China

I'm back. You missed me, didn't you? (Wait, don't answer that) We got back from our trip to China on Thursday afternoon and now I'm trying to get caught up on everything. Jet lag is a very real thing and I still feel a little out of it. A big shout-out to my Mom, Aunt Kim & Uncle Ben, and Adam's Mom for taking the kids while we were gone and for Taylor and Jen for letting us come and visit. You guys are awesome.

As tempting as it is to give you a detailed travel log I will refrain. Trips are awesome to experience, but not awesome to not experience and then hear about each and every detail from a person who did experience the experience. Are you following me? I'll try to only report the most interesting things.

Observation #1- Shanghai is freakin' huge. It just goes on and on and on. I asked Taylor how many people live in the city.  He said ,"Oh 20 or 30 million, no one really knows the exact number" 

Observation #2- You must be either super crazy or the best driver EVER to navigate the streets in Shanghai.  It became obvious to me in about 2 seconds flat there are no traffic rules, merely traffic suggestions.  What, only 3 lanes painted in? No problem, they already know that 5 or 6 cars can easily fit with 2 inches to spare.  I saw driving moves that the WWF would be proud of.  At times I just had to talk about the weather to get my mind off the fact that we just narrowly escaped 6 traffic accidents over a 30 second time period.  Fortunately Taylor has a professional driver on call 24-7. Not only was his driver calm as a cucumber, but he has some serious driving skills which left me more relaxed so I could merely observe the craziness of the car/bus/bike/pedestrian situation.  If you live in the US, you've never seen anything like it.  I've even lived in South America which is crazy in its own right, but not as crazy as Shanghai. 

Here is the driver picking us up after some shopping.  Notice how he just stops in the middle of the road.  No rules, people, no rules.

On a side note, Taylor said that when some of his co-workers and clients have come to the States for business they are completely baffled by the 4 way stop, or stop signs in general.  Stopping for any reason when a car isn't coming the other way is just unthinkable. They die laughing when they see someone make a complete stop just for the sake of stopping.

Observation #3- Trips to foreign countries are super awesome when you have someone who speaks the language fluently, knows where to go and what to do, has a driver on call 24-7, and does all of your negoatiating when you want to buy something.  The Chinese are super aggressive in the markets.  As a foreigner you might as well be wearing a dollar sign on your forehead.  I was afraid to even look at anything because I knew that once I did I was toast.  Enter Taylor.  He wouldn't let them get away with anything and I could tell by their disappointment after making the sale that we really did get the best deal possible.  I will not miss hearing, "Good deal for you lady", "Best friend price for you" or "You want to buy a watch, lady?" every time I walk down the street.

We went to several different markets. This one was an antique market.

This market was a more artsy market.  It reminded us of something you would find in Park City with all of its art galleries and such. We tried to channel our inner "Jeff and Libbie" so we could fully appreciate the works of art. I'm not sure how we did, but we really did try.

Observation #4- Their food is not our food. I was game to try new foods while I was in China and I really enjoyed the food Taylor and Jen's maid/cook made for us (Yes, they even have a maid who cooks!) And since there are about 100,000 foreigners living in Shanghai it was possible to get anything American we wanted, i.e. hamburgers, pizza, even a good reuban sandwhich!  While I was totally up for try the Asian version of fast food . . .

(Ok, so I didn't eat the kimchi packet that came with my value meal, but the rice, meat and vegetables were good.)

. . .and ate a few dumplings. . .

I drew the line when it came to the weirder stuff.

Frogs for sale at the local market, and yes, they were still alive. What? You don't want to have to deal with killing them yourself, no problem.  Here are some frogs all spiced up and ready to go.

They even put them in a zip lock bag for you.  They are so thoughtful that way.  Turtle soup anyone?

The bags were moving around a bit because the turtles were still alive, of course. Lest you think that there wasn't anything too disgusting let me show you a few things we found in Beijing.

Grasshoppers anyone? How about some scorpions?

 Pick either one and they would deep fry it for you on the spot and hand it over.  What? Not your cup of tea?  How about these. .

You know, I've always wondered what fried seahorse on a stick would taste like. .

The octopus on a stick was pretty tempting, but nothing compared to these larger scorpions, big beetles and caterpiller things.

Is your mouth watering yet? I looked, but PETA was nowhere to be found when we happened upon these barbequed baby birds complete with head and feet.

Observation #5- Just in case you haven't already noticed, they really liked to serve things on sticks.

Observation #6- Even if the weather doesn't cooperate AT ALL, it is still cool to stand on the Great Wall of China.  It was cold and rainy and super foggy on the one day we had to see the wall, but we tried to make the most of it.

Observation #7-Flying on a discount airline from Shanghai to Beijing means that you will have the least amount of leg room you've ever had in your life and you will have to listen to one of the flight attendants stand at the front of the plane and try to sell you watches, plastic water bottles, and a million other gadgets in a really bad infomercial kind of way for the ENTIRE 2 hour flight.  It also means that when they tell you the safety information in obligitory English they will tell you to "stow your cassette players" and "make sure your car phones are turned off."  (Apparently they haven't had anyone retranslate their safety info since the early 90's.)  Taylor told us we should be happy that we couldn't understand what the flight attendant/informercial expert was saying because it was a whole lot of "You heard me right, folks, today only you can get it not for 40 bucks, not for 30 bucks, but for only 20 bucks!"  What kills me is that people were atually buying the stuff right and left!

Observation #8- I'm a sucker for anything that has to do with the Olympics.

Observation #9- English translations in China are hilarious.

Observation #10- I'm a fan of seeing things that are super Chinese-ee.

This was the water village where a portion of Mission Impossible 3 was filmed.

Observation #11- Is it just me, or does my brother Taylor look like a guy who should be named Vinny or Guido?  All he is missing is a gold chain.  Here he is in his "fuggetaboutit" pose.

He is a fan of the leisure suit, that is for sure, but on this particular day he had his black dress shoes from church because he forgot to bring another pair to change into.

Observation #12- When is comes to Karaoke, the Chinese don't mess around.

The was the hallway of the karaoke place.  There were a ton of different rooms that had their own sofas and karaoke equipment so your group could karaoke in the comfort of their own room.

I guess Karaoke is SUPER popular in Shanghai and all of the rooms were full.  It was first and last time that I will ever get to see Adam singing karaoke.  He was a natural.

Observation #13- Cheap massages are AWESOME!

90 min. full body massage--$20.00

60 min. foot massage--$15.00

45 min. hair washing complete with scalp, shoulder and arm message with blow dry at a salon--$6.00

I thought it was heaven, Adam passed on the opportunity.  He isn't so much a fan.

Observation #14- I totally just tricked you into reading an entire travel log!! Sucker! 

We had a great time.  It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience so thanks for letting me tell you about it.