Where has the time gone???  Here is a much delayed update of what has been going on for the past few months.

 

In December before leaving for the winter break, we decided to visit a VERY cold location in northern China for a 3 day adventure.  We prepared the best we could with warm boots, long johns, hats, gloves, coats, scarves, etc.  But despite our best preparation, we were still quite cold during our visit to this frozen city.  I had at least 5 layers on, felt like the abominable snowman and still the stinging bite of the below zero temps about killed me!  It was almost impossible to take pictures because my fingers would freeze in milli-seconds!  Here is a little about NE China:

 Harbin, which was originally a Manchu word meaning  "a place for drying fishing nets",  grew from a small rural settlement on the Songhua River to become one of the largest cities in Northeast China. Founded in 1898 with the coming of the Chinese Eastern Railway, the city first prospered as a region inhabited by an overwhelming majority of the immigrants from the Russian Empire.

Having the most bitterly cold winters among major Chinese cities, Harbin is heralded as the Ice City for its well-known winter tourism and recreations.  Harbin is notable for its beautiful ice sculpture festival in the winter, the largest in the world.

It truly was an Ice Festival to rival the one in Sapporo, where our son Vincent served his mission and we also visited many years ago while living in Japan.  Jordan and I had matching “Russian looking” hats and matching coats.  One night while walking through the ice and snow sculptures (everything you see is literally made of ice & snow and ginormous), at least 3 different times we were approached by Chinese visitors asking us questions in Chinese.  When we started speaking English to them they looked horrified-ly shocked and laughed hysterically.  We must look like “official” Chinese in all our winter attire…at night! 

We also visited a Siberian Tiger preserve in Harbin.  The white tiger refused to show his face!

After Harbin we headed to America for a little R&R with family!  It was so great to be together again.  We made fun memories, had fun activities, and look forward to lots more fun Powell excursions together. 

We headed back to China February 20^th, but learned too late to change flights that we didn’t have to resume teaching until March 9^th.  So, we decided to plan another little trip to somewhere we have always wanted to go…Cambodia.  What an awesome adventure!  We stayed at the Siddharta Boutique Hotel and had our own personal tuk-tuk driver to take us wherever we wanted to go each day.  What a great surprise and added bonus to the room rate!  It was SO hot and humid that by 1 pm every day we were ready to head back to the hotel and get in the swimming pool.  We visited many ancient temples including Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm, Bayon and others. 


Here are a few snapshots from our trip…

After all the fun, we started teaching again March 9^th.  Our schedule didn’t end up being the best, but we are hanging in there.  We don’t have Mondays or Fridays off, which makes it more difficult to do any weekend trips, so I think we are about finished traveling in China.  We took one more little trip this last weekend and it was AWESOME!  

We went to a place called Zhangjiajie in Hunan province.

 Zhangjiajie city itself was previously named Dayong (大庸), and has a recorded history dating back to 221 BC. Humans lived here along both banks of the Lishui River (the mother river in Zhangjiajie), now within the boundaries of Zhanagjiajie City, very early during the Stone Age.  Human settlement in this region dates back 100,000 years, rivaling such famous sites as Xi’an, Beijing and others. 


This is the place with the mountains that inspired the movie “Avatar!”  Other than a few rainy downpour moments and a few horrendously long lines for one cable car (4+ hrs) to get to the top and see only mist, we had a great time seeing the beauty of yet another area in China.

Here are some pics including my man, his GoPro and a "Chinglish" t-shirt that says, "Heep the Dream - Hunting Top - Energy you can feel! ;)

Now, we are counting down the weeks until we head back to the land of internet!  We have loved this experience but we are totally ready to be home!  China is an amazing adventure and we have enjoyed learning more and more about the culture, the people and the language.

The other day we were in a taxi and the driver all of a sudden tossed some candy back to us.  It was so unexpected because mostly the taxi drivers don’t talk to you at all and sometimes don’t want to pick up foreigners, but this was a wonderful surprise!  

Don't forget...."Heep the Dream!"