Last Evening

The evening before we left, we went out to an italian (!) restaurant and walked along this beautiful waterfront. Called the Bund, along this river are many European style buildings. You might think you're in England for a few seconds.

Shann had to get a picture of something familiar! Although they have bean pies instead of apple!
Cold Stone Creamery. I tasted Red Bean ice cream. Not bad, but I probably wouldn't buy a half-gallon.

The can-opener building...you can sort of see it at the top... and Caleb and Seth.

The TV boat.

TV buildings

Pearl tower - well known building in the Shanghai skyline.

Thanks Lynne and Scott for a fantastic trip. We had a such a great time, and will have memories for a lifetime. We enjoyed some yummy food and some mildly odd food, the unusual sites, great massages, bikerides, gardens, shopping, touring, watching the Office at night, and most of all actual face-to-face conversation.

I love you, sister! Looking forward to living on the same continent as you someday! :)

Yu-yuan garden

Yu-yuan is an old china area know for its gorgeous architecture and gardens.

The Emperor

Madelyn is pretty familiar with this place now. She scrambled around here and there...

Candied Hawthorne apples on a stick. Pretty good.

Chinese scaffolding

Bamboo is pretty strong, I hear, I'm just not sure about the dried grass that is holding it together!

The Pet Market

These are lots of tiny boxes of crickets. There are many varieties of crickets as some are to buy and just admire, and others are for cricket fights! Lynne and Scott's driver told us some fighting crickets are several thousand dollars.

This fellow gets a close look.

These are little baskets that appear to have been woven around larger crickets.

Birds - each with their cute little chinese pottery dishes.

Baby chicks!

These kittens found their litter box to be the coziest spot.

And the itsy bitsy turtles....

Hyde

Its not even 9am, and already we've had two major meltdowns. Help me, God.
Meltdown #1 was because I made Caden get dressed ("why are you always forcing me to do things?"). I'm not just saying he was displeased. He was angry and wailing ("This is a horrible day!"). I spanked him when he refused to get dressed, and left him alone, while I lost it in my bathroom. Then I came back to explain that God put me in charge and am allowed to "force" him to do things.
Meltdown #2 I poured milk on his cereal and he wanted it dry. He spent most of breakfast wailing in the living room about this. When he finally calmed down, I told him how he was making what could be a really fun day into a difficult day. He sincerely apologized, and ate calmly.
How long will you stay, oh my sweet and lovable Jekyll?

a great wall

I apologize for the many pictures in this post. This was Such a beautiful day on the wall. I guess it was pretty unusual to have so few people there. And to boot, it was warm. AND we had to climb thousands of steps to get to this section. So I must show as many pictures as possible!

This doesn't seem quite right with shorts...but try to imagine a wedding gown here (on me).

yes, Lynne and I were rather matching this day, much to Shann's chagrin. :) Although I only borrowed Madelyn's hat for this one picture. We weren't That matching. Without the matching outfits, people already thought we looked quite similar! You know, all white people look alike! :)

So few people on the wall, yet this lady in the background appears at exactly the wrong moment. I think she did it on purpose. :)

This is how we got to the bottom...a very long slide. We're on little wheeled carts. It took us a good 5 or 6 minutes to get to the bottom. So fun.

You can see our guide, Teresa, in the background coming down behind Lynne and Madelyn!

Here are the shops at the bottom. Vendors yelling to you to come into their booth. Exhausting.
There was good bargaining. There was poor bargaining. Ah well, it all evens out, I suppose.