The Water Town

We were on our way to West Lake, a beautiful man made lake outside of Shanghai, but our tour guide, also a coworker, changed our destination to a water town, since it was raining outside.  And so the adventure begins...

So, everything in China is BIG.  Here is a picture of a power line. A Chinese power line & then one the height of what we'd have in the U.S. It's like it's from a transformer's movie.

We'd been driving for ever and ever and asked for a restroom stop.  So here it is, here's the gas station restroom.

And here's a toilet.  Oh wait, nope, just a hole in the ground. AND no toilet paper. 

Ok, so we get off the bus and arrive in the Water Town. (sorry, I don't know the Chinese name, so I just call it Water Town) And we take some pictures of a funny little car and the bicycles....

So we are laughing at the bicyles and taking pictures with them and then we find out that we are going on a bicycle tour....

So on our little tour, we realized it was a total scam.  They showed us some pictures of the sights we were going to see, but then when we got there, we had to pay to go in. Our first stop was at a wealthy home.  This happened to be around 200 years ago, but hey, who's counting... I'm going to show you the pretty pictures in the interest of saving space on my blog. :)

Here's the the family crest. It says something about living long prosperous lives and having many children.

 This is a decorative hallway I guess you could call it. It was outside but was in between rooms.

The next stop on our tour was a bridge from the Ming Dynasty.  Here are the houses by the bridge.

Here is me on the Bridge with the remarkable view behind me

And here is our Group on the Bridge

THEN we went to the tourist part of the Water Town. This is the Entrance.

And here is a close up of a little man on the top of the roof.

Here's a picture of the walkway around the canals. Notice the throng of people? This is what China was like everywhere.

Here's the opposite side of the canal

Here's a closer view of the restaurants/shops on the canal.

The Water Town was definitely a "unique" experience. And that's all I have to say about that... :)

The Bund District

The Bund is one of the European areas in Shanghai and looks onto the famous island that is featured in movies.

They added this wall for the World Expo. At night the little round circles light up and change colors.

Here is a picture of the famous island that the Bund overlooks. The purple tower is the Pearl TV Tower.

 When walking around I saw the Abbott building, so I snapped a picture.

We had dinner one night at a wonderful restaurant, we went to the top of the roof and took some pictures.

Here is Me, Anna, & Erica 

Some fun detail from the roof.

A building on the Island

And here is the Island at night.

Walking Around China

We were walking around when we came across the Peace Hotel, which is famous for it's architecture. It was currently closed for renovations. We found a way in and took a few pictures before we saw the sign that said "no pictures."  :) 

This is Nanjing Road, one of the main shopping streets in Shanghai

Apparently, one of the fun things to do in China is to dye a poodle's ears & tail. I had a hard time trying to get a picture without getting run down by people.

George Clooney.... He's in China too!

 This is the planing building, shows the detail of the city plans

This is the front of the People's Museum

 Here's the back

The People's museum was really interesting. It showed the progression of furniture, money, art, and calligraphy throughout China's History. Here's a pamplet on the Calligraphy that I thought was interesting.  Notice where their calligraphy started from? I think it actually made sense before they made it pretty! :)

The Hotel

So, before I went to China I went online and looked at the hotel. It looked fabulous!

Here is the outside of the hotel.

And here's the Foyer

The rooms and amenities were amazing, but the view from my hotel room..... Well, it was mostly smog, but on the days that the smog burned off a little, well... THIS is what I got to look at.

Here's a close up of the first shot.  These buildings are condemned, but I found out that people actually live in these buildings still. Once the government has condemned a building, then the utility company stops charging for electricity. So people will stay in the condemned building until it's knocked down so that they can have free electricity.

We Arrive in China

We arrived in China and found our bus to the hotel, It was like we were stepping back into the 70s......

Christmas.....

So, this is really late, it's almost May and I'm posting pictures from Christmas..... Oh well... :)

Dennis & LeAnn came to visit us for Christmas. We suited up to go and play in the snow.  Of course Natalie schooled Dennis in a snowball fight. (It's my blog, I get to post what I want, even if it might not be true.....) :)

My Birthday

I came up with this idea a while back to make a Birthday Crown and on each person's birthday something is added to the crown.

It started out like this:

Then it had color added & was bejeweled.  When it got to my birthday, they took it to a completely new level.  I got a beard to go with my crown.....