Our trip to Yellow Mountains

I'm doing this a little backwards since I already posted Christmas Day in Malaysia so be sure to visit our Merry Christmas post as well. I wanted to share these photos of the Yellow Mountains in the Anhui Province near Huangshan about 4 1/2 hours from Shanghai. This now ranks on my top three most beautiful mountains in the world that I have seen (Sawtooths and Banff are the others). We left on Saturday morning on 12/20 and returned late 12/22. There are so many great photos I had a really hard time choosing because the memories are so plentiful. I'll try to give a brief description for your amusement!

Our hotel in Huangshan had a really cool temple and we used long exposure to capture this photo. It's one of my favorites with the reflection in the water.



Boys on horses at the Huashan Cave Park.

The bridge to cross to the caves.

Big bridge, eh?

Zhang in snow. Peace or victory? All the Chinese do this in photos. I think Eric is turning Chinese....

Yup, snow on palm trees!

Eric and his snowman at the base of the Yellow Mountains just before we got on the gondola.

Check out the teeth of these icicles as we rode up the lift.

Looking back

See the walking path?

Now we're walking on the path. I can't imagine being one of the workers building these stone paths.

At the top! Beautiful!

A local village Xi Di. It's over 1000 years old.

This footbridge is made out of wood and 55 gallon drums.

Humm.... I wonder what Odis's boss would say?

Merry Christmas!

It's our Christmas Day photos from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! To all our friends around the world.... Merry Christmas!

12/26/08

A couple of pictures around our hotel "Palace of the Golden Horses". It's a beautiful hotel and quite breath taking.

Front of the hotel

Swimming, we're always breaking the rules....

12/27/08

We went to an Elephant Park and rode, bathed and fed the animals. We had a terrific time! Look everyone, this elephant is tipping us over and we went swimming!

This baby elephant loves sweets such as ice cream and cookies. Andrew and Eric fed it a cookie and it followed them. This little elephant doesn't like oranges. Better get the dentist!

Dad's Sisters

Well, on the 31st of Oct a pair of intrepid souls, for the first time in their lives, ventured outside of the familiar boundaries of their native land to brave the far distant and mysterious orient. Today we happily induct into the world travelers club, two of its newest members; my sisters Beverly and Arlene.

Of course, as we all know, adventures begin with a little funding….

They spent the first day or two in Shanghai getting acclimated to the new environment.

They got to know the people....

and sampled traditional Chinese cuisine….

The fabric and pearl markets, were interesting and enjoyable to the both of them, however it was at the knock-off market (Ku-gi-guan) where the claws began to come out. Other than myself, few noticed the subtle transformation that took place as these mild mannered, mid-western gals with charming, passive demeanor's, evolved into vicious bartering vixens.

With a Stomach full of Shanghai, We took off on a whirlwind tour of eastern China.

Beijing was fun.......

Tianamen Square

The forbidden city

The summer Palace

and, of course, the Great Wall

Our next stop was Xi'an to see the Terra Cotta Soldiers

Then on to Chongqing for a three day cruise on the Yangtze River