On Thursday, June 3rd, we went to the Shanghai World Expo for the first time. I don't recall seeing anywhere exactly how much area it covers, but it is big! There are 5 main areas, and we chose to start in area C, which has the Americas, Africa and Europe. After purchasing our tickets and getting through security, we just wandered a little to get an idea of what was around where we were. Neither one of us felt like standing in any lines for hours, so we only went in the pavillions with short or no lines. We were both just enjoying looking at the outsides of the pavillions from a distance, then getting up close to see what they were actually made of. The one we both enjoyed the outside of best was the ... read more

From March 11th thru March 14th, we took a trip to Hong Kong. WE stayed at the Harbour Metropolis Hotel in Kowloon. From our room, we could look across Victoria Harbor to Hong Kong Island. Well, at least the first night we could, after that it was so foggy that we couldn't see the other side! We arrived kind of late Thursday night, so we just walked into the adjoining Metropolis Mall and had dinner. On Friday, after awakening to fog, we decided to go to Stanley in hopes that the fog would be gone on Saturday to go to the Peak. We took a taxi to Stanley, an old fishing village on the opposite side of Hong Kong Island. On the way, we passed a city called Repulse Bay. We had been told to watch ... read more

On Sunday, November 8th, we went to the Museum of Science and Technology in Shanghai. Overall, I was impressed by the size of this museum. It had an extremely large variety of exhibits which were mostly marked well in English. The building itself was what impressed me the most. The central area is a large geodesic dome. There are also 4 different types of movie theatres - Imax Dome, 3-D Imax, 4-D and Space Theatre, unfortunately, the movies were only in Chinese, so we didn't go to any. There were many areas that we didn't have time to see or went through quickly. The first area we entered was the Animals World, taxidermied displays separated by continent. There was a large amount, and although they were quite close together, they had some interesting poses of ... read more

We went with some friends to the Shanghai Zoo on Halloween, Saturday, October 31st. I told Leah that since she couldn't go trick or treating this year that maybe the animals would do some tricks for her ; -) - which some did! and she got a couple treats - a stuffed panda and an ice cream bar! We rode what they call the "subway" (not like our subways) for the first time - it's actually elevated, not below ground! We had to take 2 taxis to the train station because they are pretty strict about only 4 passengers in a taxi and there were 6 of us. The subway wasn't bad to ride, we had to stand the first part, then after we switched to a different line, we were able to get seats. We're ... read more

Jim has had to work 8 days straight after the Chinese Holiday, so we have just done some local things. The last day of his vacation time, we went out with a couple of new friends, Julie and Tina. We went to Guhua Park, which I have written about a couple of times before. Leah wanted to go back and rent a boat. This time, Julie and Tina sat in the front with Leah while Jim and I "relaxed" in the back - actually, we didn relax a lot! It was quite crowded being a holiday, and Leah kept running into things, but it was fun! Then we went to the amusement area and only had time to ride the bumper cars before it closed. Julie and Tina had never done this before and we managed ... read more