Thursday, September 25, 2008

This is Maylee's lady bug outfit, Tommy said take a picture she looks so cute.
Daddy thought it would be funny to put Maylee's big girl panties on her head......she doesn't look that amused but Daddy was.

Look a these bee wasp things that has been eating our swing set on our patio.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Another One of Those "Chinese" Things

Aah.....Maylee in her big girl panties, holding her Hello Kitty purse and enjoying a vegetable pretzel stick, first thing in the morning.
Here is the view from our balcony to the playground below.

Here's another one of those things they do here with no safety precautions. I was so mad that I couldn't get a picture fast enough but when I looked out my kitchen window I saw this guy up ON TOP of the air conditioner (like the one above him) and he was unscrewing it......mind you, we do live on the 35th floor and there where, again, no safety harness or anything of the sorts. This picture is after he got the unit into the apartment. Another thing Maylee and I have seen, is a guy that was ON TOP of a sign 2 stories up changing the light bulb with no safety restraints.


Thursday, September 18, 2008

Isn't This Scary?

One slip and this is what the fall would have been like. I don't think you can see the red dots of their shirts but they are at the top of this photo. The crazy things they do here in China!
Here they are pulling it up over the ledge. They had no kind of restraints and had the ropes in their hands freely.

and this is what they were doing.......it's a huge frame of some sort.



I looked out my bedroom window and saw these two guys in red shirts with ropes in their hands.


Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The New Temple In Xiamen

This is one of the many gods that are in the temple......don't ask me which it is I just thought it was a good picture.

This is where they burn their "heaven money"......you can buy it just about anywhere and they burn it and pray.
These are carved dragons


Isn't it pretty




As we are walking up to the temple there were these sticks. I asked Xiao Chen what they were and he said there were incense. The one on the far right was about 5 or 6 feet tall and he said it would burn for days.



Sunday, September 14, 2008

The little boy that wasn't really a little boy......

Tommy went out of town on a business trip so in the evenings Maylee and I would get bored and after dinner we would go just outside of our apartment and walk around. This little boy took a great interest in Maylee and kept wanting to hug her and touch her. This picture is the second night we went out and hung out with him and he gave Maylee a strawberry milk drink. The third night we went out to meet him and he was dressed in pink and had a pony tail......guess it was a girl after all. Never can tell no one cares about color here.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Back from the Mountain and Resting

This is the community temple......I think the temples are very neat!
After we left YunDong Yan mountain, we went to Xiao Su's parents house and were honered to be their guests for lunch, the food was amazing! After we ate we took the kids for a ride in their little community, Tommy and I even got a haircut. Aren't the girls cute together!

YunDong Yan Continued

On our way from the mountain we saw one of these tractor truck things that Tommy gets a kick out of. He sees them quite often when he is out of the city.
Looking back up after we mastered the mountain.....okay, so the temple isn't quite mid mountain.

The beautiful view coming down.


Here are some more carved stairs we had to master in order to get down the "short cut" way. This is our driver, Xiao Chen and his wife Xiao Su, they had to carry 2 little ones the whole time.



Here's a view of the stairs......they are carved into the rock.




More YunDong Yan

The hike was all stairs, the Chinese seem to really like stairs....every where you go "hiking" is stairs. These were the stairs that were the "short cut".
Here he is taking a picture of himself at the tippy top.

Fun picture of Maylee and Tommy. Tommy is at the tippy top.


View from the tippy top



At times it was a tight fit.




Our Trip to YunDong Yan in ZhangZhoe

Isn't it pretty!
This is one of the views from the top.

This is a temple that is about mid mountain.


Here's the mountain that we climbed.








Sunday, September 7, 2008

The best fireworks we have EVER seen!



When the fireworks began, it gave Maylee quit the startle and she cried a little. As you can see, she got used to them pretty fast and even fell asleep before they ended. What a sweet picture!

We heard there were some kind of fireworks for a convention that was being held here and it was within walking distance. The fireworks lasted for almost 1 1/2 hours straight and were the most amazing fireworks any of us had EVER seen.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Our trip to Gulangyu/Piano Island

Xiamen at night view from Gulanguy.
Maylee and Mommy with Xiamen at night in the background.

Maylee and Daddy with Gulanguy in the background.
Come on daddy, I will show you what I want.......
but I want one!

More of Gulangyu but taken while on the island. No bikes or motorized vehicles allowed on the island. This tunnel is for walking.
Maylee and Mommy sharing a coconut on the beach of the island.
Maylee's first experience of sharing.
Who are all those people gathered around? Is it someone famous? If you look close you can see Tommy's head and Maylee's pink shoes in the middle of all those people. It started out that Maylee went to pet someones dog and then before we knew it people had surrounded her to take a look at the Mag-guo piao-liarng xiao may may (American pretty younger sister). She was a big star on the island with many people taking pictures, touching her skin & hair and asking to hold her.


View of Xiamen from the Ferry
View of Gulangyu from Ferry









The Ferry