Shopping in Shenzhen, Hong Kong.

We flew to Shenzhen where David had some business meetings. In the evening we wanted see how Chinese KFC tasted (and get a little break from the exotic foods). Did you know there are 3 times as many KFC's in China than there are McDonalds in China? Also there are more KFC's in China than there are in the US. They use the same Colonel's original recipe. Yum!

Hannah and I spent the next day shopping with XOS's employee, Johnny. Below is Hannah trying on Jeans in one of the stores. They kindly put up a "curtain" so she could undress.

Hannah saw a brand of jeans that she DESPERATELY wanted. Apparently they cost upwards of $300 in the US, so she wanted to see how much they would cost here. We consulted Johnny and he said we should expect to get them for a reasonable amount. After trying some stuff on, Hannah decided on 2 pairs she liked as well as a t-shirt. I decided on one pair and a hoodie that Hannah claimed ran about $80 in the US. Then, Johnny started the negotiations.

Their first offer was just over $300 for all of it. Hannah was thrilled and whispered through her teeth, "that's a good deal!" She's so bad at negotiating. Johnny and I started our "that's too much" routine and Hannah couldn't contain herself because she thought we were already getting a good deal and she wanted to just pay it so she'd get the jeans. We went back and forth with the shop owners and sent Hannah away from the negotiations. She frantically paced the hall outside the shop sending me warning glances to just take the deal. We were firm on our price and started the walking away part of the negotiation. Hannah was panicked that she might not get her jeans and was trying to convince us that it's a good deal at the higher price and we should take it. As we were explaining to her not to worry, that she'll get her jeans, the shop owner conceded to our price and called us back. Johnny gave us a huge, "told you we'd get it" grin and we went back and paid the less than $100 for everything. Hannah was relieved and almost giddy.

Here's a picture of us with Johnny and all our loot.

We were visiting the XOS office in China. It's pretty nice.

The following day, we traveled by taxi across the border into Hong Kong. That evening we took a tram (steep rail car) to the top of a peak that overlooks the city of Hong Kong. Hong Kong is divided into the mainland side across the bay, and the island side which we were on.

While we were waiting for all the lights in the city to come on, David and Hannah enjoyed "Pocky on the Peak" - David's clever and tasty idea.

The lights of Hong Kong at night.

Apparently in China, the english word for 4, sounds like their word for death, so it is very unlucky. In the US we have our unlucky number 13. The elevator in our hotel catered to every superstition. Notice all the missing numbers.

David and I got up early the next day to attend the Hong Kong Temple. Very beautiful!

Then we picked Hannah up and went to Hong Kong Disney!

Not surprisingly, it's just like every other Disney resort, except it was smaller and had NO lines. There weren't many people there so we had almost no waiting to get on rides. We liked the Buzz Lightyear ride where we could shoot at targets.

Notice the birds on the ground. David was feeding one bird kernels of corn and it's friends flocked in looking for handouts.

View of the Island from the mainland Hong Kong.

There is a 7-11 on every block in Hong Kong. We had Slurpees everyday.

Time to go home.

Terracotta Warriors

When we arrived in Xian, we were greeted by our hosts there: a teenager whose American name was Cassidy, her father Mr. Shang, and our driver Mr. Han. We checked into the hotel then went for a traditional Xian breakfast of dumplings and a kind of grain oatmeal.

Next stop was the reason for our visit, The Terracotta Warriors. I hadn’t heard of them until about a year ago. About an hour North of Xian was the capital of China during one of the Dynasties (before Beijing). The Emperor at that time decided if he was going to die and be underground, then he would need an army (and possibly a whole underground city – or so they think). Thousands of Terracotta Warriors were commissioned. Each warrior is entirely individual and expertly made. The warriors were positioned underground and at some point, it appears the weapons they held were stolen and the warriors broken. In the excavation, they have only unearthed one warrior that was entirely intact. Records and legends of them faded and were lost in the 2000 years since their creation until in the 1970’s when a farmer digging a well found a piece of a soldier that he recognized as something significant. The last 40 years have been spent excavating and putting the soldiers back together in precisely the positions they originally held. They have slowed or stopped further excavation, because the soldiers were originally painted, but as they unearth the soldiers, the paint quickly disintegrates leaving just the Terracotta you seen in the pictures. They are waiting until they have a technology that will allow them to preserve the paint. The following picture is just one of the 3 massive buildings housing the excavation.

