Want to live longer?

Raise your grandkids while your children go to work. 

Thats the only reason we can figure 80 year old men are still twirling around the parallel bars. 

Chines tour group

Good thing I left my blue floral Hawaiian shirt at home this weekend. 

Textures

I've been trying to learn some new stuff in photoshop, and I have been seeing tons of pictures lately with textures, so I've been playing around. I *like* them (better when other people do them, and only for specific pictures), but I don't think I will use them for portraits unless I can find a texture that doesn't make a persons skin look like sand paper, or I can find a way to smooth the texture out over the skin. I've seen it done, so I know it's possible... I just can't figure it out. 

What do you think? 

photoshop

I love you. 

For a full description, please see the post two posts down.

cards....

see description in post below.

Birthday Cards

Since we've been back from our Spring Festival Holiday (dang our students using UK textbooks, now words like WC and Holiday creep into my working vocab), we have been doing a whole lot of the same. We love living here, don't get me wrong, but it just gets incredibly monotonous after awhile when we don't travel to mix things up. 

Hopefully this explains the lack of blog posts... doesn't it seem like the busier you are, the more you can get done? At least, thats the way I roll. So since I have all the time in the world...

Anyways, I have been making birthday cards for my family since we've been here, they aren't terribly exciting, but it sure keeps me entertained for a couple hours! I'm going to post a few because they are on my flash drive. And I'm too lazy to retrieve new pictures to post. 

Xi'an and some terracotta awesomeness

Remember on Gilmore Girls, when Rory is planning her trip to Asia with Logan? (ya, I finally conceded to watch it) She talks about the Terracotta Soliders in Xi'an (she says Xi'an a little funny though). Well, they are pretty cool. Freezing, as was the rest of our trip, but nonetheless impressive. 

This Emperor wanted to have his army with him when he got to the afterlife, so he had an army of terracotta warriors constructed. There are over six thousand of them, and no two are the same. It's pretty crazy. They were only found like thirty years ago, by just a regular farmer guy. The warriors were a little worse for wear in that they were in pieces, but they are being put back together now. 

I know I'm tall

But really, you can't expect anyone to be facing forward on this toilet! 

This was in our hostel in Beijing, Matt and I were taking the frugal route, and using the shared bathrooms/showers.

Summer Palace

Home to the longest corridor in the world (who really worries about claiming a title like that?), this is the place where the emperors 'summered' from their normal abode, the Forbidden City (as if one massive 'city' isn't enough). It was a little late when we got there, but the sunset was amazing. It almost made up for the huge man-made lake being drained for the winter. 

*and yes, the next two posts are also about the Summer Palace. Gmail is making me want to CUT someone. I had to email each picture separately. If the files are too big to send, why don't you tell me that when I attatch them, instead of making me wait ten minutes before getting an email that delivery failed? I guess it's not gmails fault, its the firewalls fault for making blogging so dang inconvenient. Yep, don't ranting now.*

Sunset at the Summer Palace

wonderful, but freezing.

Summer Palace continued

This file is massive, so it gets its own post.

Confused?

Well, you probably will be by the time I finish blogging about the trip we took with our parents (and at the rate I'm going that could take years, lets be honest). Unless you are pretty familiar with the geography of China, my ramblings will probably need some sort of key, so here it is! 

Our parents flew into Beijing. In Beijing we saw the Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Great Wall

We took a sleeper train to stop 2, Xi'an. Home of the Terracotta Warriors

We then flew to Guilin, took a shuttle down to Yangshou. In Yangshou we shopped and biked around the countryside.

We then took a train to Dong'an (this is where we would lose even the most ardent China geographer) and we effectively freaked out my mom. 

Then another flight to Hong Kong (Chinese New Year made train tickets nearly impossible to find), and this is where our parents took a plane back to the States, and we sleeper trained it back to the sticks.

Hope that helps with the posts below, and the posts to come!

Forbidden City

All I know, is that Matt and I are pretty sure the old emperors of China would roll over in their graves if they saw the kind of rif-raf allowed into the Forbidden City nowadays. 

Back in the good old days, it was only the Emperor, his wives, concubines and eunuchs. Besides the emperor, no 'men' were allowed into the city... poor guys.

(you might wonder why I only posted one picture from such a historic place... and the answer my friends is that I have now sent this email SIX times to my blog, and each time, the pictures are too big, leaving me with this one)

Squat in Style

In one of the Forbidden City's finest restrooms.

How many people do you know that have answered the call of nature in a star rated toilet?

I'm going to be slain

by my dad for putting that picture of him on here, but its sooo worth it. 

I told Matt I would give him a hundred kuai if he could get my dad to dress up for a family picture. The Carters are all about this kind of thing, but my dad needed a little bit more persuasion. He kept grumbling the whole time about Chinese people staring at him... he's kinda like me in the sense that he likes to fly under the radar, but I have lived in this country too long I guess, because I didn't even realize people were looking.

The Great Wall

When we were in Beijing before we went to a different section of the wall, but this one was really cool. It was FREEZING though... seriously, not bueno (I still had not purchased a winter coat, hence the tiny jacket). We still had a good time though, when we finally got to the top (the hike is really steep).

What can I say, its grrrrrrrrreat!

Beijing

Oh Beijing, how to describe it? Since the first time we were there we were feeling a little overwhelmed, so I was happy that we were able to go back and explore the city. It really is just cool, so much big city, but so much history too. Definitely worth the trip. 

The one of me is from Tienanmen Square and the one with the 'rents is from my parents first meal in China (the Carters got there the day before) 

Xiangtan

After getting back from Sanya, Matt and I took a two day breather in Dong'an before heading up to Xiangtan to see our friends the Harlans. These peeps are AWESOME. Katherine always makes us all sorts of American treats, like chocolate cake, pancakes and hot chocolate. Plus, they have two super cute kids, and they are just fun to hang out with. 

I love adult sleepovers.