Smog Lake City

This awesome inversion is just wonderful.  It keeps the warmth from the sun out of Salt Lake by blocking all it's rays.  It holds the pollution and junk in the air so we can smell it's sweet aroma.  It promotes S.A.D. disorder by keeping everything cold, gloomy, and grey.

On the other hand, it is really beautiful if you see it from the right perspective.
Hmmm.  That sounds like a life lesson.








Photos taken at the park by my house and from the top of Grandeur Peak.

Welcome Home

We were welcomed home from China with a nice surprise... Our sewer backed up and flooded the basement.  Awesome.
It's a $1,000 deductible we pay to our insurance who will pay for the basement repairs.  Insurance doesn't cover the sewer line 7 feet deep in our front yard, which runs $3,500 to $7,000 to fix.

I thought for sure we'd just bought ourselves a new sewer line for Christmas and our next 2 birthdays!!

Fortunately, Todd's mad skills prompted him to just fix it himself, with a little help from a professional.

It ended up costing maybe $500, and it looks like we'll be able to do some work on the basement to "take care of" the $1,000 deductible.  Yesss!!!

Here's our used-to-be-beautifully-completed laundry room.  (Toilet is from bathroom, not a permanent fixture in the laundry room ha ha.)


And what's left of the bathroom:


Todd learned the ropes on the excavator.


And Nat ended up helping too.


Our new best friend Tom

Thanks everyone for your help!!

Lost in Translation

Here are several things we photographed because they just didn't quite translate as intended.Please throw organisms in trash can:


I'm not exactly sure what this one means:


Hungry? Why wait, grab a noodle horse:


I really like tomatoes.


And corn? Delicious.


If you're thirsty in Hong Kong you can just grab a can of sweat:


So good, don't you dare taste them.


Obamao


Believe it or not we saw a lot of this:






This is the pharmacy.


And for your viewing pleasure, here are some Chinese music videos and soap opera teasers:

China Part Four

We woke up early and took the scariest ride of our lives.  Riding a huge tour bus we made our way to the Longsheng Rice Terraces.  Our driver was verrry aggressive.  And possibly insane.
The bus driver was passing people as often as he could- bicycles, mopeds, semis, etc.  But he was crossing over double solid lines into oncoming traffic like it was nothing.  I remember one time in particular we were flying along the wrong side of the road trying to pass a huge truck, with our road turning a corner and disappearing around the mountain side.  As we got closer to the blind corner, and were still in the wrong lane, wouldn't you know it-- a semi rounded the bend-- heading straight for us!  I was having major anxiety (as were half the people on the bus) and the semi-driver slammed his breaks and flashed his lights madly at us, while veering off to the side of the road.  The truck we were trying to pass slammed on their brakes and we just kept zooming along, then our driver finally got back to the correct side of the road without missing a beat, as if he'd planned the whole thing. 
It seemed as if the whole bus collectively sighed with relief. 

Eventually we made it to the Rice Terraces, and Todd and I decided to break off from the tour and make our own way along the tiny villages.

"During the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) minorities were forced to flee to the mountains.  Being primarily an agricultural society, they needed to find a way to continue agriculture on the steep sides of the mountains. They ingeniously turned the mountains into fields by creating the terraced fields." This makes for incredible scenery year round.
(www.chinaodysseytours.com)

Tiantau Village on the left:


Ping'an Village on the right:


Farmers hard at work:


There are virtually no roads, but there are stone paths all over the place. Everything is carried on a horse or on your back.  The tiny women tried relentlessly to carry our huge backpacks for a fee.  Our bags probably weighed half as much as they did.
Todd turning down a hopeful baggage carrier:




Most of the middle aged and older Yao women wear matching pink outfits, black hair-wraps, and silver earrings.  We were told that before modern plumbing existed, they would use the bathroom out in the open in front of everyone from the village.  With newspaper covering their faces, and the same clothes as everyone else in the village, their identity was concealed and they could poop without embarrassment.  Ha!

Thanks to their updated plumbing, you can see our five star bathroom, where the sink water drains right onto the floor:

We backpacked to Tiantou and found a $6.00 hotel. After hiking around we ate a huge dinner for one dollar. One dollar!
We slept in the next morning, then had some adventures as we backpacked the 4 or 5 hour trip to Ping'an Village. The Yao women are crafty!


The women stop cutting their hair after they turn 18.  They let you see their six feet of hair if you pay them first. :)  I pretty much felt like a walking dollar sign in these villages.

This photo cost us $2:


One of these things is not like the others...


A few ladies got us to pay them to cook lunch. It cost seven times the amount we would pay at a hotel, but it was still just $7. Plus we got to see their house and watch them cook on their "stove" aka fire-pit-on-the-floor.



