Friday, May 30, 2008

Concordia Book Parade


To celebrate the end of book week at school, Concordia has a character book parade where kids dress up as their favorite book character. Last year, Elizabeth went as Fern from Charlotte's web. This year she wanted to be Charlotte. She talked about this everyday for a week up until the parade. She had her mind set on being Charlotte so I couldn't let her down. I was able to concoct a costume from some old tights, fish wire and pillow stuffing! I recieved many complements. Not quite Gigi quality sewing, but it worked!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Elizabeth's Chapel Concert


Elizabeth's class hosted chapel this day. She and Ben Pigott had to say one line together and they did a great job - N is for Nazareth where Jesus would play.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Macau 10th Anniversary Trip





Almost caught up on the blogs!

Kirk did his usual, wonderful job of surprising me on our anniversary with a trip to Macau. Macau is the Las Vegas of Asia. Not quite yet, but will be very soon.

We stayed at the MGM which was very nice. We also visited the Wynn's, Venetian, Star World, and Grand Lisboa. Our room was amazing. It was a 2 bedroom suite that we were upgraded to. How come that doesn't happen when we have our kids with us!

Macau was a Portugese colony so there is so much influence from the architecture to food to religion here. We did a walking tour of the city on Friday and saw some amazing churches. The streets reminded us so much of our trip to Lisbon.

Grammy watched the kids for us in Shanghai and we truly had a relaxing, 2nd honeymoon weekend!

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Playdate with Lauren


Lauren, a classmate of Elizabeth's came over. They had fun playing. She stayed for dinner and there is a difference between a 3rd born of 4 (Lauren) then a first born of two (Eliz) with regards to eating habits. Lauren was a champ eating her dinner, Elizabeth took her standard one hour!

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Chris Botti Shanghai Concert


My favorite - Chris Botti - came to Shanghai. Oh my, I was so excited when I saw that he was coming! He did not disappoint. He played some songs from his new CD, Italia and his band was awesome. We waited in line to get an autograph and got a picture too!

Check out his music sometime, great jazz. www.chrisbotti.com

Lucy & Allie Stay the Weekend


Our friends Luke and Missy were brave enough to run in the Beijing Great Wall 1/2 marathon. We offered for their kids to stay with us so that they could enjoy their time there. Lucy and Allie are great friends of Elizabeth and Alex's so everyone was looking forward to it.

On Saturday, we went to Century Park to the amusement park area. Alex went on his first ride by himself in the cars. He was so proud. It was a really hot day, so we didn't stay long. Also the Steven's girls are blond so everywhere we went, people were gathering!

The girls slept in Alex's room, but there was not much sleeping going on. I think they were all worn out by the time they went home. Great time!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Elizabeth's School Music Program





Elizabeth had her spring music concert in the new theatre. They all sang nice and loud! It was a great concert and we were really proud of how well Elizabeth did on stage.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Major Earthquake in China

A major earthquake hit China Monday the 12th at 2:28pm local time. The center of the earthquake was in Wenchaun which is in the Sichuan province. This is about 1800km (11oo miles) from Shanghai. The earthquake registered 7.9 on the Richter Scale. This earthquake was 10 times stronger than the one that hit San Francisco and toppled the Bay Bridge in 1989 (6.9). Estimates are that maybe 50,000 people lost there lives with tens of thousands still missing. Kirk was at his office when the earthquake hit and did not feel anything, but Kath and Grammy felt the apartment shake. The earthquake was felt all across China and many buildings in Shanghai evacuated.

There was a moment of silence at 2:28 on Monday the 19th to honor the victims. Many organizations are collecting donations to send to Sichuan. Many countries have sent rescue teams. Our church's offerings this week are being sent directly to Sichuan through the Caritas program. It's difficult to read the papers or watch the news because there are more sad stories than great ones. Although they did find a lady 150 hours after the quake happened. I think that is God showing that miracles do happen.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Mother's Day


Mother's Day was a great celebration. We went to church, then we went to an awesome brunch at the Westin. Free flow champagne! The kids had a playroom that they could go to. Even decorate their own cake to give to Mom.

The afternoon was filled with a birthday celebration. Alex's friend, Chloe Eng, turned 3. They had a bounce house and that is all you need to fill up an afternoon of fun for 3,4, and 5 year olds! You can see a picture of my friend Kim Young with their new baby, Cormac who was born in Shanghai.

Thanks to the kids and Kirk for making our day so special.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Visit to SheShan Park & Cathedral





Since the kids and I enjoyed SheShan so much, we went back with Kirk, Grammy, and our friend Romo for a day. It was a nice sunny day and we packed a picnic. Once again, we had a fabulous time except for this day, there was hardly anyone at the park so it was even more enjoyable.

Last time, we didn't make it much past the beach. This time we got Alex to walk on and we discovered many other fun places. The most fun was the bounce area. You can see from the pictures and videos that the adults had just as much if not more fun than the kids.

After the park, we drove up the hill to where the Cathedral is. I stayed in the car with the sleeping kids while the others walked the remainder of the way.

