This will be the last blog on this post. I will do my best to move all of the original posts over to our new blog at http://larsonlookout.blogspot.com. We’ve actually moved over there months ago but in case you keep checking this one we will be closing this one down once I get the posts moved over and deleted from here. I will also redirect the larson6.com pointer to that location.
David
Welcome back to all 3 of our loyal blog readers. Thanks for sticking with us. Today we’d like to tell you about our fascinating visit to Century Park, an extremely large park in the center of Pudong, Shanghai (the new part where we live). We paid a whopping 10 RMB (about $1.40) per person to get in the park, then we decided to go for a boat ride. For about $7, we can rent a small electric powered putt putt boat and cruise up and down the river. The boat is so slow and the park is so big, that it took the whole hour to do just that– cruise to one end, turn around, and cruise back. But it was a nice peaceful ride, only 90 degrees outside with overcast skies, loud jungle crickets whirring in the willow trees, water birds looking for food on the shore. All of the kids got a chance to drive the boat.
After the boat ride, Emma (who had been here once before– it was the first visit for everyone else) insisted that we go to a “really cool part” which turned out to be rides. So, we went on the little roller coaster spin ride, the little car ride, the little bicycle-pedal-on-the-elevated-rollercoaster-track ride, the spinning boat ride, and of course, the merry-go-round.
The kids wanted to go on one last ride, the big fat bumper cars, so we split into three teams of two. As we started the ride, the first drops of rain started to fall. Towards the end of the ride, it was a serious sprinkle.
Notice Eric’s nice white shirt and Tracey’s nice dry hair.
About 1 minute after this picture was taken, the floodgates opened, and we were trapped about 500 yards from the park exit and the safety of our van. Our ever-perceptive driver had gone home, but when he saw the rain he came back and called to let us know he was waiting. We took shelter for a few minutes in a small snack shack, ate an ice cream cone, and decided to go for it.
Tracey was willing to briefly risk the well being of the electronic digital camera to capture this shot of the journey back to the van.
And here we are at the park gate, now just 50 yards or so from a roof over our heads. Check out Eric’s shirt and Tracey’s hair now!
After we got back to the apartment, Mom made everyone strip down just inside the front door to avoid getting the house dripping wet. Ever the spoil sport, she wouldn’t let me take pictures of that glorious scene. But I’m sure you all get the picture. Despite the soggy ending, everyone had a great time, even during the free clothed shower portion. It was a memorable adventure for everyone.
Saturday night we had a fireside meeting at one of the member’s homes (a large home I might add) with Sister Beck as the main speaker. She shared a few thoughts and then answered a lot of questions. By her estimation, it was the first time in the history of the modern church that a General RS officer had made an official appearance in the People’s Republic of China.
Among other things, we learned that she works over 80 hours a week and has to do a lot of reading and “homework” in order to be prepared to attend numerous committee meetings and board meetings for church education, welfare, etc., every week. It is a full time job for which she receives no monetary rewards, so her husband (who also came on the trip) works full time at his job to support her “hobby.” 
The fireside was very uplifting and inspiriing for everyone who attended, and afterwards we got to eat lots of yummy treats, including homemade eclairs from the kitchen of Tracey.
Sunday in church, the Becks attended our regular meetings and bore brief testimonies in Sacrament meeting, then Sister Beck taught a combined Relief Society/Young Women’s meeting during the last hour. I wasn’t there but Tracey says she answered more questions. Afterwards I was waiting for Tracey to show up and they both came up and shook my hand and said I did a nice job on the piano. Brother Beck (who likes to introduce himself as”Brother Julie Beck”) said that he plays the piano too and that I must have had a mean mom like him who made him practice. I guess Mom wasn’t really that mean but I do remember being vigorously encouraged to put in my practice time when I was a kid.
And just so you’ll believe us, we have real proof in pictures from the fireside. One shot is a bit candid and the other was supposed to be a nice posed shot of the ladies until some bozo had to come and poke his head into the background.
Julie Beck, Meagan, and Tracey.
Tracey, Julie Beck, Meagan, and background bozo.
