Bungy Jumping in Macau

Just a little teaser about what I've been up to lately :)

Thanksgiving

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! This was my 2nd year in a row celebrating the holiday in Asia. This year was definitely better than last because I was able to be with Evan and Kiel in Jiaxing. I went there Wednesday night so that I could join Evan on Thursday to observe him teaching 3 of his classes. It turned out to be one of the funniest and best experiences so far. The students were so shocked when they walked in and saw me and their reactions were priceless. After he was done teaching for the day, we went to the market to pick up some things before heading over to Kiel's to prepare the feast. Evan basically did all of the cooking...it turned out great! We didnt have turkey, but we had chicken, duck, mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing, beans, etc...all of it was made from scratch, and all of it was delicious!

Nanjing

Evan and I took an overnight trip to Nanjing. We spent several depressing hours at the Massacre Museum to learn more about the Japanese/Chinese war...the most chilling part was that we were able to vist the site of one of the mass graves and see actual human remains. To lift our spirits afterwards, we went and walked around the Confuscious Temple area and had a lot of delicious street food.

Xi'an by Night

Big Goose Pagoda, Xi'an

Army of Terra-cotta Warriors, Xi'an

The Summer Palace, Beijing

The Forbidden City, Beijing

Tiananmen Square, Beijing

The Great Wall of China

Suzhou

Took a day trip to a nearby city called Suzhou and it was great! We managed to successfully navigate the Shanghai Railway system (which is no small feat...) and made it to Suzhou to check out some gardens and museums. I think the highlight of my day was eating lunch at a little place with about 5 tables in it. These kids were staring at me the whole time I was eating- especially the little boy. He never took his eyes off of me! Of course I had to take a picture of them. It was so cute :)

Yu Yuan Garden

Christian and I went to visit Yu Garden today. It is a 450 year old classical Chinese garden in Shanghai, and was established during the Ming Dynasty. It's somewhat of a maze and each area has different "scenery" such as Jade rock sculptures, towers, stages and ponds. More pics are in my photo album!