Each warrior is completely unique, there are no two the same...amazing!

Hannah and Cassidy
It’s really incredible, but it’s even more mind boggling to think that this was excavated almost a mile from the tomb. Imagine what lies between the soldiers and the tomb. It’s truly amazing. They call it the eighth wonder of the world, and it deserves the rank. How could people have forgotten about this and not passed on the stories to their children and grandchildren?
Following our trip to the Warriors, our hosts took us back to Xian and showed us the famous sites there. The Pagoda in the center of the city where a famous munk studied, the musical fountain nearby, the bell tower (which no longer houses the bell that tolled the hour in ancient times), and the drum tower - pictured below.
Dinner was an adventure I’m not looking forward to repeating anytime soon. We were taken, again for a traditional Xian meal. It’s a kind of soup with little pieces of a pancake/biscuit thing broken up in it. We had to break it up - the smaller the better we were told. The darn biscuit wouldn’t crumble, it was really dense, it had to be torn apart bit by little tiny bit. They said that we would appreciate the meal more because it was our work. It took over an hour to break the things up into little tiny pieces. I’m sure there is some Chinese virtue we were supposed to develop in the process that was entirely lost on these tired, hungry travelers. We did have some appetizers that we could eat to take a break from making biscuit crumbs, but David, Hannah, and I are so competitive, we hardly wanted to stop unless the other ones did for fear they’d get ahead and beat the other ones done.

Done breaking - finally!

In the end they poured the soup over the crumbs. Hannah and I couldn’t even eat half and David didn’t finish his. It might be funny looking back on it...someday.

Beijing Zoo, Orient Express

We had to make a stop to see the famous pandas at the Beijing Zoo. They look so cuddly.

Time to eat some bamboo.

Another photo request from the locals. We'll be in scrapbooks all over China. The child looks a little scared to me.

After seeing other animals at the zoo, we made one more stop at the Pearl market to pick up more pearls for other people we thought of. Then it was time to get dinner and head for the train. We got to ride on our version of the Orient Express. We were headed for a city called Xian (She on) and chose to take an overnight train to get there. We actually slept pretty well. The entire trip was 12 hours. Here's pictures of our compartment.

Morning in Xian.

Olympic Site in Beijing, Temple of Heaven, and Americans on parade

We visited the site of the 2008 Summer Olympics. We saw the venues including the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube.
We also visited the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.

Then later in the day Hannah and I tagged along for business meetings David had with a supplier outside of Beijing. It was far enough outside of Beijing to be considered the countryside. Apparently people in the countryside haven't seen many Americans in real life, because they were ALL staring. Between my blonde hair, Hannah's big eyes, and her "white" face, we were quite a spectacle. Bicyclists would slow down or stop to gawk, small children would stare, and we worried that we might cause an accident when we hit the road where cars were driving. The best one was were a little girl ran around to the front of us, stopped, looked back at Hannah, covered her mouth and let out a giggly squeal then ducked into a nearby doorway. It was hilarious. They wouldn't let us walk out on the street alone, so we had our babysitter following close behind all the time. We tried waving at the small children to show we were friendly, but none waved back. We thought maybe this wasn't their custom. Later we saw people waving, so the kids were either too stunned or too scared to wave back. It was hilarious.

Our babysitter (name unknown, he spoke no english, we just used hand signals) bought us some pineapple on a stick from a little sidewalk produce stand. Then he wanted us to have some meat on a stick from a sidewalk vendor. We signalled for just 1. He gave us each 6 by the time we were done as well as some boiled peanuts (maybe holding up 1 finger means 6 in Chinese?). Hannah and I discovered we LOVE lamb. It was sooo good!

While we were waiting for our meat on a stick to cook we noticed a baby playing under a pool table on the sidewalk a little way up the sidewalk. You don't see that everyday.

This is a picture of us with our babysitter after going to a dinner of Peking duck with several of David's business associates.

Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, and the Pearl Market

While still in Beijing, Hannah and I took a tour of the sites in downtown Beijing while David and Yejun had a full day of business meetings. First stop Tiananmen Square. The square is a HUGE paved open area. At one end is a large memorial to Mao Tse Dong where his body is entombed in a glass case (rumor is, that the body has been replaced by a wax replica). Our tour guide didn’t want to go there, so we didn’t go in the memorial (there are mixed feelings about Mao Tse Dong in China).