The She Shan Cathedral stands on the hill named She Shan which lies to the north of the Songjiang county. This construction was built during 1925-35. The design of the cathedral is under a Roman style influenced by eclecticism. The Baroque domes and Gothic inner ornamentations get in harmony with each other. Along the zigzaging path leading up to the Cathedral, there 14 'hard-walking pavilions' at all the corner-turnings which portray what Jesus had suffered during his life time.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Kath Work Trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia


After Australia, I made a stop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to visit a customer and look at a potential warehouse. I was only there for one day, but between the meetings and my plane, my co-worker Sunther took me to a couple places. This is a picture of the largest Hindu statue in Malaysia. This temple is an area that people to give thanks when something good has happened. There were a lot of stairs to get into the temple which are in caves. This temple is called the Batu Caves. See explanation of caves below:

http://tamilelibrary.org/teli/malaysia03.html
Batu Caves, as it is popularly known, is located about 12 km north of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. It is nestled close to the main highways leading to the northern parts and the eastern coast of Peninsular Malaysia.When the caves were in a pristine state before 1860, several of the 18 cave mouths were used by the indigenous Besisi people as transit shelters when they went out hunting from their jungle hamlets.As early as 1860, Chinese settlers began excavating guano for fertilising their vegetable patches. It was only in 1878 that British Europeans came upon the complex of hills while on a hunting trip.Behind the cupolas on the zigzag bridge (foreground) is the staircase leading up to the Temple Cave. The landings are designed for viewing the scenery from different heights and for the aged and infirm to rest before continuing on the next flight. The landings offer a grand view of the lush scenery from various heights. On a clear sunny day, the topmost landing offers a view of the fortress-walled range of hills enclosing suburban Kuala Lumpur townships sprawling over the fertile floor of the valley. The western coast of the Peninsular where the emerald sea rolls into the Bay of Bengal lies beyond the green, f orest clad range of hills.A flight of 272 steps leads up to the temple. The stairway is divided into steps which each lead to a landing. Along the balustrade of the staircase and at some of the landings that offer the least competition from their fellows, the resident long-tailed macaques hang around unceremoniously for treats from visitors.The generously fed flocks of pigeons swamp the courtyard before the ground level portal of the temple. The pigeons are tame and they give way to passing visitors graciously.Apart from the annual Thaipusam festival, tourist and devotees visit Batu Caves regularly. Throughout the year, the Temple Caves attract between 3,000 to 5,000 people daily.At the base of the hill, at the ground level, there are three caves with statuary and mural depictions of scenes from the Ramayana, Mahabharat and the lives of renowned Tamil poets.The three caves are known as the Valluvar Kottam, Art Gallery and the Ramayana Cave. The depictions are spectacularly graphic. The Ramayana Cave presents a concise but comprehensive narration of Lord Rama's history.

Afterwards, we drove into the city and did some shopping at Petronas Towers. These towers used to be the biggest in the world at one point and time.

Grammy's Birthday


The kids were able to celebrate Grammy's birthday with her. They loved singing happy birthday song to her in English and Chinese. And of course, they loved eating the chocolate cupcakes!


Shanghai Center (Future Tallest Building in China)

Construction has now begun on an even taller building in Shanghai that will surpass the new World Financial Tower (492m) that is nearing completion in Shanghai. This new building will be called the Shanghai Center and will be 580m tall. It is expected to be completed in 2010. Below is a link to a website that keeps track of the worlds tallest buidings. This link shows the tallest buildings in Shanghai.

http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?c6

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Kath Work Trip to Melbourne, Australia


Since Grammy was here, I took her up on her offer to help with the kids and took the opportunity to make a short trip to Australia and Malaysia to visit with the teams there. This was my first time and I visited Melbourne where our Delphi offices are located. I have no idea why my Melbournite friends who live in Shanghai would ever want to leave Melbourne. WOW! This place is really beautiful. It reminded me a lot of Minneapolis. There was a river and lots of shopping and restaurants. I ran through some beautiful gardens one morning. There is also a large cultural/art presence with many sculptures in the area. It was their autumn when I visited, but the temperatures were still mild. I would love to go back and bring Kirk and the kids with me.

Saturday, May 03, 2008

World's Longest Bridge

CHINA opened the world's longest cross-sea bridge on May 1st, linking Shanghai with Ningbo in Zhejiang Province.

The Hangzhao Bay Bridge cost 11.8-billion-yuan (US$1.7 billion) and took 4.5 years to complete.

The bridge, with a 32km section spanning the East China Sea, begins at Jiaxing, near Shanghai, and ends at Cixi, about 70km from Ningbo. It will reduce the 400-kilometer drive between Shanghai and Ningbo by 120 kilometers and shave driving time between the two cities from four to two-and-a-half hours.

We hear that the traffic is slow on the bridge due to many people stopping to take pictures. We will likely wait a while before taking a trip over the bridge.


In June they will open an observation station with hotel and restaurants in the middle of the bridge.

Friday, May 02, 2008

Shanghai Music Festival


The Shanghai International Music festival was at Century Park again this year. We went last year with friends. This year, we took Grammy. The music artists weren't that great, but the atmosphere was a lot of fun. The kids had fun rolling down the hills but it was a hot day. You can see our apartments in the background.

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Xian - Big Wild Goose Pagoda & City Wall





This next stop was to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. This is a Hindu temple built a long time ago. This was a really beautiful area....inside the area that you pay to get into. The walk up to the entrance was crazy. It was a national holiday so there were tons of people! Once you got into the paid entrance, there weren't so many people. It was such a peaceful place with beautiful gardens. There were several temples and buddhas to admire.

After this, we drove to our last stop, the City Wall. This wall is still intact after hundreds of years and it is the only complete city wall left in China. Most cities had walls to protect them. We took a rick shaw bicycle ride around a portion of the wall. The drivers could only speak Chinese so as far as getting explanations about the sites and signifcance of certain places, we could only understand a bit and there were a lot of charades. They were very nice though. IT was so hot this day, I'm not sure how they didn't keel over driving us around.

This was the end our of Beijing/Xi'an trip and it was a good trip.