Curse of the Black Thumb

It's no secret that I don't have a green thumb. My mother-in-law is blessed with amazing gardening skills and has turned her backyard forest into a lush, flowering garden oasis. I, on the other hand, can't even keep a simple houseplant alive even if it was fake (yeah, I'm that bad). So, I need your help. You see, I received this lovely little ficus plant as a thank you gift from one of my favorite students. I know, I know....I'm not supposed to have favorites, but we're getting off topic here. Unfortunately, I'm not doing a very good job at keeping this plant alive. Lately, it's been shedding a lot of leaves. Do I give it more water? Plant food? I want to put it into a larger pot, but I'm afraid the rest of the leaves will fall off and it will die. Help!

Oh, and yes, Sadie just had to be in the photo.

Diva.

China, Part 4: Shanghai

Finally! The last installment of our China trip! I know it's been much too long in-between blog entries, but well, I've been taking advantage of some of my downtime to read and enjoy my vacation for what it is - a vacation. Not too worry though - I've been doing some projects and I'll be sharing those with you soon enough, my friends.

Anyway, on to Shanghai! This city had a nice mix of old and new, although some argue that the city is becoming gentrified too quickly. Traci had not been back in 10 years, I think, and she said that the city has changed quite a bit since her last visit - so much so that parts of it were unrecognizable. Some of the construction is due to the preparations for the World Expo Shanghai 2010, an international event that begins next May. Still, even with all the construction, it still proved to be a beautiful city navigating it's way into the future while still holding on to strong roots of the past.

Here is a city skyline just past an old wall.

The older buildings simply stand alongside the newer construction. Here is a street corner with an older building in the background.

Demonstrating the juxtaposition of old vs. new:

We walked through areas of the city with top-of-the-line stores (why, hello Prada, Gucci, and the like...) international restaurants, and huge skyscrapers. The new architecture is really fun and reminded me of Hong Kong, especially at night. Here is the Oriental Pearl Television Tower that used to be Shanghai's tallest building. Fun, right?

Now the tallest building in Shanghai (and one of the tallest buildings in the world) is the Shanghai World Financial Center. It is awesome! When I first saw it, I thought to myself that the building looked like a giant bottle opener! In this picture you can see it in the background, although it doesn't quite look so massive yet. The top of it kinda looks like a handle. It's the building with the blueish line around it.

At 492 meters it definitely is tall (just for some perspective, the Eiffel Tower is 324 m and the Sears Tower is 442 meters). The building's three sides come together to form a top with a portion cut out and then an observatory at the very top. Here's a close-up:

And, yes, we went to the top! It was a bit scary for someone like me who does not really like heights. But, I wasn't the only one who was trepidatious about the extreme height and the glass floor. Kelly was nervous too!

Check out the AMAZING view! Oh, and FYI: see that building to the right of the Oriental Pearl TV tower? It's kind of shaped like a leaf. That's the building that Tom Cruise jumped off in the movie Mission Impossible 3. Cool, right?

We were able to see the city from all sides and it was truly a spectacular site. If you ever find yourself in Shanghai, go here.

Speaking of staying in Shanghai, here's a night time shot of the lovely hotel we stayed at: Broadway Mansions Hotel in the Bund District of Shanghai. The Bund District is a historical area of Shanghai with old buildings from the time of British influence and trade with other nations. And, yes, it does overlook the water!

Unfortunately, we had to send off our friends with an early morning good-bye since our flight left the following day. Which meant that Noa and I had to navigate the city on our own, which was a little intimidating.

Thankfully we survived.

We shopped around.

We got in line for a taxi.

We ate our weight in pizza. What can I say, we were craving something familiar! So we headed to Pizza Hut, which was completely different than American Pizza Hut. This one was much classier and had a very extensive menu.

I made expensive phone calls to the states. Just kidding. I was just posing with the phone. Poser!

But, the best part of our extra day in Shanghai was the Chinese acrobat show! We went and saw a performance by the New Shanghai Circus. It was a show with many "traditional" circus acts, including acrobats (awesome), magic, tumblers, dancers, and the motorcycles that drive around inside a large dome-shaped cage.

We couldn't take pictures during the performance, so I took a few pics of the signs showing the acts I liked. This is where the girls have to balance all the plates on sticks and they do all kinds of crazy moves while keeping the plates spinning on sticks.
These two guys were acrobats/strength performers.
The hat act was fun. These guys danced around with hats and were juggling them and passing many around without dropping them. Sounds strange, but it was entertaining.

The next day we made it home safe and sound.

Before I end my posts about China, I wanted to share a few pictures of the cuisine we feasted on while there. Honestly, I was pretty nervous about eating in China. I did feel better about having native speakers with us and Traci has traveled through China and survived on the food, but still I had my doubts. I didn't want to bite into fried cat....or worse. Thankfully, nothing like that happened, although there was no shortage of new and unusual food items, as you'll see.

Here are some pictures from dumpling night. Obviously, what you see here are dumplings. Mmmmmm......

Chinese beer - don't get your expectations up that they'll be cold. We've found that when it comes to drinks, you have to request that it comes to you cold or ask for ice.

This is tofu - which I normally like but I chickened out and didn't eat this. I think the topping scared me away.

Oh and I couldn't do the "gelatinous noodle." The texture creeped me out.

I'm not sure what this is called, but it's meat that you scoop and put in the bun that's shaped like a clam shell. It was good.

Chinese meatballs are delicious.

You're probably wondering what the heck you are looking at. Well, you'll have to scroll down below the picture to find out.

S-T-O-M-A-C-H. Yup, it's stomach. It was one of the options during our Szechuan style hot pot meal. No, I didn't try it, but Noa did!

