Shantang Street is the most famous ancient street in Suzhou, said to be almost 1200 years old, built in the Tang Dynasty in 825AD. The founder was Bai JuYi, a famous poet of the time. The canal along the back of the shops and houses is called the Shantang River. The area has been home to many famous Chinese people in the past. It was - and still is - an important business center. There were some famous buildings along the street, but the signs were all in Chinese, so I have NO idea what they were! The street runs between [View Full Entry]

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Jim has time off for the Chinese holidays, so we are spending some time in Suzhou, which is a couple of hours from Nanqiao. Although, with the holiday traffic, it took us almost 3 hours to get here! The Chinese are celebrating their National Holiday and this year marks 60 years since the People's Republic of China was established, so it's a big deal to them. They also have time off for their Mid-Autumn Festival. Sometimes this is called the Moon or Mooncake Festival. This is supposedly the time of the year that the moon looks the biggest. I saw [View Full Entry]

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It was a LONG trip, but we made it! It took 26 hrs from the time we left home until we arrived at our Chinese "home." Our flight in Chicago was delayed because they had to do some repairs, but I won't complain, I'm always thankful that they find these problems and fix them while we are on the ground! The plane wasn't full, so the seat next to us was empty and we were able to sprawl out and relax a little better than usual. By the way, if anyone is ever flying from US to Asia, check out Airgorilla.com. [View Full Entry]

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On June 28, in the afternoon, we went to the zoo. It is a small zoo with limited animals, but we enjoyed it and would certainly go again. Being afternoon, we missed some of the animals (like the polar bear) who were sleeping. My favorite was the snow leopards, they cooperated so nicely for pictures! We also got to see a baby musk ox, but the pictures didn't turn out because they were in the shade. There was even a couple getting married outside at the zoo! We stopped to watch the bride getting walked down "the aisle"! [View Full Entry]

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On Sunday, June 28, we went to Powerline Pass in the morning. We parked in the Flattop Mountain parking area and Deb, Mark, Mandy & Katie (the dogs), Leah and I all went for a walk. The weather was perfect! I guess this is a good place to spot moose, but we didn't see any. There were people hiking up many of the mountains. I guess hiking up Flattop is one of the most popular hikes in Anchorage. There were lots of pretty wildflowers along the way. [View Full Entry]

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We've been so busy that I've gotten behind writing about our adventures, so I'm just going to go back and pick up what I haven't written about. On June 27 (was that really not even a week ago????), we took the Alaska Railroad train from Anchorage to Whittier. This was about a 2 hr drive (the train only went 25 mph much of the time). We rode on the upper level, and had a table to sit at. We saw a moose and her 2 calves when leaving Anchorage, and then saw some dall sheep on the mountainside along Turnagain Arm. [View Full Entry]

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Our first place to explore in Alaska was the Alaska Native Heritage Center. There was a loop trail around a pond where there were examples of different tribal homes. Inside of each was someone representing the people who would have lived there and explaining there lifestyle. [View Full Entry]

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We have returned from China and are actually now in Alaska! I decided to post one last bunch of pics from China before moving on to the Alaska pics! Before leaving China, we took Leah back to the Tea House where Jim had taken me for my birthday. We sat in the main part, at an upper level table where we could look over most of the tea house. It was great, we just relaxed and chatted. Leah walked around and took some pictures, but many turned out dark. We even got to see the bird that says "nie hao." [View Full Entry]

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Meet Haibao (Hi-bow -rhymes with cow). We have been seeing him just about everywhere we go - statues, signs, flags, banners, plush toys, keychains, etc for sale - he has definitely overrun the Shanghai area of China! Plus, every time we look out our front window towards Ace, he's on the billboard we see! We've seen him from one inch high to probably ten feet high! We read online that their was a stir when he was first introduced because someone said they copied him from Gumby. The Expo will run from May 1 thru Oct 31 of 2010. The following [View Full Entry]

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This past weekend, we went back to Guhua Park (which I wrote about earlier) both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, we caught a cab, showed the taxi driver a picture of the park sign from when we were there before and it worked - we got there! We first had lunch at the restaurant next to the park, which we now know is called U.N.D.C. Coffee in English. After lunch, we walked through some areas of the park where we hadn’t been before and then went to the amusement park area. Jim and Leah went on some rides, then we walked a [View Full Entry]

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