District Conference in Shanghai

Well it was an early morning this Sunday as we got up at 4:30 and grabbed a taxi to the Nanjing Train Station.  We took the high-speed train to Shanghai, which is about the distance from Provo to St. George and we got there in about an hour and a half. We then took the subway over to the Shanghai international trade center where they were holding Branch conference. 

 

Our Sunday lunch that we packed! PB&J's all around!

This weeks "Best Chinese Translation" winner!

 Shanghai is the largest city in China with a population of over 23 million and I think we rode with just about all of them that day on the subway.  The subway car pulled up with faces already smeared up against the windows inside, but when the doors opened the crowd behind us pushed us in and all personal bubbles were popped.  Our stop was about twenty minutes away and it just about took us that long to swim through all the bodies to get out.   All said and done it was really neat to see the conference room packed with hundreds of LDS families and all here for different reasons.  It was a really great meeting and we were very glad we decided to make the long trek over. 

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            We fully expected to find a hotel to spend the night in Shanghai, but a family that was also attending conference heard we were looking and invited us to stay with them.  They were complete strangers but they took us in and fed us an amazing Sunday meal, a bed, and treated us like family.    Such a neat family!  

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            Although time was limited we got to go to “the Bund” in Shanghai. It stretches a mile along the bank of the Huangpu river and gives an amazing view of the cities skyline with all of Shanghai’s biggest sky scrappers, three of which are counted in the top 10 tallest buildings in the world.

I think this one ups the" Dumb and Dumber" dog bus. We give you The Roasted Duck Ferry!

 The Flagship group

 The Skyline

It was incredible. We had a blast in Shanghai!

Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum

  Well this weekend we embarked on another grand adventure!  We journeyed past the Purple Mountains and through the Zhongshan forest to the foot of the great Mount Xiaomaoshan…by way of a magic air conditioned bus. Here we explored the famous Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum.  

 

 Dr. Wun Yat-sen is known as the father of Modern China and died in 1925.  Without too much of a history lesson it suffices to say that he was famous enough to take three years to build a 7500-acre Mausoleum for.  Oh and they made sure to include steps... lots of steps. Too bad Rocky didn’t train here, he might have won the first time. But the eye of the tiger wouldn’t even be enough to get us to run up these steps. A quarter of the way up we were already huffing and puffing.

All the stairs got us sweaty so we decided to invest in an ancient cooling device. 

Best ten kui we've spent so far!

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Next we hiked over to the Ming Tomb which a six hundred year old burial site of Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty. 

 One interesting fact about the emperor is that when he died in 1381 it was custom for the wife to die with him, and he had 36. So, sadly 36 concubines joined him in the afterlife. Thankfully that tradition didn't stick around for too long. 

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The construction of the whole structure took 30 years to complete and it was pretty amazing! 

 After our adventure we caught an dinner with our friends Daniel and Jenn.

Yes, those are gloves and they are for the hamburgers.

 It was delicious!

Happy Birthday Trevor!

On September 7th we celebrated Trevor's Birthday! 

(and of course his twin brother Michael's Birthday!)

He is now a quarter of a century old. He is growing up so fast!

His birthday breakfast of choice, oatmeal, steamed bread with peanut butter, apples and OJ!

We spent part of the day exploring a new part of town. We went out looking for a bike! We found the second-hand stores/alley. It was a street lined with used bikes, air conditioning units, refrigerators and T.Vs. We secretly wondered how many of these prize items were actually stolen and then fixed up for selling. Trevor was wheeling and dealing but sadly didn't find one that he was crazy about. Luckily not to far away from the Chinese black market was a really neat park we enjoyed exploring!

I of course let him pick where he wanted to eat and

the birthday boy chose Pizza Hut!

We walked in pleasantly surprised with how nice it was! It was a "fancy smancy" sit down restaurant. A kind lady welcomed us in and seated us at a table for two. All the workers were dressed in formal uniforms. We listened to Frank Sinatra as we looked through the giant menu of pizzas, pastas, appetizers, salads, fancy drinks and desserts. It was a hard decision but Trevor finally decided on a 5 course meal that included chicken bacon bites, fruit salad, the meat lovers pizza, Oreo shakes, and a slice of cake! It was really delicious! Who new Pizza Hut would be so high class?

 Happy Birthday to my #1 man!

I am so grateful to be on this adventure with

 him, he makes everyday exciting!

This ones for you dad, birthday smiley with toilet paper, we're keeping the tradition alive! :)

Small World!

We were sitting in Church just getting ready to start the meeting when a hand full of people rolled in, one of which Trevor recognized. He looked at me and said "My old companion just walked in!".  I could tell he was excited about it. Trevor awkwardly stared at him until he noticed. His companion got up the second he realized it was Trevor and ran over to sit with us. It was fun watching them chatting, laughing and catching up! It was easy to see they were excited to see each other. It has been 4 years since they have seen each other. Turns out he, Joshua, is living in Shanghai working and loving life. The next night he invited us out for dinner. We went to a really delicious cafe! I got a pizza and Trevor got a hamburger, we had been missing American food so we were very excited to sink our teeth into this meal. We got to talk and catch up some more. He told us that he was really in Nanjing because we was on a Chinese dating show that weekend. They came to him and wanted him to be on the show. It sounds like it was quite the event, single ladies voting on which bachelors they wanted date! We are excited for it to air here! 

It was a fun surprise and Trevor was excited to catch up with an old friend. 

This was the little piece of heaven that Joshua 

introduced us to. A toasted bread 

box, ice cream and sweetened condensed milk.

 I am still dreaming about it!

Panda Shopping

Katie found the PANDAS!

 It was a momentous occasion for the pandas of China to be graced with Katie's presence today.  Unfortunately they wont know that because they slept through the whole thing.  The only remaining evidence left to let them know we were there is the smeared impression of Katie's face on the glass from her heavy breathing as she waited so patiently for any movement.

 

It was a beautiful day at the Nanjing zoo today! Its already starting to cool down a bit and it was a perfect day for the zoo.  We definitely got our moneys worth out of the visit because the animals all seemed to be enjoying the weather too and were all out and active (except the pandas).  It was a beautiful zoo with that Chinese flare that just enhances the whole experience.  This Buddha baby was a particular good find. Seriously the cutest Asian baby we've seen yet!

 

Here are some of the other animals we encountered!

 

Can I get an Amen!

A cool pagoda!

Our friends from School, Ben, Crystal and Marshall Jones 

 We think more Asians took pictures of that American baby than any of the zoo animals! They were loving him!

We love the Zoo!