Hello, my name is “E3.” I am an air conditioner. I only speak Chinese, so nobody that lives with me knows quite exactly how I work. My name, “E3,” is also my way of saying “I’m done cooling your apartment down now. Please wait a few hours and maybe I’ll turn on again. Maybe. E3! E3!” I love to blink and make a blue light when I say my name.
My owners keep telling the front desk about me and how I love to say my name so much. So they send up the engineers who speak Chinese just like me. They turn me on and I work for them, but they don’t stay in my house long enough for me to tell them my name. I always wait until they leave. My owners keep getting mad at me for this. They keep telling me to shut the beep up. Oh, I forgot to mention, when I decide to stop working and tell everyone my name, I also make a very loud beep. I like to beep but nobody else seems to like it.
My owners got tired of the apartment engineers coming up and turning me on and then leaving before I could tell them my name. So they went and told the office that they need the engineers from the creator company to come talk to me. Oh good!! E3 phone home!!
The creator company engineer came to talk to me. He walked around and checked out a lot of things in my joints and ducts. I felt a little better, so I decided I could do my job for a few hours before telling everyone my name and beeping. I just love my name so much I can’t help it! But my owners are still upset with me. They went and got a little mad at the poor front desk people and told them to come and fix the beeping AC unit. The next day the creator company man came back again and worked on me for a very long time. I do feel much better now, although I miss saying my name. But everyone else at home seems to like me now so maybe I’ll have to think of a new one…
The following Saturday was Eric’s pirate birthday party with his friends. They got to do different pirate activities in the apartment and get different pieces of pirate costume (eye patch, hat, scarf, balloon sword, etc.) after each activity. When everything was done, we ate pirate ship cake and ice cream.
Before the party, the pirate cake, ambitiously invented and prepared by Tracey, was looking good.
Unfortunately, sometime during the party the ship was attacked, and didn’t look quite so “whole” when it was time to eat. But everyone thought it was tasty just the same.
Yo, ho, yo, ho, a pirate’s life for me… we had some pretty lively pirates by the time we were done.
Elephants, elephants, elephants!!!
Our first stop was the elephant show. We arrived early and got some very up close and personal contact with the elephants. For the low, low price of 5 RMB we could buy a bag of cucumbers to feed the elephants while they stuck their snouts in your lap and dripped elephant snot all over your clothes. Truly an experience that’s difficult to put a price on. Reactions to feeding the elephants varied from child to child, but some degree of terror was usually involved.
We also enjoyed watching the local people feed the elephants boiled eggs, bread, carrots, apples, sandwiches, beef jerky, whatever they brought with them.
Later in the show the elephants played sports for us, including basketball and soccer.
After one elephant performed a balancing act, another elephant brought out a plastic rose in appreciation of his efforts. Then the elephant came over to the audience to choose someone to receive the rose. And, of course, who went right out to get it…
After the elephant show, we wandered all over, seeing a few favorites like hippos and pandas, but they weren’t terribly photogenic on this day. We did happen to find some lions and tigers, and later on the ladies were very good looking, you might even say I found a whole bunch of foxes.
Both of the male red foxes were overheating, so they had to stick their tongues out to keep cool.
Finally, Eric decided that he saw a flower garden that he liked, so he took off while we weren’t looking and went over too it. Five minutes later, a panicked family caught up with him and took pictures of him admiring the red roses.
After 4 or 5 hours at the zoo, we had a snack and left, vowing to return again and see the other half of the animals that we didn’t even see on this day.
And of course, Eric and Emma wanted to ride it. It was actually a nice long ride for the kids and they had fun.’
Also inside the park was one of the smaller “stick straight up out of the ground” mountains in the area. It had a stairway/trail up to the top, so we all made the hike up (with a few rest stops along the way). Here is proof that the whole family can climb a mountain together.
On the way down, we stopped to pose for a few more pictures. Tracey had the idea to have a “girls pose” and a “boys pose.” Then the kids had the idea to further to a “serious pose” and a “silly pose.” In the end, the “silly poses” were much more interesting for public consumption:
Yes, I know what you’re thinking, “like father, like son,” but this was HIS idea for the funny pose so I just followed suit.
After our mountain climbing, it was time to leave the Yangshuo Culture house. So we donned our 5 RMB hats and posed with the owner, Mr. Wei.
