LiJiang

So we finally decided to travel to places close to Kunming. We took Mom and Kurt to LiJiang, about a 40 minute plane ride from our home. It was absolutely beautiful. After much debating about a hotel, I was going for a place about $7/night, Kurt found one for $40/night, we settled on Kurt's, since it was only one night. What a great choice. It was a four star hotel, and it was absolutely gorgeous, with a water wheel and wishing well included. The first day we roamed around the town and did a lot of shopping. We ate lunch at a Sichuan restaurant next to our hotel while mom shopped and ate all at the same time. The food was really good and the scenery was just awesome. After shopping we headed back to the hotel to play some 500 and rest up before our dinner. One of my students at Web owns a restaurant in LiJiang, so we decided to meet up with her for dinner that night. She promised to give us a taste of LiJiang. Oh man, it was so good, we had hot pot, and the famous cakes-salty and sweet- and were stuffed to the brim. After dinner we walked around the old town taking pictures of lights and we bought a candle to send down the river for good luck. After that, we headed back to the hotel for a fire party- which Kurt thought was a firework show- and did some dancing around a BBQ with some of the locals. It was good fun. Then we headed to bed to get some good sleep. The next morning, we thought about going to snow mountain until we realized that it was 160RMB just to walk in, so we ix nayed that idea and decided to take our own hike. We hiked up a bit and took some pictures and then realized that we still didn't want to pay money to walk on a road. We headed down to KFC for a quick power snack-fries, coke, and chicken wings- and then took to the streets of the old town again. We decided to stop for some lunch at this restaurant called Le Petit Paris. 2 hours later, after many games of Big 2, 2 pizzas, 2 sandwiches, 2 salads, fried bananas, and coffee, we decided to head back to the hotel to hang around. Kurt was starting to get a little sick, so we thought we'd rest up a bit. Grabbed some dumplings and potatoes from the street, and headed to the airport. Whew, what a trip!
Pics of our awesome hotel!!
We played 500 and Big 2 outside in this little area, it was awesome!
At the Sichuan restaurant.
Streets of old town
Big square in old town with the water wheels and requests to the gods.
Jeff's artistic pics
Candle ceremony
Nightlife of the old town

We had some xiao cao for a late night snack
Getting my own water from the well
Snow mountain

Jeffwey's Bday

So for Jeff's bday this year, we got to spend it in Shanghai with his mom and her husband Kurt. So much fun!! We definitely miss the food in Shanghai :) We got up and headed to church in the morning, while mom and Kurt caught up on their jet lag. After church, we headed out to get lunch at Element Fresh when Jeff realized that he wanted a New York pizza. Because it was this the day of his birthday, I bought him his very own Hawaiian pizza. He loved it :)
After that we rested up a bit to get ready to go to the Shangri-la buffet. Oh, it's really like heaven on Earth. They have almost every type of food you can imagine there. We had a great time.
Yummy, we love the sushi there...
I painted Jeff a picture and put some of the best wedding photos on it for his bday :)

Shanghai day 2

Today we headed to the Science and Technology Museum. How awesome was it?!?! We went to this huge real like zoo, they stuffed all the animals, walked through rainforests, and saw a HUGE spider. Then mom and I headed to the fake market to shop till we dropped, literally. Jeff and Kurt hung out a little longer at the museum, they got to ride through the digestive system and they have a really great picture of them coming out of the...yeah, that part. After that we headed to Yu Yuen to check out the lights and eat the famous Shanghai dumplings. It was all really great and tons of fun. Then we headed to McDonald's for one last morsel before calling it a night. We introduced mom and Kurt to the smell of stinky tofu too, they LOVED it :)

In the heart of the African jungle.
It's a little sad that they stuffed these tiny little cubs, they were so cute and young...
I was trying to look like the boar...
PANDAS!!
It's like a scene from Lion King.
On our way up to the top of the jungle.
Amidst the beautiful lights in Yu Yuen.
The old architecture in China looks so cool when it's all lit up.
Being Chinese :)
Jeff likes lanterns...
The waterfront at Yu Yuen.
Eating dumplings at the famous dumpling restaurant.
One of the displays on the water.