Fuli Village

We went to a small village in Fuli, about an hour outside of Yangshuo, where we were staying. This village is famous for their handcrafted paper fans. In the picture of Everett and I, the fan is the red thing behind us, it is one of the first steps of making the fan. We also stopped by a little shop, where a guy was painting a fan, he told us that it takes about a day to paint one large fan. We walked around the old part of a village and took pictures. If you ever wanted to know what an old Chinese village looks like, here are some representations. Most people in the village have water pumps where they hand pump their water out of the ground. It made me realize how many blessings we have and grateful for modern technology. I don’t think I’ll ever look at a water faucet the same way again.

At this village it was also market day. Market days happen in these villages every couple of days. When we were there, it was packed. I’m sure that most of the villagers get out to market to trade, shop and socialize. Some things we saw were, pigs eyes, chickens in handmade cages, noodles hanging to dry, and xiao long bao (small dragon bread). Xiao long bao is one of the favorites here in china, it is a small piece of steamed bread with seasoned ground pork in the middle. It is really good and very cheap. They are cooked in bamboo steamers stacked on top of each other. I saw a woman making them, she would take a small lump of the pork, put it in the middle of the bread, and then it looked like she just squished it together, but the bread was elegantly folded, really amazing.

At then end of our trek through the village of Fuli, we saw a pasture of water buffalos. James and I couldn’t help ourselves, we broke out into the veggietale’s song about water buffalos, “Everybody’s got a water buffalo...”. It was fun to smell dirt and cow pies, and just plain be out of the city for a while.

Vacation to Guilin

We took a little family trip to Guilin in the southern part of China for 11 days, and we had such a fun time. I just wanted to post about some of the highlights of our trip. Guilin is famous for their beautiful limestone mountains, and they were such a sight to see! I am used to seeing mountains that have a large base and gradually rise up into the air, but these mountains have a small base and just rise up, they are incredible.

Little Tiger

According to Chinese Zodiac, Everett was born in the year of the Tiger, and he truly is our little Tiger! He has recently found that he loves to growl at us, and we think that he is so cute. When he wants our attention, instead of crying, he growls at us, and we have fun growling back at him :).

Family Pictures

We got these pictures taken at a chinese photography studio called "Aladdin's Lamp" here in Shanghai, they turned out good, in the end we were happy, but we had a frustrating "Chinese experience". Next time, I think we would just go to a photography studio run by a foreigner :).

International Flight with a Baby

If anyone wants to know how a two month old baby flies on an airplane this is it. You have to pay an extra $100 to $200 dollars for the baby's ticket, but the adult tickets get the bulkhead seat upgrade for free (more leg room), and the baby gets his own bassinet type structure that hooks onto the wall! Since Everett slept the whole time, and we had more leg room, it was definitely the nicest flight to China we have ever had.

Qingdao

When we traveled to China, we first arrived in Qingdao (also named "Tsingtao" on some maps) for visa and registration purposes.  While we were there, we frequently ate at this small restaurant.  The food was great.  Our favorite dish was "tieban niurou", which means sizzling steak.  It included most things that a typical fajita would include: onions, bell peppers and steak.  The waiter would bring it out sizzling and we would eat it with rice.  It makes my mouth water just thinking about it :).  The picture below is all three of us in front of the Qingdao Ocean University sign. 

Nauvoo Trip

On our move from Ohio to Nevada we stopped by Nauvoo, IL for a couple of days. We really enjoyed our trip, and both agreed that just two days were not enough to see it all, so we want to go back sometime.  Two highlights for us was seeing the Browning home (James loves to hunt so naturally enjoys guns) and Carthage Jail.  Can you spot sleeping Everett in the picture?

I really felt the spirit in Carthage and it reaffirms my testimony that the Church is true and how grateful I am for Joseph Smith and for the sacrifices he went through.