Xian and the Terra-Cotta Warriors!

Xian is only a 2 hour flight from Shanghai which made it an easy destination to cram into our trip to China. Xian lies on the old Silk Route and is much smaller than Shanghai. The town has a very ancient, charming appeal and is very tourist friendly. We had an amazing trip visiting the Terra-Cotta Warriors, walking within the City Walls, and enjoying the local flavors!



The Bell Tower in the center of the City Wall....


Xian's ancient City Wall is a 14 km loop around Xian's old town.....it is the largest and best-preserved city wall in China...




The Drum Tower....


The Terra-Cotta Warriors.....Pit 1 has over 1,000 infantry in battle formation...

Emperor Qin Shi Huang's attempt to reconstruct his empire for his afterlife.....

The heads were hand molded so none of the faces appear the same...

Front row of warriors in Pit 1....

2 goofy tourists posing for more pictures.....



A great find for the food-lovers!!...

Dumpling Banquet at Da Fa Chang......18 different courses.....we definitely had our fill of dumplings

Street food in the market.....we played it safe and didn't try any!

Street Market near the Great Mosque.....

Da Qingzhensi (The Great Mosque) was founded during the Tang Dynasty in 742.....

The Great Mosque looks more like a Chinese Pagoda than a Mosque.....

Shanghai Continued....

We survived Typhoon Morakot....Shanghai only experienced some heavy rain and luckily we made all of our flights without any delays. Our favorite part of Shanghai was the acrobats. They were absolutely amazing and fantastic entertainment. We enjoyed Chinese tea and shopping for teapots at Tea City and the Jade Buddha Temple was full of activity.

The last day we took a 2 hour train to Hangzhou which is 115 miles SW of Shanghai. We were really proud that we managed to buy our tickets and get on the train without any difficulties since no one spoke English! Unfortunately the adventure was just beginning.....we kept getting kicked out of our seats by Chinese passengers and we finally managed to figure out that we didn't have seats.....but we found a place to sit in the dining car. Needless to say we were both pretty hot by that point. The Hangzhou train station was a complete circus and impossible to figure out what to do or where to go in the pouring rain. We caught a hired car to the Shangri-La Hotel to try to figure out what to do and then discovered that all of the trains back to Shanghai were sold out. They wrote a message for us in Mandarin and we hopped a taxi back to the train station, hoping to get anything available back to the city. Luckily we were able to buy the standing room only tickets again....except this time we knew what we were getting in to!!!




Shanghai acrobats.....



Balancing on top of 10 chairs......chairs are balancing on bottles......it was amazing!!


The Bund.....

Jade Buddha Temple....with lots of incense burning....

Shanghai sky scrapers.....



Quick drive around West Lake in Hangzhou while we were panicked to get back to Shanghai....

Shanghai Squeeze!

We just arrived in Shanghai this morning (August 7th).....it's really crowded and full of action. Even after 2 years in Asia, we still can't get used to the Asian view of personal space! The typhoon is scheduled to hit sometime tomorrow and should just be a heavy rain....at least we hope. It's pretty difficult to get around here....with the lack of English spoken and the swindler's around every corner waiting to pull a fast one on you. Luckily, Patty and I are outspoken and not afraid to tell them how we feel!


Waiting for the Typhoon to hit Shanghai.....!!!

Yu Yuan Garden.....

Shanghai's Old Town.....

Oriental Pearl TV Tower.....from the highest skywalk in the world @ Shanghai World Financial Center (100th floor).....

Dim Sum in Old Town....we love our dumplings!!

Saigon - 2009

Christina and I met Patrick in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon....as it's called by the locals) for a fun weekend - Aug. 1st and 2nd - of shopping and eating our favorite Vietnamese food. We walked around the city and enjoyed the chaos from all of the motorbikes! Vietnam was a really fun, hectic get-away!!

Enjoying Vietnamese food at Hoi An! Scallops, Fried Spring Rolls, and my absolute favorite....fresh spring rolls! Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture of Patty with his favorite Vietnamese dish, Pho Bo.....even though he ate it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.....

Happy Hour with Mango Margaritas....wait it's only noon!

Patrick, Farah, and Tina.....

Uncle Ho statue outside of our hotel....(Ho Chi Minh)!