Two hours and one emergency bathroom stop later, we made it to Qi Xing Gong Yuan (Seven Star Park) in Guilin. It is a very large park with lots of activities inside. We arrived pretty late in the day so we had to rush in order to see a few things. One of the first things we found was a man with two trained monkeys. And for the low, low price of 5 RMB, we could plop a kid down with the monkeys and take some pictures. So, for your viewing pleasure, we present the “Larson kids and monkeys” gallery (also known as “Monkeys and more monkeys”):
The park also had lots of plastic/foam figures with which we could pose. There were a bunch of bugs, animals, and even Pokemon guys. Emma just had to go pose with one of them in memory of our next door neighbor and Pokemon afficiando, Jarom.
Seven Star Park is also home to Seven Star Cave, so we ducked inside for a quick walk through. This cave really liked to light up the formations with all sorts of colored fluorescent lights, which were interesting looking and sometimes pretty, in an unnatural sort of way.
We kind of tagged along behind a Chinese speaking tour guide, so unless there was a sign posted, we got to name our own cave formations. This one was called “stubby lumpy rocks” or something like that. I’m sure it sounds much more poetic in Mandarin.
After the cave, we found a little zoo area, including two real live giant pandas. Heidi was SO excited. Unfortunately, they were both behind some pretty hazy glass at the time, so it was hard to get a really good look. One of them was chewing on some bamboo, and this was the best shot we could get:
Finally, as we left the park, we came across the five olympic mascots. They have interesting names that I can’t remember but they’re something like Blingbling, Pingpong, Charshu, etc. So here we are with them, helping them play their respective Olympic sports.
After the park, we ate dinner, went to the airport, and got home at 3:00 a.m. Saturday morning. Needless to say, we got a late start on Saturday and didn’t do too much that day.
Finally, to finish things off, I have to put in my last panorama picture that I took from the mountain climb on Friday, looking out over the countryside with Yangshuo below.
.
Although the picture on the money has a few embellishments, it’s pretty much the same view as from the Xingping riverside. Views like this gave inspiration to more than just Chinese money, however; George Lucas sent a team of photographers to this region to take background photo plates for Star Wars III:
We took another boat ride up the river for a while and then back.
‘
Meagan was especially pleased that she got to sit in the front of the raft some of the time.
After the boat ride, we drove down to Mu Shan (wood mountain), a tiny village where our guide Lily lives. First stop was the family owned “farmer food restaurant,” where the menu was completely in Chinese so it took us a few minutes to figure out what we wanted to order.
This is looking over the side of the railing in the seating area of the riverside restaurant. The cages in the water hold fish.
During lunch we got to meet Lily’s 3 year old son. He was pretty shy at first.
Eventually someone brought down a bag of rocks and all of the American and Chinese children had fun throwing rocks over the railing into the river below.
After lunch, we went to Lily’s family orange orchard. Her husband and other relatives had been working all morning picking the oranges, but we managed to find a few to pick ourselves. They were delicious.
Then we went to Lily’s house. Here is her kitchen, a separate room with its own entry from the outside. Makes you less concerned about that scratch on your formica countertop, doesn’t it?
Here is Lily’s garden, back yard, and rear side of her house. They are building a new house next to this one but they ran out of money so it is kind of an open brick shell right now. It was very good for the children (and the parents) to see a happy, functioning family living in such humble circumstances compared to us.
After the house tour, Lily asked if we would help her translate the restaurant’s menu into English. We started at the restaurant but then our driver had to leave, so we took Lily with us back to our hotel and finished it there. For our troubles we got a great big bag of fresh oranges, which we brought back with us to Shanghai.
Here’s another panorama photo taken from the orange grove. The views in Yangshuo are spectacular in every direction, no matter where you go.
Tomorrow– the final day: climbing a hill and a fun park in Guilin.
Now, how it the world were we supposed to resist a promotion like that? This was our big chance to see the genuine article here in China, not some cheap knock-off cave!
