Random Pictures of Ferry ride over to Hong Kong

This is the ferry terminal to take the boat over to Hong Kong. The boat ride is about 50 minutes and we were thinking it was going to be a beautiful ride over there. The ride cost about 120 RMB...so about 15 bucks or so. And yes you have to go through customs and get your passport stamped and everything else. It is pretty amazing since China and Hong Kong are the same country but yet not...and not the same money. Very strange...ANYWAY the boat ride.....

Picture of the boat.

Here is the inside of the boat...it was almost like riding in an airplane. The seats were very comfortable. The view was great...and it was great to look at the insides of my eye lids!

Random pictures of flowers that we saw in Shenzhen!

Also another random picture but this was taken in Hong Kong. This is one of the many alleys in Hong Kong. And the thing about these alleys they aren't easy to walk up. They are all on hills...so all the stores are built into a hill...amazing. All the stores are usually open except for the week on Chinese New Year. But it was neat to walk up and down them!

More Chinese New Year

We stayed in a town called Shenzhen which is on the water across from Hong Kong Island. This town...sorry not a town...huge city was awesome. Doug and I got to have Starbucks every morning and eat food that you would find in the states every night. Our first night in Shenzhen we ate at an Italian restaurant. Oh my god it was delicious. Doug and I ordered a meat and cheese plate for an appetizer and we ate so much bread...we don't eat a lot of bread here so it was like heaven.....I had salmon Alfredo with asparagus and Doug had tenderloin. It was the most amazing meal we had in a long time. Amazing..we would go back in a heart beat...of course we spent more money on that one meal than we had in a long time it was worth it though!



Now what was really amazing was the fact that so many people spoke English. We could almost talk to anyone...listen I'm not saying that we are slackers and are not learning the language but Chinese is way hard....



Also the great thing was their public transportation. Which there is a picture of up above. The picture is when Doug and I were on the train. The train...subway...was probably the cleanest line of transportation that I have ever been on and it was so easy...everything was electronic and easy. So easy, and everything also had an English name written out or in pinion.




This picture was taken at a one of the largest shopping areas that I have every been to. This is Tim Allen and his daughter Rosalee. This shopping area is called Lo Hu...pronounced Low Who...and I think it is spelled Lo Hu. Well it is this shopping mall that is about 6 stories tall and huge. There are a million little stores, and you can buy anything there, I mean fake purses, CD players, MP3 speakers, DVD players, anything else you can imagine!!!! We started at the top and maybe made it three floors down. we definitely did not have enough time. You can bargain with anything. You have to remember to go half the price they are giving you and go from there. No worries they are always making a profit! Dad would have loved it just because you could bargain.

So just like a typical mall it had a huge display in the middle. well this display was of an Ox...yes I know it doesn't look like an Ox but it is. I think...since it is the year of the Ox..yup welcome to China!!!!

Doug and I being silly in the elevator to our hotel. This hotel was awesome. It was a five start hotel and they actually had a no smoking floor which we got to stay on. It was so beautiful. We went running in the gym, we could have putted on the putting green, the pool was so cool, and the people were so nice. And to tell you the truth this hotel was one of the least expensive places we have stayed in. It was called the Sunshine hotel in Shenzhen. If we have time when our family comes we will take them there not just for the shopping but to stay in the hotel.

Not the best picture in the world but the hotel decorated everything for the Chinese New Year!!! So AWESOME!

Da Fen

On our Chinese New Year trip we spent a few days in Shenzhen with our friends Tim, Wendy, and Rosalee Allen and Avis Larson. We tagged along with them as they went around and explored an area that they had lived in before. On our trip Tim and Wendy had the plan to visit a city called Da Fen which is like a suburb of Shenzhen. This place produces 95% of the world reproduced art. I mean Mona Lisa, Van Goghs and anything that you could possibly buy in Bed Bath and Beyond or Kohls. Now you might have heard about this place because it has been on the news lately with the closing of so many stores the painters are slowly going out of business.

Anyway that was the sad note to this...but the place was any artists dream. Painters just line up and paint all day long...now mind you not all the reproductions were great but it was still art.
In the picture about two gentlemen are wheeling probably over hundred painted canvases on their bike to the store where they will be sold. It was pretty cool.


Here is just one building...store where they sold artwork...most of these places had a store with tons of artwork just stacked up and then some hanging outside. Also many of the people that worked in the stores also painted. When you walked in the store there was usually a little area with paint everywhere and two or three artworks being worked on at once. They usually had a folding chair and that was it. Pretty amazing.

Here's a close up of some of the artwork....I just found it so amazing...In mean I could have just bought replications of so many artworks so my students good understand the greats. Doug was so great through all of this we just kept looking at art and talking about it and discussing things. We just had a blast...and for lunch after buying tons of stuff we got to have KFC.

This is me walking around with some art we bought and going into every shop I could even though they started to look the same. It was great to buy presents and hang out...even though it was freezing!

Here's a picture of an artist's studio area...pretty coll huh? Mixing paint, working on two or three artworks and in this store like so many others there was no heat!!!! Da Fen was pretty cool.

Here's a random story...

OK I was able to get the school to buy some bulletin boards so I can hang up artwork a lot easier. Well I was told that when WASC comes they need to be covered so you can not see the cork board...which I think is ridiculous...I like the plain look...whatever doesn't matter.....so I said if I need to cover them, then I want to cover them with fabric so it will look better.

