who said it was cold

Well, here I am again, so far behind on my blog. I think this time I will be able to catch you up as to where I am today. It may be pretty long but hopefully interesting and good reading. In this blog writing I will show you what we did as a family here in Dalian and Harbin between Christmas and when the family left. I hope you can hang in there long enough to read this.

To start off with we had just finished a Christmas celebration complete with large numbers of fireworks. We bought about $300 USD of good ole fashion Chinese fireworks. As you can see in the picture we had a large amount of trash left over. We shot these off right outside of our apartment complex. There was plenty of room but we did happen to hit the high rise next to our complex. No damage or fire though.

Now between Christmas and New Years I still had work to do but Kathy and the boys did a lot of shopping and driving around. Nicholas took good care of them while I was working and then at night we would head out to dinner. I think the boys enjoyed themselves. Kevin found stuff to buy for friends and Brian found some nice things for Jenny and some of his friends as well. We went to a local tailor which I found a while back and had suits custom made for both Brian and Kevin. When we finally picked them up after being made these guys tried them on and I must say they looked great. We had two suits and two long sleeve shirts made for less than $150.00usd. What a deal. I know these guys enjoyed the Chinese culture somewhat. These guys enjoyed the local food. All three of them enjoyed he Chinese food Nicholas took them out to. Kevin even ate fresh crab. Now that is something I would never of thought I would see happen.

There were other things that these guys had to get used to. The obvious things like, AAAAchchcch ppppptooooo. The general unsanitary conditions of the streets and the air. And of course, the squat pots. When ever we are out in public and have to use the bathroom this is what is available. Of course this picture is a much cleaner one than most. I am sure the boys were glad they are boys. I feel sorry for Kathy. It is amazing how the local people are so used to this stuff. Consider yourself lucky you live in a country with real toilets.


There were a few more days left in the year 2009. I had a couple days off as well. As usual, in China we always find a way to celebrate and have a party. We all got ready to go out for new years eve. We went to a party at one of our new friends. Devin and Lisa's place. We had good food which was catered by the Real Eddies. One of the better restaurants here in the Dalian area. Then when midnight came around we just had to shoot off more fireworks.

After a week in China it was time for Kevin to head back to the US. He had to get back to go back to school. He was about to adventure a world travel by himself. Sorry to see you go Kevin.

Now once Kevin was gone a couple days later we had another really bad snow storm. This was the worse storm this area had in over 10 years. It dumped over 5 inches of snow overnight. Yes it was cold, wet and icy. We were able to go out to dinner to Flairs but it sure was snowing.

Within a few days Kathy, Brian and I headed to the coldest place in China, Harbin. This was going t be the last exciting sightseeing we were going to do before Kathy and Brian we going to leave for home. Harbin has an annual Ice Festival which many people travel to in order to see a remarkable site of a city made of blocks of ice. This place is an unbelievable site to see. I can understand now how these artists can build a city out of ice and not worry about it melting anytime quickly. The city has an average high temperature of -27 degree centigrade. It was flippin cold there.

Here is the temp displayed by an all ice thermometer. I think it is right around 0 degrees F. You can see Kathy and Brian are a little cold.

Here are a few pictures from the trip. This was so much fun. It was an amazing sight to see all these buildings made of blocks of ice from the local river there.

This is Don, Kathy and Brian outside of our Hotel

This is what the City looks like from afar.

The Kremlin up on a hill. All ice.

Here is what the Forbidden City looks like all in ice.

This is just a wonderful master piece and work of art.

That building in the background is about 20 stories high. My feet as I go down an ice slide. So does she look cold or what?

Even in China there is a little bit of America.

Now, after all the ice cold fun in the Harbin ice festival we visited the Siberian Tiger Park. A one of a kind of park built to protect a species of tiger's that were close to extinction. It was fun to see all these tigers being cared for in different ways. We were able to ride in a bus that went around the park and experience the tiger's just walking around in the almost wild. The best part was watching them get fed with a live chicken. It was so cool. The driver of a utility vehicle came out and threw a live chicken in the air. Then the tiger's went crazy. Just a couple pictures that shows those wonderful animals up close and personal.

Just to let you know, that is not a real tiger and Brian is fine.

Once we finished up with the cold of Harbin we made it back to Dalian. Nicholas was waiting for us at the airport and we headed back to the apartment for a final night for Brian and Kathy. They had to get up the next morning to begin their journey back to the US. Kathy caught a cold the last day she was here and felt terrible. Then she had to get on a plane for a long flight home. I went to work the next morning and Nicholas sent them off at the airport. They made it home safely and I am guessing they all enjoyed themselves here. I know they will all be back. China is a wonderful country and fun to experience. The next time they come back it will be warm and we will go and experience other parts of China.

That is it for now. I will catch you up in the next blog to get us to today.