Jason & Tanner's China Visit

THE GRAND TOUR.
Jason and Tanner Thelin, from Alpine, Utah, came to visit us in China. They stayed about 10 days and visited Beijing and the sights there including the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City, but the the most fun was at the Beijing Silk Market where the sales girls were determinedly agressive in their sales techniques... One of them actually told Jason that if he did not buy something from her little store, she would kill him. I think it was just to get him thinking... He did buy a lot from her though. Others told him they wanted to marry him and have his baby... He declined all offers. All this aside, Jason was a good shopper and he was pretty firm, even strong and eventuallly learned to walk away to get the best bartered prices. Tanner learned quickly and he and I had a code we used with each other for the ultimate bartering conclusion. It was "W. A." Translated to English it means "Walk Away" now! We really had a good time there.

Qufu was the place to visit as it is the home of Confucious and the location of the burial place for the Confucious family. We enjoyed the city, the food, the tours and the horse drawn carts.

These are the torture stairs where wives, concubines or any disobedient children or their friends would have to kneel for long periods of time or until they had learned their lesson. Tanner would not kneel on this thing. He would not even try.

This photo is not only way old with a loooooong history, but it is an optical illusion painting that has a path which always leads to you no matter where you stand. Pretty awesome because it was really true as we moved around it.

Qufu modes of travel.

We climbed the Quan Fo Shan Mountain to see the BIG GOLDEN BUDDA IDOL.

The three seater bikes were cool.

Tanner climbed to the Budda landing for a miniature photo of him with the BIG GOLDEN BUDDA.

PHOTO OP...discovered by PopPop.

Tanner was instantly famous as everyone wanted their photo taken with him and like a Red Headed Rock Star, he gave his time and energy to that task. This is only one of the groups, then they all wanted individual or small group photos with the All American Boy.

This went on for a long time... and then re-ocurred later too.

This is the Big Sports Park in Jinan where the National Games were held last year. Dana and I attended the diving competition in this Water Cube-like building.

Chinese food dinner with them at the "Golden Hans" Buffet in Jinan. This was kind of a knockoff of a Brazilian Barbeque. This young 21 year old fellow is our Macintosh Computer consultant in Jinan. He learned to speak English by watching western movies. His English name is James Mac

This was cool when Tanner came back with a plate for of yummy vanilla cream from the buffet and after diving in, he exclained: "This is quite what I expected, it is not vanilla cream, I think it is Salad Dressing!"

Dessert Yummies... by Jason.

Our Brazilian Barbeque waiter carving off a slice of a leg of lamb for each of us...

We travelled by Bullet train to Qing Dao where we met the "Yellow Sea" as seen here. We took a boat ride around the bay.

Jay speaking chinese with some students on the boat. They like to talk English to him and he likes to practice Chinese on them. They act as his Chinese teachers.

Again, Tanner clearly enjoyed being a poser with these 3 girls on the Bay Tour we went on...

Jason went first and told them about his business and his new products as you can see my the power point presentation, (so now the trip is tax deductable I think) and then Tanner (16) lectured to my Graduate Students in my Class for about 10 minutes about American culture, his family, his life and his Eagle Scout Project and they just loved it. Both Jason and Tanner were a good teachers and now this foreign university lecture experience could be part of Tanner's growing resume'.

At the West Market in Jinan,shopping in China.

Jason bought a wig for his wife here... He enjoyed shopping too as you can tell.

Dana and I at the Silk Market where we made good friends with our sales ladies. They also think we are "Rock Stars" I think. but silver haired ones.

Below, we stayed in aYouth Hostel in Beijing together for a real Chinese cultural experience. It was really fun. We had four bunk beds in our little room with a half bath.

The Great Wall was fun to visit again, but it was reallly cold and we all had to buy hats. Sadly, I had worn shorts and I caught a lot of stares and comments about that and I bought another winter fur hat.