Jeff's Trip to China Part I

Jeff was in China for a school trip for 7 days. He started his journey flying to Oslo, Moscow and then down to Shanghai. In Shanghai they spent a day visiting the World Expo ( I will post pictures of this tomorrow) before they flew on to Xiamen. When they left Xiamen they spent the day in Beijing. He said it was an amazing trip even though the heat and humidity got to him. Make sure to click on some of the pictures to see them larger. Some of the detail on the skyline, palaces and shrines are very cool. Shanghai's skyline. This skyline was developed in the last 20 years, prior to that time there were no sky scrapers in this area.
A restaurant they ate at in Shanghai.
Snake! Jeff said that you could pick out your own snake for them to cook up. He said it tasted like chicken.
Another restaurant Xiamen. The meal here cost Jeff about $80 USD so it was a very expensive restaurant for the city.Pigs ear. Jeff did not try this but those that did liked it.
Octopus which was good.
Lobster.
Wall decor.
On the way to a buddhist temple.
Inside the temple.
A buddhist temple.
Inside the temple.
This means Buddha.
In Beijing this is the entrance to the forbidden palace from Tiananmen Square.
Tianenmen Square. Jeff said it was huge. Beijing is VERY polluted. He said it never gets sunnier than this day!
On the backside of the Forbidden Palace the group hiked up a mountain to take pictures and this was at the top.
The shrine on top of the mountain they hiked.
Looking into the Forbidden Palace.

I will post pictures of the World Expo and of the cool things that Jeff brought us back in the next couple of days. Jeff also brought back a cold from China that I have also caught so I'm running a little slow right now. More posts soon!

Bye Bye Spain

This is more of a farewell post so to really get a feeling for our trip scroll down to the first entry and then read backwards.

Flying over the beach.
She's such a great traveler!
This is flying over the Center of Arts and Science where the Oceanagraphic is located. The buildings are very impressive.

With a heavy heart we said goodbye to Valencia on Sunday. We loved the city and the people and the food. I loved the heat and my tan oh and the cheap wine. In grocery stores one can buy good wine for 1 Euro!! We bought a lot of cheap wine to drink in our room. Prices in Spain are great. On par with if not a little cheaper than back in Montana. Coming from one of the most expensive countries in the world (i.e., Norway) being able to eat out every day was such a treat. The grocery stores prices were really cheap. On our way back from the beach we decided we were hungry but didn't want to wait until 8 when the restaurants opened so we snuck in the grocery store. For 6 Euro we got, two bottles of wine, a pack of cheese, a large pack of turkey lunch meat and a loaf of bread! The equivalent in Norway would be closer to 50 Euro and probably around $20 in the US. Jeff and I decided we could retire in Spain. The funny thing is that my one semester of Spanish back in highschool was enough to get my point across and many of the locals spoke English or enough to get their point across. I have a feeling this will not be my last trip to Spain!!

The Mediterranean Sea

We spent a day on the beach. I'd have loved to have spent more time there but our hotel was a long ways away. When we got to the beach it was around noon and we were hungry. The area has dozens of restaurants that look out onto the beach. We choose the only one we could find open at noon (most open for lunch at 1 or 2). It turned out to be a good choice. Our view!
Drinking the cheap wine. Even at restaurants you can get really good wine for 10 - 15 Euro a bottle. We drank two.

Paella, so good. We ordered shrimp with garlic and a ham, egg and potato appetizer that was great. We got toasted bread that you could put mayo or a fresh tomato sauce on. Then came the paella. They even threw in free desert, two sponge type cakes with pudding and blueberry or strawberry sauce. What a great way to start the day!
We paid for a cabana and one chair. It cost 7.5 Euro per day. The beer was cheap so we had a few of those too.
Me in the ocean but you'll notice the leather woman in the foreground, she has no top on. In fact we saw a ton of topless women. Tops are optional I guess. Jeff took a few pictures but none that were G rated enough for the blog. This one cracked me up since the arm of a chair is strategically placed to cover boob.
The couple in the background were from California. How funny to sit right next to other Americans on the beach.
Daddy had fun covering Avery up.
The beach was HUGE! The biggest I've ever seen.
The topless leather woman from the back. Scary. I think she spends every day on the beach with her retired friends, not a bad life.
Daddy taking Avery out into the Sea. She enjoyed it.

Awesome beach I would go back again in a heartbeat!

Oceanagraphic

The Oceanagraphic or Aquarium in Valencia was fabulous. Of course this happened to be the day that like idiots we forgot our camera, luckily Jeff had his cell phone on him. The place consists of 10 different areas, each with it's own building or outside habitat. The underground aquariums were really cool, one of them you even walked through a tube with fish swimming all around you. Flashes aren't allowed underground so not many of those pictures turned out. The ones above ground, however, turned out! Avery liked the penguins and the nemos. The structures are architecturally very cool! The dolphin show was great!
Some of the architecture.

Sangria in a bottle! This entire bottle was 5 Euro, we drank two of them and even got a free hat!! Ave got a slushie.

Old Town

When Jeff finally had some time off of his conference we decided to spend the day in Old Town Valencia. This is an area of Valencia that holds many old buildings including; cathedrals, a market, government buildings and forts. The streets are small with apartments on either side and shops and restaurants on the bottom. There are many plazas most of which have beautiful fountains. We had a wonderful time exploring the area. We even found a Burger King located in a beautiful old building and a Starbucks. We peaked inside an old door and this was what we saw. Click on the image to see it larger.
An example of the streets. This was taken from a plaza.
My favorite plaza. The flooring is all marble and I'm guessing the apartments in this area are pricey.
Avery chasing the birds in the same plaza.
Taken in front of the Plaza.
The fountain, notice the beautiful flooring.
The Cathedral.
Outside the Cathedral.
Sooo flipping good. We don't have Starbucks in Norway so this was a real treat!!
I think this was in front of one of the old government buildings.
I'm going to have to look all these buildings up to get the names. The Burger King was in the next building over.
The Central Market (Merket Central) in the Plaza del Mercado. This place has been around for 100 years selling all sorts of interesting goods. The seafood was amazing and I really wished we had a place to cook it! There was a lot of fruits and other odd things being sold. We bought some fresh fruit juice that was wonderful. Such a cool place.
The outside of the Central Market.
Inside the Torres de Serranos. This is an old city gate built in 1392. It was used for defense of the city and is riddled with bullet holes.
Torres de Serranos. We should have gotten a picture from the front, but we didn't instead we bought a post card. There are two torrents just like this one with a door in the center. This was the first thing we saw when we got to old town. We took the metro from our hotel and the metro in Valencia is surprisingly clean and efficient. Actually the entire area of the city we toured was clean and felt safe.