Hannah and I in Tiananmen Square

At the other end of the square is the Forbidden City. It is a massive estate of palaces and supporting buildings. Every bit as massive and beautiful as you would expect. This is a picture of the Imperial Palace.

Apparently, we were somewhat of a novelty with some of the people. These were the first people to ask to have their picture taken with us.

After walking through the Imperial Gardens at the far end of the Forbidden City, we exited the Forbidden City and crossed the street to Jingshan Park. We climbed the mount in the park, which was constructed from dirt dug from the moat around the Forbidden City, where you could overlook the Forbidden City and most of Beijing (depending on visibility due to air quality).



Following our tour we had a lunch of traditional Beijing style noodles, then headed off shopping.




First stop, the Pearl Market. Paula knew the owner of one of the stores, so we didn’t have to bargain. The prices were really cheap. About as cheap as buying costume jewelry in the US, so Hannah and I got a little carried away picking out jewelry for us and ones to bring back for gifts. But it was a great deal. While the pearl shop made our jewelry, we went to other floors to do some bargaining for good deals.

The sales people are relentless. I can’t tell you how many times we heard, “Hi lady, you want _____”. They will even grab your arm to stop you. One time a lady had Hannah by the arm and I tried to pull her off with no luck, the lady had an iron grip. Luckily we were warned ahead of time or it would have been a little scary. If we saw something we wanted we would walk a little past the booth, pull Paula aside and have her coach us on what we should pay and where to start the bidding, then we would go back prepared for battle.

The bargaining game went a little like this. They type a completely outrageous price on a calculator and show it to us, we act offended and shocked at the high price. We say, “No that’s too much!” Then they say, “How much you pay?” and hand us the calculator. We type in something about 70% less than what they asked. This time they act shocked and give us a price that’s half of their first offer. Then we say it’s still too much and type in our offer again and tell them that’s our final price. They still try to talk us into something higher, so we say we’ll get it from someone else and mention we saw it on another aisle. Then they say, ”no, no, final price” and give us our original asking price or something very close. Hannah seemed to weaken our bargaining position when she would start giggling and have to step away from the booth so she didn’t distract us. There were times, when you threatened to walk away and they would grab onto your wrists and you would be dragging them down the aisle until they finally gave in and gave you the price you wanted. Really it was kind of hilarious. It helped having Paula there.


We were so exhausted from the day, we went back to the hotel and crashed without having dinner.

I climbed the Great Wall!

That's what it says on the souvenir T-shirts we bought because that's exactly what we did. And when I say climb, I mean climb. We couldn't do the normal tourist thing and go out to the designated Great Wall tourist area, take a picture, and be done. Nope. Instead we opted for a full day excursion that included a trek along 7 miles of the Great Wall. It felt like 7 miles of stairs - straight up. It is every bit as beautiful as any pictures you've seen. Yejun He, a scientist from XOS, accompanied us on the trip where we found out he was affraid of heights. I don't think he'll be doing that trip again anytime soon. Seriously though, I understand the tactical advantage of building fortifications on the mountain tops, but what kind of of crazy people actually do it.

Hannah made a BFF in her Chinese Sherpa that led her safely along treacherous parts of the wall. (Actually it was a local farmer who was trying to be helpful so we would buy cold bottles of water and souveniers)

Good Morning from Beijing

We arrived in Beijing after a 12-hour flight yesterday. We checked into the hotel, then headed straight for a tailor. We ordered 2 custom made suits for David with 2 pants each and a business suit each for Hannah and I (Hannah's first "interview suit") which included pants and a skirt. All of this custom made for less than $500! What a deal. David got his usual enjoyment from haggling the price. Their original asking price was $400 for one of David's suits. Even the Chinese people we were with thought it was a great deal. We were all measured and will return in 2 days for the fitting and pickup.

Following our quick shopping stop, we had dinner with Wonder who is XOS's distributor for Sulfer Analyzers in China. There were several people from Wonder's company and Wonder's wife, Paula, as well. We enjoyed fine Chinese dishes like Kung Pao chicken, broiled lamb, barbecued ribs, frog, pig's feet, and bamboo (did you know you can eat steamed young bamboo? Me neither. Kind of reminded me of an artichoke). We ate outside on a nice roof top restaurant.

Unfortunately it was dark and what looked like a green bean, was actually one of those really hot dried red pepper's. Fortunately it was dark, so no one could see the tears streaming down my face and the pained expression.