed Mikie's book and started talking to him. She was telling us numerous facts about the soldiers and asking Mikie questions as well. She was growing increasingly intrigued with Mikie's knowledge and was equally impressed with his mathematical skills. I know God has gifted my child with a talent for manipulating numbers easily in his head, but even I was dumbfounded when she asked him "There are 7,000 soldiers and it took 700,000 people to make those soldiers. How many worked on each one?" Without missing a beat he responded "100." It took me another 30 seconds to do the mental math and realize that he was in fact correct. Ronnie Mae stood there with her mouth open and said "He's a human calculator." To which I replied, "That is his favorite toy! He plays with a calculator every day."

Mikie & Ronnie Mae

This is the one 'replica' soldier that we were allowed to take a picture of. Within the exhibit we saw many more soldiers, the chariots and horses, a painting of the Dragon King, a model of his palace, a painting of the Great Wall being built, and a diorama of the sculpting process. It didn't take long for Mikie to realize that there were numbers throughout the exhibits that marked the points on the audio tour (which we chose not to participate in) and he was a little distracted with trying to find every number.

The picture in his book shows the soldiers lined up in the tomb.

After the museum, we hopped back on the metro and visited China Town.

In our book, we learned that the rooftops in ancient China were curved, or sloped, because they were protecting themselves from evil spirits that could supposedly only travel in straight lines.

We dined on Chinese food and enjoyed our fortune cookies.

Instead of going straight home, we took a detour and drove through the Bull Run Festival of Lights. Even though there was no Christmas music playing on the radio, it was very nice not to have any lines and we could drive even more slowly than normal stopping at the displays that interested us the most. I think we'll wait until after the new year to go again next time.