After wiggling her tooth for many weeks it finally came loose! Kirk helped a little to get the little tooth to come out. She was very excited. Kath read the Tooth Fairy book to her and she could hardly sleep. She woke up at 2:30am to find $1 under her table. Of course she had to come in and tell us.
Elizabeth's good friend Orla also lost the same tooth on the same day. They are both in the picture above.
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Julie Romanski invited us to join their family on a trip to Harbin. Harbin is in the Northeast of China. To describe it accurately??? It is REAAALLLY cold there. The city is famous for their Ice festival. They build a small city completely of ice. It is an amazing site on the internet. This is one of those places everyone says you have to see while in China.
So we flew up on Valentine's Day. Another family joined us, Deanna and her son Andrew Smith. It is a 2 1/2 hour flight from Pudong. We arrived at the airport around 11 am and we were met by our tour guide, Susan. Susan led us out to our van which was actually a tour bus. There must have been 35 seats on that bus for our party of 10.
From the airport, we went straight to lunch at the Dumpling King. Dumplings, or Jiaozi, or as Americans would call Pot stickers are very popular in North China. They brought out about 10 plates of dumplings as well as other special dishes from the area. Harbin also has it's own brand of beer - Harbin Beer. They are famous drinkers in Harbin. Probably due to the influence of Russia which is not far away. Of course, our kids didn't eat much, but the rest of them did.
After lunch, we boarded the bus to our hotel, the Shangri-la. Here we were able to nap for an hour before getting bundled up to spend the evening at the Ice Festival. We all looked like stuffed sausages by the time we had everything on. I think there must have been about 5 layers on.
We started our cold tour at Century Avenue which is Harbin's version of Nanjing Rd, basically a pedestrian shopping street. There was a lot of Russian influence here. We stopped into a store and Kirk tried on a hat. He decided against it.
We got back on the bus and drove to the Ice and Snow World. Okay, this was really amazing. We got there while the sun was just starting to set. You can see the pictures. We all went down the ice slides. The kids had a blast doing this. They just kept wanting to go back for more. We finally drug them away to go see some of the other buildings as the lights were coming on now. Alex wanted to eat the snow. I had to explain that this is not Michigan snow and you can only eat Michigan snow at Bumpa and Gigi's.
We all stayed warm for the most part thanks to Julie's good thinking and bringing heat warmers. Elizabeth needed hand warmers by the end of the night. We were able to take a horse and sleigh ride before we got back on the bus to go to dinner.
Dinner was gross. That's all I have to say about that. Don't go to St. Petersberg Cafe in Harbin. It was just slop in my opinion.
By this time, we were all exhausted and went back to the hotel. The kids and I passed out and Kirk and Romo went to the Ice Bar in the hotel.
The next day we went to Sun Island to see the snow sculptures. I can't say a lot about this. It was very windy and cold and Elizabeth wasn't feeling good so the kids and I turned around while walking and went back to the bus. Kirk got some great pics and I'm sad that we didn't see most of it.
From here we went to lunch and then to the Siberian Tiger park. The kids loved this. We got on a bus and drove around the park and had great close ups of Tigers and Lions. They even saw a Liger. A cross between a Tiger and a Lion....only in China.
It was a quick trip, but we did manage to see a lot. Hope you enjoy the video and pics.
In the pictures you will see an "Ice Swimming Pool". Click on the link below to see a video and article about this activity in Harbin. These people are crazy.
I (Kirk) was able to take some time off work to go with Elizabeth and her class on their field trip to the Shanghai Wild Animal Park. First stop was the Seal show where we saw the seals did a lot of interesting tricks. Next they got back on the bus and drove through the wild animal section. There were giraffes, camels, lions, bears, tigers (including white siberian tigers) and deer. There was an interesting sign as we drove through that said if our car/bus broke down during the trip we should whistle until help arrives (see the pictures). This was comforting. We were able to eat lunch with Elizabeth's best friend Chrystal and her mom. After lunch we got to see the pandas and we were able to feed the Lemurs. They were pretty crazy (see the video). They climbed all over people. Elizabeth got to pick out something from the gift shop afterwards. She picked out a small white tiger and called her "Miley" after her new favorite singer. We both had a great day.
We made it to the Lantern Festival this year. It is really something to see. We picked a good night as it was pretty warm, but there were lots of people who also had the same idea. Afterwards we went to a new Tex-Mex Restaurant called Cantina Agave. It was very good. We are finally starting to get a couple of good Mexican restaurants in town. This was the last day of the Chinese New Year Holiday so it was back to the grind for us all on Monday.
