Watch What You Eat

It is always interesting watching the authentic Chinese living on the morning commute to work.  Yesterday my driver took a small side street that we normally do not use.  Seeing a food stand with kebobs laying over some coals, I asked him "Duo Shao Qian?” (how much?) He replied, “Pianyi” (cheap).  Than he said “free” in English.  I gave him a questioning look…”mao rou”, he says.  “Mao rou?”  Surely not.  He nodded his head confidently.  Mao is the word for cat.  Rou is meat.  Great…now I know where to get a cheap lunch time snack.  He explained that this is why there are less stray cats lately.  Never made the connection.  Haven’t been eating the street food…not going to start….yuck!! I did ask him about dog meat…nope…only cats.

Finally Made It To The Great Wall

Enjoy more pictures of our trip to the wall at: http://picasaweb.google.com/krfraser5/GreatWallApril2009

Of course one of the must do's in China is to visit and climb the Great Wall of China. We did this last weekend in a four day trip to Beijing. The day we went to the Wall was met with fantastic weather around 80 degrees and hardly a cloud in the sky. The section of the wall we went to was called Mutianyu and was about 1 1/2 hours north of downtown Beijing. After taking a gondola up to the middle of the wall, we spent several hours on the wall, with the boys ascending to the highest point visitors are allowed to go. The wall is very steep at some points and created an adventure that was the high point of our trip to Beijing. We also served as an attraction on the wall, on several occasions we were stopped so folks could take pictures with the kids.

We saw these girls arguing on who was going to ask us for a picture...finally one came and popped the question!


One of the midly steep sections.


Look who was finally caught on film!!!


Uncharacteristically clear and blue skies!!

A cool thing about this section of the wall was the fact that you can choose to take the alpine slide to get back down. Fun and much easier!!

Is the sky ever blue in Shanghai?

You may have heard people talk about the lack of a true blue sky in China.
This morning was about as clear as it gets here in Shanghai. These pics are
from our bedroom balcony and you can clearly see the Jinmao Tower and
SWFC buildings in the distance. The second picture shows the deepest
blue you will see here near the top of the photo. The third picture shows you
what it looks like if you are not looking straight up. Nice. This is why we don't
leave our windows open on nice "clear" days.

Tanner Makes His First Movie

Last weekend Tanner ventured into the world of film production. He and a friend decided to enter a film festival through their school a couple of weeks ago. The rules of the festival were, 1) no more than 24 hours to make the film 2) use a bell for a prop 3) have the "All people want is someone to listen" somewhere in the film. #2 and #3 were provided on Friday afternoon. Of course being kids, communication was not crisp and they did not get together until 4 hours before the film was due on Saturday night. Fortunately, Tanner's friend Zach had already worked out a good script and when Tanner arrived at his house they only had to make minor adjustments. Filming started around 2:30 and just after 4:30 they had finished editing the film on the computer and were ready for production. At the time I thought it was a pretty good effort for their first try and short time constraints, and I was right. They ended up getting 2nd place in their category (grades 5-6) and even won 200 RMB for their efforts. Tanner's Uncle Dave would be proud!

You can see the entire 5 minute movie at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxvEcfAgM5I

Daddy/Daughter Dance

Ron & Amanda had a Daddy/Daughter Dance last weekend! This event was put together by the Girl Scouts troop she belongs to here in Shanghai. All Amanda kept talking about was this dance! The night before the dance she asked Ron, "Daddy, are you going to be able to sleep tonight? I am so excited." She had a count down going for several weeks - let's just say we were all very excited when the day finally arrived so the count down would stop! Amanda got her hair done for the big event and looked beautiful.

Daddy's little girl

They danced a few dances together but Amanda, being the social butterfly that she is, found just as much fun dancing with her friends. The 'special' song they danced to was by Steven Curtis Chapman - Cinderella.....good thing I wasn't there as I would have been bawling. Hope you enjoyed the photos!!!

Day 8 - Shopping, Swimming, and Night Zoo

We have still been having trouble getting posts with lots of pics posted from China...finally got one through...this is from our holiday trip to Australia while we were in Cairns.

Today we decided to go to a mall, which had another Target, & shop for clothes & souvenirs. This Target was much better in the clothing department. We ended up getting Amanda a ton of dresses. The toy section was still disappointing for the kids but they were able to find some pretty cool souvenirs at other shops in the mall. We headed back to the resort & they kids went swimming.

While we were gone, Dave took his kids to the beach right across from the resort. He had been swimming for about an hour when the lifeguard told him to get out of the water because there was a shark and jellyfish spotted. Nice.....especially since this area has a net that is supposed to block marine life from entering. The beach never did open back up during the rest of our stay.

I guess they really mean what they say on this sign.....

View of the beach from the front of our resort!!!

The Cairns Night Zoo was planned for the evening. After having a good Barbie (Australian for BBQ), were took a tour through the zoo. We each got a flashlight to help guide us through. The kids thought that was pretty cool!

They had a dance & sing along at the end. One of the leaders grabbed Ron to dance & as many of you know, the white boy can't dance!! He was such a good sport!!!

Tomorrow will bring about another adventure down under!

Day 5 - Do we have to leave?

It was no surprise that today was like all the other days...making it tough to leave. Our flight left at 8:50 pm, so we spent the day in the water & in the sun - soaking up and trying to store some warmth before returning to Shanghai. The week here was truly a week in paradise, with perfect weather and lots of time in the water. The boys got in another round of archery before joining the girls at the pool.

The kids loved doing 'walking on water', a game organized by the resorts activities coordinator. As you can see below, Justin did pretty well - able to walk a desent way on water, Amanda did the best as she was able to maintain her balance well, Tanner - well, I'll let you be the judge of that!!

The kids took their last romp on the beach, catching a couple different types of crabs, including another hermit crab that Justin let crawl all over him. It was tough leaving, but we had to go back to reality. Reality in this case was a red-eye flight that arrived at just after six in the morning in Shanghai. It was drizzling and about 40 degrees. Ron was still wearing shorts, refusing to let go until the last moment. If given the chance, we will go back...it was a great place to spend a vacation!!

Goodbye Paradise!!!!