Well my wonderful Vice President of business says what you want you get!!! And we are off...here is the interesting part.
I was thinking that we were going to a fabric market where you can buy any type of fabric you can imagine...but wait instead...I get in the van with Wendy the VP, the librarian, Robbie, the handyman, William and our Driver. We are off...yes of course we have a driver and if you came to visit you would find out why.

We were off, beautiful day driving in Beliun...none of them really know where we are going because Beliun is so confusing to navigate. We do a U-turn or two and then drive down the wrong side of the street for awhile to a huge apartment building where there is a gate but it doesn't really matter because they let everyone in. So we pull in...and I am thinking that there has got to be a store or something in the back but instead we go into the building...pretty dark in there. Little sketchy, not very well lit and smells like stale cigarette smoke. We head straight back and get in the elevator which smells horrible and you really don't want to touch anything. We go up to the 6th floor and when you walk out the elevator on your left there is a door that is open and very bare and to your right is a very nice decorated entrance way. Well that explains the dichotomy of China.

So we go into the apartment that is just cement and a little hard wood floor. In the room are wooden shelves of fabric and one sewing machine. Now you don't actually want to touch anything because it is pretty dirty and the fabric is just shoved everywhere and you don't know what is growing in it. Well it's China, so you roll up your sleeves and dive in. Yup that's life. We spend maybe a half an hour looking at stuff and I buy some fabric that will please everyone...now if I use it that is another question. But while we are there you look around the apartment because pretty much if you see something you liked then you offer them a price and take it home. Well looking around the apartment I wonder if the woman sitting at the sewing machine lives there...so you see that there is a small kitchen like thing that looks very incomplete...I didn't see a bathroom but I do not think that I really wanted to either.

Ok so we are leaving and Wendy turns to us and says...if I lived on this floor I would be angry if they were my neighbors....and with that note we leave.

Now we didn't pay for the fabric at that moment in time but had to take it somewhere else to pay but the two white people get dropped off first because if we had shown our white faces the prices would have gone up...yup good old money seems to run through white people blood.
(THAT IS SARCASM)
Adventures...yes good old adventures!

You can dress China up but you can't take it out!

Reasons Why:

Hotel room huge, but the rugs were rotting, the wall paper was scary so Doug and I left the curtains drawn. Can I mention it was the Suite at this hotel?

Doug and I were told to use the Hotel van to take to the airport but the driver was no where to be found.

Yup Pizza Hut is like a five star restaurant. People just get the salad bar and stack up watermelon and fruit creating larger walls, so they have a bigger bowl to put more food into...Doug has a picture of this.

We have gotten really good at spitting because you don't have use a tissue.

So one day Doug and I were getting in an elevator. We had our luggage...and kind of the middle of the elevator well this gentleman gets on and stands extremely close to me. He is wearing a wrinkled suit coat and it looks like he had a hard night of drinking. He starts looking in the mirror behind Doug and I so staring directly at us. He licks his fingers a couples of times to smooth out his face and hair and then yup he farts. AHHHH!!! Special moment in time!

What else...even though the sun is shining China can still burn enough to make it smokey.

Next up our adventures for Chinese New Year!!!!

Last but not least....Petronas towers.

Ok so this was our last day in Kuala Lumpur. Doug and I got up really early to go to the Petronas Towers. It is free tickets but they don't start giving out tickets until 8 or 830. So you have to line up until they open and stand in this line. We ate yogurt and counted down until we could get Starbucks which we can say in Chinese now.

We weren't completely bored while we waited we met a nice couple from Australia. The young man was there for the military and the young woman was visiting. They were very nice and it passed the time.

We also got hassled by a woman who was giving us a sob story about how her friends couldn't make it quite yet and she wanted us to get as many tickets as possible. Pretty sure she would sell them later on to other people. UMMMM so that was big no!

Before we could go up the towers we had to listen to movie about how the pertonas were so wonderful....not how they were built...but how petrol rules so much.

One of the views!
Me sunny and happy we got to see one of the things that is an artists dream!!!! They are a great example of pattern and they are very beautiful!

This is my favorite picture. We took it Christmas night. I could have stared at them all night!

That is the end of our trip in Malaysia. It was amazing and wonderful we can hardly wait for our next trip. What and adventure!

Christmas..YEAH!!!!

So for Christmas Doug and I went to the mall that was attached to the Hotel in Kuala Lumpur and separated and then got back together. we had so much fun buying each other gag gifts and then real gifts. Only things that we could fit into our suitcases that were already really full. We had a great time laughing and hanging out together. Doug even got us a small metal Christmas tree and stockings...it made us feel like we were at home. We missed family and friends but we had each other so everything was going to be alright. How can it not be when you look this happy.

So for Christmas dinner Doug and I had made reservations to the Smokehouse restaurant that I had found on line before we had left China. Honestly we were not sure what to expect since...well let's just say the Taxi drivers had no idea where it was and had to call one of his friends to get directions. Well when we got there I think we were the second people there but this place was like a home that had been turned in to a Restaurant. Like the one we took Mom and Dad to in Colorado Springs to celebrate my graduation. Anyway on the tables were these hats and packages of stuff almost like it was New Years.

You could chose from numerous things off the menu so Doug got the set Menu with the Roast Sirloin and I got the Turkey Christmas dinner. We had about 5 courses and the food was so good. We drank wine and eggnog and just enjoyed the moment.

Yes we were party animals!!!!

I think I was so happy with the food because I had been afraid that it was going to be a horrible restaurant. AND IT WAS CHEAP TOO!!

We had a blast eating dinner...we then went back to the hotel and spent sometime of Skype talking to family members...we didn't go to bed until really late but it was just a wonderful Christmas.