The food was good, but we worried about the water used to wash the vegetables.  We ate it anyway and didn't get sick.



Then the women kept trying to force a mysterious drink on us, which we realized was rice wine. I guess tourists give more generous tips when they're tipsy.


We saw a TON of puppies all over the villages, but only two dogs. Then we wondered if the adult dogs were used for their meat. :(

Even less appetizing was the rat-on-a-string you could buy to snack on:


Or how about a dried bird?


Once we made it back to civilization as we know it, we bussed back to Guilin, stayed the night at a hostel, and flew home the next day.

We did, however, have an eight hour layover in Guangzhou, the wholesale capital of the world. There was a place named Shoe City there! A multi level enormous super mall full of just shoe stores.  I know a lot of women who would have been in heaven there. 
We also spent hours roaming around a high rise building with three wings and multiple levels of stuff. Every imaginable chinese novelty was for sale for cheap. And we bought two pairs of gloves, airplane pillows, and lunch. I guess we're just not Chinese novelty kind of people.

Todd did find a permanent ping pong table in the middle of a city block, and played against some skilled kids. This was the highlight of Guangzhou.


Finally back in the USA, we had an overnight layover in Los Angeles. We ordered a huge American pizza and ate most of it laying in bed watching Seinfeld, then woke up at 3 in the morning and ate the rest of the pizza.
It. Was. Awesome!
It's always SO good to be back in the USA, even if everything costs ten times more. 
This trip has been one of my best ever.  I loved that everything seemed so different from my "ordinary" life.  I loved that hardly anyone spoke English fluently, if at all.  I loved that everyone seemed to be a farmer or a fisherman.  And I loved the scenery.

I loved China.

China Part Three

We braved the insanity of the streets and rented mopeds!  It was pretty crazy weaving in and out of buses, vans, bicycles, motorcycles, and semis.  But we made it to some really cool spots.  Here's a low-traffic scenic area:

We swam in the Yulong River and jumped off Dragon Bridge.

Next we went to Shangri La, a touristy park.  The boat ride was full of cheesy gimmicks, but the scenery was phenomenal.




After eating lunch back in Yangshuo we went to the Big Banyan Tree which was planted more than a thousand years ago. It was beautiful!
A man leading a cow around at the banyan tree area:




We tried to eat the popular "Beer Duck"  but only found a few small morsels of meat among the skin, bones, and webbed feet.  The vegetables were good though.


Mmmmmm... Yummy...


It was Dave and Mikelle's last day before they flew to Shanghai, so we went back to the firework store that night and bought the biggest pack they had.


We got a lot of stares as we made our way to the river:


I let the boys light this one.  Todd said it was, "every 12 year old boy's dream come true."

Dave and Mikelle left the following morning and Todd and I rented an electric scooter and went to the Butterfly Cave and then watched the sun set from Moon Hill. Moon hill is the single reason I have wanted to visit China all these years. It is amazing.




Moon Hill:


The view from Moon Hill:


The following day we moved to Climber's Inn, a hostel full of climbers.  Some of them invited us to join them at "The Egg," so we did.






We went to dinner with the climbers and stayed up late talking about life with some Canadians. They were really cool and philosophical about following their passions in life. It was really nice to talk to them.

The next day we tried acupuncture! Todd's wrist has been injured for months and has been recovering very slowly so he had Dr. Lily jab him there. She also stuck a needle in his palm- ouch. His wrist actually seemed to improve after the acupuncture, maybe that stuff really works?




After watching Todd receive treatment, I opted for a Chinese medicine back massage instead. :) It felt great.

Later on, we went to the Buddha Water Cave.  The cave was huge!  And very beautiful inside.  We dipped in the mud baths which were freezing, then relaxed in the hot springs, which were just perfect.
(We're not naked, just muddy! ;)


We were so tired that night we fell asleep at 6:30.  I blame the freezing mud pits.

We got up early to watch the sunrise from Lotus Peak (the tower in Yangshuo.)  It was misty and hazy which made the city look mysterious and romantic.


Later we went climbing again, this time on Moon Hill! As if that place wasn't awesome enough without being able to climb all over it!  This is May climbing, but Todd and I did some routes too.

We climbed with May and Pat, a couple from Australia who came pretty close to convincing us that we need to move to Australia too.  Maybe some day.
It was our last night in Yangshuo so after dinner Todd and I sat by the river and watched the moon rise over the karst towers. I wanted to stay there forever and not come back to Utah at all!

That afternoon we went to the market and were scarred for life by this sight. I'll let you figure out what it is.


Not sure what this hideous thing is: