Twirls 'n Curls

Cruising on the Yellow River I am a talkative person. And I used to think I was fairly good at getting around language barriers - I speak Spanish, so I can get by in most Latin-based language situations if I have to. I also know a bit of sign language and I took shorthand in college, which really has no relevance in the 21st century. Plus, we had a Korean exchange student stay with us for a year. All that to say, I had many frustrating - and humorous - attempts at expressing myself in a language where we don't even share the same alphabet. On our first night, we took a boat tour of the city on the Huangpu River. I noticed the locals pointing and staring at us, but being a group of 34 white tourists on an otherwise all Chinese boat tour, that was no shock. (Much of our vacation locals either asked us to pose for pics with them or just took pictures of us being tourists, like this guy filming Tom hacky sack..) You film my husband, I film you... :) As a 6'2"...

Eating scorpion on Snack Street, a famous tourist spot in Beijing   (To catch up on the other posts in this series, click here ) The food in China was amazing! We ate each breakfast at our hotel, which had everything from traditional bacon and eggs to a noodle bar and sushi. Lunches and dinners were eaten mostly at restaurants like the above pics, with 8-10 of us sharing a round table and eating family-style. There was usually an egg dish, several noodle dishes, plenty of rice, and lots of veggies. I took pics of our last full day's meals in China, just to give you an idea of what it was like:    Breakfast: Omelet bar, fried rice, dumplings, dragon fruit, bacon, muesli, and a noodle bar. (That would normally feed us for the whole day!) For lunch, we were on our own because it was a shopping day in the local flea markets. There were several American chains in the city - Starbucks, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Subway, but KFC is the biggest American ...

  (For other posts in this series, click here ) Shortly after our arrival in China, I discovered, much to my naive American snobbishness, that not everyone uses the restroom the same way. It seems I had been using a Western toilet for my entire life, or a "sitter." In China, sitters are not as common as a Westerner might hope. (Neither is soap or toilet paper, our tour guide informed us the next day, but he always let us know when and where Western toilets could be found!) Hence, I opened the bathroom door at the very urban airport to find this: No instructions. No toilet paper. Just a recessed urinal-type device. Had I gone into the men's room? Doubtful. Should I sit on top of it? Probably not. Putting my college education to good use, I surmised that I should engage in some sort of hovering maneuver. I cast a look back at the kind cleaning lady, who smiled wanly and urged me into the stall with the handle of her mop. She was obviously not going to be a help....

My husband and I just took the most amazing trip to China on a 9-day tour with SNA Tours . (highly recommended!!)  Being a stay-at-homeschooling-mom of 3, I rarely get out for an afternoon, much less 9 days!! By the end of the 13-hour plane ride, I was already in heaven. We had been served 3 meals I didn't have to cook, and each seat had its own TV and headphones with hundreds of shows to choose from. I could have spent the remainder of vacation in the plane and done just fine! But there was so much more... this first post is an overview of our tour, then I'll write a few more about our experiences. Admittedly, I was a little skeptical of the accommodations for our trip - after all, we had bought it on Groupon ! But the entire time we stayed at Radisson hotels, which were much more elaborate than most any hotel we've been to in the States (but remember, we do have 3 kids...) Lobby of our hotel - gorgeous!   We spent the first few days in ...