Here's how we cooked our items that night. Traci is waiting for her veggies to cook up in the hot pot.

I had hoped to get more pictures of food, but alas, I didn't. It's always in hindsight that you realize what pictures you missed on a trip. Oh well.

I did learn to love a new veggie on this trip: bok choy. I even sauteed some for dinner last night. If you haven't tried it, go get some from the grocery story right now and google some recipes (it's real easy to just steam or saute it even). You'll thank me later.

China, Part 3: Chengdu

After arriving in Chengdu, the capital city of the Sichuan province, and grabbing some yummy lunch, we arrived at the Wuhou Temple (also called the Marquis Wu Shrine). This was a bustling community during the Three Kingdoms period (around 220 - 280) and the temple honors the important leaders of that time.

Here's the entrance:

The large grounds were incredibly lush. Here is a beautiful, vibrant lotus pond.

Visitors can purchase incense at the shrine.

Koi!

When we had arrived, our group met up with some Chinese students who are studying English in order to become tour guides. They needed to practice their English speaking skills with us while we toured the grounds. Here's Noa with the students before we parted ways.

That evening we went to the Shu Feng Ya Yun tea house to sample tea, followed by a Sichuan opera and traditional folk arts performance. It was really interesting! Before the show started, we were allowed to walk around the grounds and take pictures of the actors and actresses getting their costumes and makeup on. Look how elaborate they are!

The show was made up of many different acts. One of the opening acts was the opera performance in which we were able to see more of these elaborate costumes, all while drinking tea and eating peanuts! I can't say that I enjoy the loud, high-pitched singing, but I loved the costumes and fanfare involved.

This puppeteer was extremely talented. The puppet had moving eyes, arms, neck and fingers, which allowed her to pick up items.

One of the best performances was the shadow puppet act. Here are a few (sorry for the blurry pictures) of the figures.

Boy with bird

The dog (a personal favorite, of course)

Impressive owl

One of the last acts was the most fascinating and puzzling. In this part of the show, the actors change masks in a split second. This actor even changed to coordinate his costume and mask. It's hard to explain, but maybe the pictures will help. Here he is in purple: purple mask and purple clothing.

During the dancing and music, he'll cover himself for a split second with his flag and BOOM, he's a different color all together - red!

There were also fire breathers and flag dancers...

...and other mask changers. This guy went through many mask changes over and over. All he did was tap his face with his fan and it would suddenly become another mask. For example, here's the red mask...

...tap with the fan and PRESTO, he's green!

It was a fun night. The next day, was panda day! Chengdu is the home of the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base. The sole purpose of this site is to mate both giant and red pandas to keep them from extinction. As a child, I was fascinated with giant pandas, almost to the point of obsession, so you can imagine my delight to visit here.

The day was cooler and damp, but the pandas were out, doing what they do best - eating and sleeping. We started with the older pandas and saw that you can't get much lazier than a giant panda. This one barely lifted her head to reach the bamboo.

Some were interactive with each other, like these two.

I couldn't believe how close we were. The grounds were beautiful and extremely lush. Bamboo was everywhere. It seemed like a panda's dream to me.

We moved on to the younger pandas, who were more active and simply adorable. I could have stayed there for hours! These pandas were busy wrestling, climbing, and trying not to get stuck. A few of them fell down off the structures and reminded me of Slinkies going down stairs - they simply go with it and absorb the fall. They seem like big balls of fur.

This panda decided to simply lie back and chew on a large stick.

This panda climbed this skinny tree, but then had trouble getting down. Traci captured it's "climb down" (AKA falling) on video.

And, not as popular, but definitely cute, the red panda is also housed here and bred to keep from extinction.

They also love to eat bamboo.

I can say that one of the best moments of the entire trip happened on this day when I had the opportunity to hold a real, baby giant panda. Never in my life did I think I'd ever have the chance to do something like this. I think Herman captured the moment best with this photo:

I was in heaven! Holding the panda actually reminded me of the stuffed panda I had for years as a kid, except this one was much bigger and smelled of apples (she was snacking on apples while we took turns holding her).

I love this photo of Noa and the panda with her tongue sticking out. Adorable!

Team Juloa and Precious(Bǎo Bèi in Chinese) the Panda

As if seeing the pandas wasn't enough for one day, our group then toured the Sanxingdui. This museum houses mysterious masks and artifacts of stone, jade, and bronze that were discovered in 1987. These artifacts date back to the 12th - 11th century, but not a lot is known about the people of this period. There are still a lot of questions about the pieces and the history behind them and archeologists are still trying to understand this mysterious culture to this day.

We really couldn't appreciate the collection for what it was worth since we were pretty tired from all the panda cuddling and travel, and since we had some time to spare before dinner, we went for another foot massage. Now, I mentioned earlier that I would discuss the foot massage in a little more detail. First of all, the term "foot massage" is used loosely in this case. It's really not giving the whole picture. The massage begins with the foot, but then the masseuse will massage your legs, arms, back, neck, and sometimes your head too. The other difference from a typical massage - or at least the kind I'm used to - is that they use a lot of accupressure to the pressure points. Noa was told, "pain now, feel good later." Let's just say that pain was a definite part of the experience. Whenever we had a massage we tried to all get in the same room together (oh, and no, it's not the kind of massage where you shed your clothes - everyone keeps their clothes on!) and it was funny to look around the room and see 8 Americans squirming from the "pain" by these little Chinese massage therapists. However, I was never sore or achy during the trip, so those massages must have been the key!

Noa gets ready for a serious foot massage!

Next Up: Shanghai and the many foods of China!