30 DAY BLOG CHALLENGE - DAY 8 . . .

A place you've traveled to.

Well this one's easy!  China, of course!  We lived there for 1 year, in Shanghai, but we also visited Hong Kong, Beijing, and Xi'an while we were living there.  Of all the places we visited, Hong Kong was my favorite.  It's on an island, and the view is spectacular.  But the most "breathtaking" thing I think we saw were the Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an.  And the Great Wall was awesome too.  How many people get to say they've seen all of those places?

 

The World Financial Center and The Jinmao Tower in Shanghai.  The World Financial Center is currently the tallest building in Shanghai, and the 2nd or 3rd tallest in the world.  We have been up both of them.  The view is spectacular.

This is a common sight around town.  You get used to it after awhile!

The view from The Bund.  In Shanghai.  By the Financial District.  We lived on one side of the water, Pudong.  The other, where the Bund is, is Puxi.  (pronounced pooshee).

This is the "birds nest" in Beijing.  It was seen a lot during the Olympics.

In order to get up to the Great Wall, you ride on a ski lift.  We went in the Fall. This was our view on the way up.  Talk about GORGEOUS!

Ryan and Jason were in front of Andrew, Sarah and I.  Don't they look thrilled?!

All of us standing on The Great Wall of China.  How cool is that?!

The Famous Great Wall.  

On the way back down you could either ride the ski lift or you could take this little go cart.  Ryan and the boys took the go cart on the way down, Sarah and I took the ski lift.

This is from the Harbor in Hong Kong.  The water was so beautiful.

This is Victoria Peak.  It's very high up and you stand there and watch the sunset on the harbor. Talk about an amazing view! 

 Sarah sure liked it up there!

The beautiful sunset.

 

This is the view after the sunset.  All of the buildings turn their lights on.

The pictures don't even do this place justice.  It's one of those things you have to see to believe.  It really takes your breath away when you walk in and you see THOUSANDS of these Terracotta Warriors lined up.  Absolutely amazing.  SO glad we went to see it.

Jason and Andrew

HONG KONG DISNEYLAND . . .

This is the video I made of our trip to Disneyland. I just realized that I don't think I wrote much about the trip, which is a shame, because it's a GORGEOUS place. I'll try to write about it later. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video.

VICTORIA HARBOUR/PEAK . . .

This is some of the video from Hong Kong. These pictures were taken at Victoria Peak and Victoria Harbour. The pictures REALLY don't do it justice!




I'll try to finish the one for Disney and Ocean Park and get them uploaded soon as well. This was my first experience using Windows Movie Maker, and I LOVE how it turned out. Of course it took me a long time to finish it. But hopefully the next time it will go quicker since I actually know what I'm doing now!

WAS IT AWESOME?!?!

Okay, so I told you we went to Hong Kong for Thanksgiving weekend.  (I will post pictures later).  We all decided to ride Space Mountain.  And for those of you that really know me, you know that's a big accomplishment!  I HATE roller coasters.  But you can't go to Disney, and not ride Space Mountain.  So I rode with Andrew, and Ryan rode with Jason.  Andrew wanted to go first, because he didn't want to hear them talking about it when they got off.  (He's a chicken like his Mommy)!  They have this thing on the rides where you can "swap."  Andrew and I got on first, and Jason and Ryan waited with Sarah.  Then, as soon as we got off, they got to get on, and we waited with Sarah.  It worked out great.  So we got off and we were standing there with Sarah waiting for Ryan and Jason.  And Sarah looked at me and said, "Mommy, was it Awesome??!?!" 

Priceless!  That's what happens when you have two older brothers!

CHINA DIFFERENCES . . . .

If you remember awhile back, I was talking about some of the differences between here and home.  This last week, they've really been prominent!  We, of course, have 3 kids.  Which means there are 5 of us total.  We are planning on going to Hong Kong for Thanksgiving. We already have our plane tickets.  We booked them thinking they were such a good price and we wouldn't have any problems finding a hotel room.  WRONG!!!  

Again, remember there are 5 of us.  And we are in a country that only allows you to have 1 child, unless you own a farm, then you're allowed to have 2.  Well guess what, we have 3!  Finding a place that would let us stay more than 3 in a room was a JOKE!  I literally spent HOURS on the computer trying to find a place for us.  Everyone kept telling me to get used to it, that we would have to get 2 rooms.  REALLY??  I don't even want to pay for 1 room, much less 2.  Not to mention, unless you can get adjoining rooms, that would mean Ryan would be in 1 room with a kid or 2, and I would be in the other with the remaining brood.  Not much of a family vacation if we're all split up! 

After not having any luck, I finally starting e-mailing hotels that had suites.  Even though it kept telling me online that it was too many people, I was hoping someone would let us get a suite for all 5 of us.  We thought about not telling them how many kids we have, but we've been told that Hong Kong is pretty strict on that, so we didn't want to lie and then have it come back to bite us later.  So we told the truth.  Finally, we found a place.  The Ramada Inn Hong Kong has Harbor View Suites, which is what we wanted.  We are staying right on Victoria Harbor, so we wanted a place facing the water.  And it's not a bad price either.  So I guess my hours of research finally paid off!

I was actually thinking about sending Ryan and the kids and just staying home by myself. Now *that's* my idea of a vacation!