china

296 pictures.

that's how many pictures we took on our trip.

how do you turn 10 days and 296 pictures into one blog post?

well here's my best attempt at just that. good luck in making it to the end!

"MARA! JAE!!"

we have never had someone be so excited to see us and yell our names out like that.

until we got to china and my nephew Liam did just that every.single.day.

it was the cutest. we loved it.

china was so fun. i'm so glad we went.

we spent way too much money.

in fact, if i start thinking about it too much, i start to get anxiety thinking about it.

so i won't.

because that's what you do on trips.

you spend lots of unnecessary money.

here are a few of the highlights:

*getting to hang out with my sister and her fun family

*going to Suzhou for a day

*doing puzzles, puzzles, & more puzzles with said nephew. did i mention he's the cutest? ever? we could not get enough of him. so so funny.

*heated lights in the bathrooms (they don't believe in insulation in China, so the bathrooms especially were frigid. those lights saved our behinds everyday)

*watching Jae experience China

*riding the metro and being the only white people there = getting lots of stares (seriously, it's like they've never seen a white person before)

*shopping & bargaining

*lots & lots of ice cream with homemade fudge. mmmmmm.

*the traffic is always crazy, which makes for some awesome (sometimes truly unbelievable) situations on the roads

*the ridiculous amounts of people everywhere, all the time!

*walking the Bund

*all of the many times we ate dumplings

*the late night talks with my sis & her hubs

*point blank getting laughed at for our poor chopstick-eating skills (what do they expect? geez)

*flying business class to and from Shanghai

*street food. suuper cheap.

*not getting lost! ever! we were excellent big-city, foreign language navigators

*our absolutely perfect anniversary dinner on the 56th floor of the Grand Hyatt hotel in downtown Pudong. man, i love that husband of mine.

enough talk. onto the pictures. that's what you all want to see anyway, yes?

Liam really likes stickers. and sharing them with us. (he's putting it on my leg)

to give you an idea of their idea of a 'meat market'...

yes, those are frogs.
yup.

did we mention how much we love this Liam boy?

top of Tiger's hill in Suzhou

yes, they even blow dried Jae's hair.
for about 20 seconds. and it was already dry before they started.

pool in their clubhouse. the water was barely luke warm, not so inviting.

Yuyuan Gardens

the Bund

that wall is covered in flowers. so pretty.

starbucks and their hot chocolate saved us many times.
jae's playing peek-a-boo.

this street is called Taikong Road.
it's filled with the cutest little art stores, boutiques and cafes.

Elias is such a happy camper

Liam literally fell asleep just leaning against the back
of a chair. it was like 4 in the afternoon. hilarious!

puzzles on the ipod

on our anniversary.
we had these dark purple/blackish calla lilies at our wedding,
so Jae picked me out two for two years of marriage :)

the oriental pearl tower
(it's actually a TV tower)

fancy shmancy mall with all the designer brands
that we can't afford

the building in front with the white pointy top
is where we ate our {expensive} anniversary dinner.
(it's a bit on the blurry side - my bad)

coming home.

and there you have it.

our trip to China.

the end.