We met Lily in the morning again, grabbed our same bikes from Tuesday, then broke down and bought little flower headband things for everyone (except me). We rode our bikes for almost an hour to the REAL water cave. After forking over some real money to see the real water cave, we got put in a Chinese “miniminivan” along with another couple, Lily, and the driver. That’s TEN people in a van that looks like this:
The road was extra rocky and bumpy, so we got tossed around in our little puttputt van. You’d have to see the video I took to really appreciate the situation.
The cave tour starts in a boat. We had to wear hardhats because the entrance is so low that you have to totally duck your head to avoid getting konked on the noggin.
After a short boat ride inside the cave, we got out and followed the tour guide throughout the cave. In a few places I was able to get some no-flash time exposure shots to get a decent view of the cave interior.
The hard hats came in handy during the tour. Lily insisted that she didn’t need to wear one since she had been through the cave so many times.
Another important feature of the cave is all of the “things that look like things” features. This one is called “woman washing her hair.” As we passed it, the tour guide said “Isn’t it sexy?” to which another person on the tour replied (under his breath) “Not really.”
About 2/3 of the way into the deepest part of the cave, we climbed up this rock to pose for a family picture. The calm, still, four year old boy was pleased as punch to relax and have a break.
Finally, at the very back of the cave, we came to the swimming hole. The girls had been begging to get wet the whole trip, and here was their big chance. Unfortunately, the water was pretty cold, so Eric was a little reluctant to get in. Eventually he waded in a little farther, lost his balance, fell in, and that was the end of his swimming for the day.
Eventually, Heidi and Emma got brave and found the water to be cool and refreshing after all.
Not to be outdone by the youngsters, Meagan decided that she could go all the way under, too.
Finally, after much coaxing, Heidi swam across the pool to the next rock formation, followed by Meagan, and then Emma. These acts of courage from the little American girls finally shamed some of the locals to get in the water as well.
After the swimming hole adventure, we walked (and boated) all the way back out of the cave, took another bumpy bus ride (bigger bus this time), then biked back to town.
Anywhere we went, Emma always found a Chinese baby to play with. This one was in town near where we dropped off our bikes…
… and this one belongs to one of the extended family members of our hotel host.
Tomorrow… the “20 RMB bill town” and Lily’s village.
Emma got to be on the back of a tandem with Lily. She pedaled hard… some of the time.
Eric didn’t even have to pretend to pedal.
Meagan, Heidi, and Tracey (Sir-not-appearing-in-these-pictures) got bikes all to themselves.
Our first stop was at a local 300 year old farm house, complete with 300 year old local Chinese farmers. OK, not quite that old, but pretty close. They were very kind and showed us their hand pump from the well, and handed us fresh oranges from their trees.
The kids also got to have a try at making soybean milk in this grinder contraption. If we had stayed longer they would have showed us how to take the next step and turn the soybean milk into tofu.
After a couple hours of intense biking, we loaded ourselves and our bikes onto two old-fashioned bamboo rafts, complete with old fashioned boat pushers. Even the corporate advertising on the umbrellas couldn’t ruin the old-fashioned-ness of it all. This was on the Yulong river, a different, smaller river than the one we rode on the day before.
It’s a little difficult to tell from the picture, but I’m soaked up to my waist. Soon after we got off of our rafts, another group came in and a small toddler girl and her father had a mishap while trying to get off. The little girl went all the way under the water and wasn’t coming back up, so I jumped in and grabbed her out. Fortunately, the girl, her father, and my camera and cell phone in my pocket were all undamaged. My shoes dried out sometime on Thursday.
Here we are after a nice, late lunch at the Moon Hill Cafe. Oddly enough, the mountain in the background with a big hole in it is called “Moon Hill.” Go figure. Anyway, many people like to climb Moon Hill and look over the countryside from inside the moon. After our long bike ride so far, we decided to not be many people on this day. We biked back home and ended the day over 6 hours and 30 km after we started. Very tiring, but very fun for all.
One really cool feature of my camera that I discovered during this trip was “Panorama Mode.” You can take up to five shots in sequence, guided by the LCD screen to position each shot after the first one, and then the camera automatically stitches them together. The result is a near 180 degree view of the surroundings. This picture was taken during a water break in the late morning, and shows the bike path, freshly planted rice paddies, and the surrounding limestone peaks.
Next installment– “Real Water Cave.”
