Winter has come with Snow.

Oh... it has been snowing here in China, wet snow. We miss the dry snow of Utah but now we take cabs every where as it is to snowy and cold to walk. I guess there is always a up side if you look for it. Here are some pictures
Love you all
Dana

China Updates

We went to this really neat place to eat, It is so cool. it reminds me of China and an exciting movie. The restaurant was upstairs.

The place was so full with people. It was our first noodle dinner, and it was really good.
The thing I am holding could count as a beginning of a Chinese pizza.
The next several pictures are us going out for a night with the twig group. It was at night and we planned to take a to take another boat ride down the canal, but the boat closed at 5:00 pm, we missed it by 15 minuets. We enjoyed our self, and we went out and I ordered the food In Chinese with the help of James (one of our last year students that we went to the wedding in September.) Every one said I did well, but I think they were just being kind.




Above is a picture of Paula Watkins playing a Chinese musical instrument and below is Jay playing his harmonica with her.

Here is a picture of Jay working at his computer. It was freezing in our apartment. The day before had been really warm. The next day it got cold, but there is a rule in China that they do not turn on heat until the 15 of Nov, and so we had to wear coats till then. But then on Sunday it came on, which is wonderful, because it got winter cold here on Monday, and it would have been torture to wait another week to get heat. Today it is snowing. Last year we saw a lot of rain in the spring, but the only snow came while we were on our spring break. This is suppose to be a really big storm. Luckily, we have the next 4 days off and it should be fun to stay in the apt

RED LEAF VALLEY IN JINAN

As winter encroaches on us here in Jinan we have been traveling a bit. It got very cold on the day we returned from a wonderful Trip to Red Leaf Valley. Here let me, Jay, tell you all about it....

We were bussed by Shandong University tour on Saturday, November 7th, to this tourist resort about one hour away by bus.

Upon arrival, it was clear that the red leaves were already gone! However, we enjoyed the day, seeing all of the dead red leaves (there were a few sort of purple/maroon on the ground),
There were also amazing tree houses (what we in our family like to call E-Wok Villages.







The bird sanctuary (gigantic) with it's colorful parrots, swans, ducks and geese and many of these beautiful peacocks. People inside the cage with them, like I was, were feeding them cookies.
After I successfully captured these beautiful peacock photos, very close ups, inside the gigantic outdoor bird cage, I was told that they tend to jump on and physically attack, peck and scratch tourists who get too close and who look them in the eye. I guess I never looked them in the eye, but they were sure looking me up and down as you can see.

Our tour ended with a Chinese food lunch at the local restaurant featuring chicken head/feet soup plus about 12 other similar dishes. Our only cost today was the $3.00 each of lunch.

It was a great day, certainly a fun day, with many new adventures as we met gobs of people there and took photos with them.

They are all so excited to see and meet a foreigner that they jump at the opportunity to take their baby, personal, family or tour group photo with us in it. I guess we just look totally adorable!

This trip also gave us some fancy and expensive English signs to direct tourists in English...However, they needed some proof reading before they went to the final production step -- the printer. Can you find the spelling mistakes?

Here are some brides we caught on camera as they were taking their wedding pictures in the lovely scenery.


Over all it was a wonderful tour of this interesting and beautiful country.