Happy St. Patricks Day

Yesterday we left the house with some directions in Chinese on a piece of paper directing us to an orphanage. We really want to help out and hold some of the adorable babies. Unfortunately the guard told us to go away, but he couldn't get rid of us that easily so we called Angel and he told her that all the kids were sick so if we came back another day we could help!

Notice the creepers. Chinese are stealth I tell you. Even after awkwardly uninterrupted eye contact they continued to stare. Persistance.

(Those went all the way up the mountain)

I wish my dad was here to go through this cave with me.

For some reason the girls wouldn't walk in the water through a dark cave with me. Weird.

The Chinese don't discourage climbing over waterfalls. They encourage actually, by taking pictures.

Sure you can put your large dinosaur bones in my car.

I hope you had a fun holiday weekend!

KONY 2012

Kony 2012

This is seriously inspiring.

 It gave me chills just to think we can make a difference RIGHT NOW. This will be in our kids history books, and we can change it. Since we can't do much in over here in China we've decided to take the poster and take pictures with it all over China, to show we are thinking of our friends in Africa.

 My heart goes out to those children.

I also heard a rumor that a certain friend of mine is doing a benefit concert to raise money for the cause.

If so, i'm super impressed and proud of you guys and all you've done!

#kony2012

Heng Dian (China's Hollywood)

Please take notice (like they weren't screaming for your attention) of our matching visors our tour guide kindly gave us and I made everyone wear. I'm not sure that our tour guide was warned we were foreigners, because in all honestly you wouldn't need hats to locate a fish in a clear fish bowl.

All of these buildings were created for the sole purpose of filming movies here and tourism.

You never know when you'll need a good wishing pool in a movie scene, am I right?

I promise she asked us for a picture, eventhough it looks like we begged her to be in it. She was 1/1000 that day to get all white people in her picture. Well done my friend, you are envied by your comrades.

Rainbow Bridge at one of the sets.

We saw

a movie being filmed

a pirate ship lit on fire

our face on lots of cameras

a chinese haunted house

tourists

and

more

tourists

and ate some fish bones

and finally some dumplings

AND

orange chicken

(i'm serious)

{left}Our adorable tour guide

{right} Me outside some of the fake houses that sadly no one gets to live in

I hope your weekend was as happy and full of surprises as mine was!

Tiantong Buddhist Temple

We decided to find some mountains we found in our guide book yesterday; little did we know the adventure that was ahead of us

Me and Caitlin after arriving to the mountains. We somehow made it to the bus station where we asked a man in his restaurant (really his house with a few extra tables) for further directions. He said something in Chinese to the point of "Sure I have a car, I know where it is, so i'll charge you and take you" so we said yes of course because it sounded super safe? But hey it's China so what could happen. But first we ate in his "restaurant," where at the end we somehow got that if we sang our meal would be

20 Things Before 21

In China I have a lot of time on my hands after teaching where I get to relax. I don't have a million things on my mind that I could be doing. I should get ready for class, but if I decide to procrastinate that like I usually do, then I can read, watch movies, or walk around town. That is one major thing that I have noticed about being here-is that I don't have a million things on my mind. And I love it.

So being me, i've made a bunch of lists and this is one I had a lot of fun with. You should all do one, especially if you just had your birthday. I thought i'd share mine with you to give you ideas and so you can help me accomplish them.

20 Things Before 21

1. Visit the Great Wall

2. Go in a hot air balloon

3. Upgrade to a MacBook

4. Get eyelash extensions

5. Read the Book of Mormon

6. Paint a picture

7. Learn to play an Ingrid song on the piano

8. Paint every fingernail a different color

9. Go salsa dancing

10. Find my perfume scent

11. Read "How to Win Friends and Influence People"

12. Find more vintage cameras

13. Buy a large map and put all the places I want to go

14. Find antlers and spray them white to hang up

15. Go to a yoga class

16. Fly a kite

17. Find a job

18. Make a Sweet photobook of China

19. Be a better blogger

20. Write in my journal

Day Two in Shanghai

 

  

Picture 1) Our hotel room with a glass bathroom. We got close that night.
Picture 2) A carnival swing ride we happened upon
Picture 3) & 4) The underground lighted tunnel that took us across to Pudong Island
Picture 5) The Worlds Largest Observatory Tower
Picture 5) The view from the top

We loved Shanghai and we can't wait to go back especially since it is so close to us. Any reccommendations from people who have been here?