Finishing up

Friday- our second and final full day in Shanghai China.  We started the day with a trip to the Jade Buddha Temple.  As Saturday is a Buddhist holy day, the temple area was full of worshippers.  Large cauldrons held fires for worshippers to light incense before bowing and praying before large statues.  The temple also had a number of monks who were officiating and singing Buddhist chants.  Definitely an interesting experience.  

Next we toured a silk factory where we learned how silk is made.  Then we went to the Yu Garden, a small complex of rock gardens, ponds, sitting rooms and gazebos, built in the 1500s.  Right outside that area lies the Temple Market.  We spent about 2 hours at this Bazaar where students were able to try their hand at bargaining for every type of souvenir imaginable.  Next we went to the Bund riverfront walk which affords a spectacular view of the Shanghai skyline.  We ended our day with a dinner at a local restauant.  

This morning we have a little free time to pack and prepare for our very long trip home.  But we still have time for one more experience.  We will be taking the famous Shanghia "mag lev" train to the airport.  This train travels at speeds of 218 Mph and cuts a 30 minute trip to 7 minutes.  We look forward to seeing you soon! 

Adventures in Xi'An

Much of Tuesday was spent languishing in the hotel and airport waiting for the evening flight that replaced our canceled earlier flight.  Fortunately,  we had been able to fit in our morning visit to the Temple of Heaven Park.  Besides taking in the beautiful wooden temples, we were able to get a private Tai Chi lesson from a local  Tai Chi master, who looked to be in her 60s.   The students learned that Tai Chi is not as easy as it looks when the "grandma" slipped into a Kung-Foo-type-split move that put all of them to shame!

Nevertheless, we arrived safely in Xi'An around 9pm.  Dinner at the airport consisted of anything from  Skittles, to mysteriously flavored potato chips, to something disguised as KFC.

Wednesday we woke up bright and early, enjoyed a buffet breakfast, and headed to the bus for our visit to the Terra Cotta Warriors. This was definitely a highlight.  It is hard to describe the vastness of this wonder of the world.  Roughly 725,000 slaves lived and died to create row upon row upon row  (8,000 + total) of intricately detailed warriors. Knowing that each warrior was handcrafted from a live model reminds one that you are looking into the eyes of an actual person who lived 200 years before Jesus.  Knowing that this unbelievable project was launched by one powerful man, who was fearful for his soul in the afterlife, gives one pause for thought during this Holy Week. What peace we are blessed to have because of our Savior.

After lunch and some souvenir shopping we headed back to Xi'An.  On our way back in we stopped at an art gallery for a calligraphy lesson.  It was so interesting to see the Chinese writing "untangled" into its 8 basic strokes and to try our hand at writing a few words on our own, with ink and brush.  By that time it was raining heavily but we still had time for 2 more very soggy stops.  First, we stopped off at the Xi'An city wall which runs about 8 miles long. Then on to the Muslim district, which was something of a bazaar with shops and food market.  That evening after drying out we went to the  Tang Dynasty Dinner and Show.  We enjoyed a multi-course dinner, followed by an elaborate show of traditional music and dance. 

Today we are off to Shanghai!

We arrived safely in Shanghai.  We will blog tomorrow about our first exciting day!

Jack LeGrand

Xi'an

Just wanted to let everyone know we arrived in Xi'an today.

We will report more tomorrow. We are all very tired from our travels and have a busy day which begins very early.

Thanks

Jack