Today was our second day in Shijiazhuang. This morning we saw Yini's old school. The kids were finishing up their morning exercises when we arrived. We weren't allowed in, though. I guess that would have been creepy. :-P Then we went shopping at an electroincs outlet and the big mall they have here. Yini and I got 3 really nice winter coats. 2 of them were only 100 yuan! (I.e. $15 USD). The other one was more like $90, but it was still really nice. Woo-hoo! We also got a USB cord for our camera so we can upload pictures soon. [View Full Entry]

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Today Yini and I and her Mom and Aunt caught the 7:44am train from Baoding to Shijiazhuang. Shijiazhuang is Yini's hometown. Woo-hoo! It is probably most famous for its pollution. Wow! The skies were blue on the way in, then brown when we arrived. Supposedly Beijing cleaned up somewhat for the Olympics, but not so with Shijiazhuang! :-P It's a lot of fun, though. We arrived and had some of Yini's childhood snacks on her childhood street in her childhood home. Aww... Then we saw one of her best friends all grown up and also got to see her old house, [View Full Entry]

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Today we got up at 5:00am. No, we weren't woken up this time, we just got up at 5:00. I guess we're still not adjusted to Chinese time. This morning we went with Yini's aunt and uncle and her Mom to see some of the Han dynasty tombs located in the Baoding area over 2000 years old. We saw two of them tucked away in a large rocky hillside. To get there we walked up 200 meters of stairs (hundreds, maybe thousands of them...) and were quite out of breath when we got to the top. The tombs were neat, but [View Full Entry]

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Today we saw Yini's aunt's new apartment. (Very swanky!). Afterwards we went to the park and had some delicious park food. This particular item was one of Yini's fondest childhood memories. Aww... It was good too! While in the park two girls came up to us and ask to speak English with me. Neat! They asked me my name and I asked them theirs. "Nice to meet you!" and so on. I felt special. It's kinda cool being the only white guy around. It's also nice to have some locals not so concerned with Swine flu. :-P [View Full Entry]

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We were awoken this morning by Yini's uncle at around 7:30am. He came by and drove us to the morning market where we ate donkey meat for breakfast. Wow, that was really tasty! Afterwards Yini's younger uncle took us biking to the lotus garden in town. Aparently it's one of China's top 10 gardens, and it was really quite interesting. It's pretty cool seeing stuff that's 800+ years old, still preserved. The bike ride was super fun, too. It felt like the true China experience! We also stopped by the indoors electronics bazaar. That was fun too. Kinda like a big [View Full Entry]

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We left San Francisco at around 11:30am Thursday and arrived in Beijing at around 3:00pm Friday afternoon, after a comfortable, if long, 11 hour flight. To pass the time Yini and I listened to music, slept, ate food, and read sex books! Yini's uncle picked us up in Beijing and drove us to Baoding, about a 1.5 hour drive away to the southwest. Once we arrived we got to meet my new grandparents and aunts and uncles. Yini's Mom made us speghetti. After traveling 6000 miles, my first meal in China was speghetti! It was good, though. Afterwards we checked in [View Full Entry]

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The air was cool and breezy in San Fran, a city we've never been to! After sorting out our hotels and tomorrow's ticket, Justin and I went to town for the night looking for some amazing North Beach clam chowder! We took the hotel shuttle to the airport and took the BART (subway thing) to downtown! The way there was misty due to temperature difference between the ocean and land. The houses were all really close together and it reminded me of Full House! XD Once we stepped out the BART the air was crisp and cold to the bone!!!! But [View Full Entry]

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Yini and I left for China today. Here was our scheduled flights: * Houston to Denver * Denver to San Francisco * San Francisco to Beijing Two flights on United, one on Air China. After boarding our flight to Denver, we were informed by our pilot that the left engine was broken. We then deplaned and went to the United ticketing counter to schedule a new flight. The time was about 10:15am. The United representative was not very helpful. She told us the earliest we could leave Houston would be 3:30pm, with the next flight out at 6:00pm. Both would require [View Full Entry]

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