In August, the girls returned back to school. Kayla started 4th grade, and McKenna started Kindergarten. They continue to excel in school don't complain about it too much. With Yew Chung being an international school for primarily Expatriate children, the turnover rate is quite high (as many parents are on 2-3 year assignments). This year, Kayla's good friend Claren returned with her family back to Australia. The girls spent a lot of time at each others houses and they both were not looking forward to having to separate. Kayla is missing Claren and continues to keep in touch through email. There are a couple new girls who arrived, one from England and another Japan and they all are spending more time together and Kayla is helping them with the transition to Yew Chung.
We caught some great days in Shanghai in September (which is an excellent time to visit Shanghai in addition to April-May). The 1930's architecture of the Bund area near the river continues to impress and with new roof deck bars and restaurants opening it is an active and fun place to hang out and enjoy the city lights. A couple of our favorites: Ritz-Carlton roof deck bar, Lost Heaven roof deck patio, Stiller's roof deck, New Heights roof deck. (Yes there is a pattern there).
In October we travelled to South Western China (just north of the Vietnam border) to Yunnan Provence. Yunnan is home to a large majority of the Minority Tribes in China. We spent time in the Stone Forrest near Kunming, hiked through local villages during the rice harvest, visited Tiger Leaping Gorge & Shangri-La. We were there about one week and it is impossible to include here all of the amazing sights, scenery, & people we saw there. Probably the highlight for me was walking near the rice fields watching the farmers cutting and thrashing the rice by hand. No mechanisation at all and felt a bit like travelling back in time to what it must of been like in the US in the early 1900's I'm guessing. We also dropped into a local temple and was treated to tea by the temple caretaker (above). Quite a memorable experience!We celebrated Halloween and Thanksgiving at home and invited some of our close friends to join us for the festivities. Both holidays are uniquely American and it is particularly entertaining to watch the other non-American foreign kids embrace Halloween to get free candy. I think that we had maybe 200-300 kids come to the house for candy (because we had American candy: Smarties, candy corns, etc. hand carried in- thanks Ed & Adam!). US Candy is the best (German Kinder eggs a close second).
We took holiday vacation during Christmas time (which is not celebrated in China) and flew to New Zealand for a two week Camper Van spectacular. We rented a camper van and drove over the South island of New Zealand from Christ Church across and down the West Coast to Milford Sound, Queenstown, and back again (camping the entire way). NZ is an outdoorsman Mecca. Mountains with glaciers to oceans & whale watching within a very short distance. Unbelievable outdoor opportunities. We spent Christmas on a overnight cruise through Milford Sound in the South Western part of the Island sharing a British Christmas with some Germans, Australians, British, & Americans. Kids enjoyed the "crackers", but the British Christmas cake should be avoided (like fruit cake - just not as good). Here is a brief montage of NZ: Beautiful Christchurch architecture, climbing Redwoods, Whale watching...no whales but dolphins...too rough and a lot of really sea sick people, seals at the campsite, ocean 30 ft. from camper, spectacular sunset, new screensaver, playing in waves, pancake rocks, one lane bridges shared with trains (really?), 3 walking suspension bridges, 2 glaciers, kayaking, so many sheep, wine, drenched by waterfall, bungee jumping 10 yr old (not mine, but McKenna cried that she couldn't do it at 6), stars, couple thousand pictures, 4 happy campers.Unfortunately, in February an 6.3 earth quake hit Christchurch again and leveled many of the buildings and severely damaging many others. Much of the church steeple shown here has been completely destroyed since this picture was taken in December.
Early February was China's traditional "Spring Festival" which is a week long holiday that marks the beginning of the New Year based on the lunar calendar. As we have learned from experience that one should never travel in China during a Chinese Holiday (crowds), we went to Boracay, Philippines for some warmer weather. The week consisted of basically sitting in a beach chair, drinking beer, and basically doing nothing. It was everything that I hoped it could be. We were joined by a couple of our friends: The Peats and the Ihlens. We used the time as a last hurrah with Lars and Anna as Lars has accepted a new job and will move with the family to Paris.So that pretty much brings us up to date. Obviously, we have done a lot of travel, but our philosophy is to travel absolutely as much as possible to take advantage of the opportunity that we have by being located on this side of the world. I think we have given it our best shot.
