A Little Late on the Update

I know, I know...I have received many reminders from various people that I have not updated my blog in a while.  I thank everyone for your push and sorry it has taken so long.  In the past 2 months a lot has happened which I will try to shortly sum up and then direct you to my newly developed Picasa page in which you can view more photos.

A week after I returned from Hong Kong my parents were inbound for a visit.  I met up with them in Beijing where we took two full days of tours which included the Ming Tombs, The Great Wall (Mutianyu section), Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, a Jade factory, Pearl gallery, and a Silk factory.  The first day in Beijing was more relaxing; we went to the zoo.  I was super excited to see the Panda, which we did.  Perfect timing in a sense where the Panda played in the bushes before climbing a tree to settle in for his or her mid morning nap.  I was a little depressed with the rest of the zoo however because the animal areas were not kept up too well.  It appeared as though the zoo was in it's prime maybe in the 60's but has not been maintained very well.

After Beijing we flew to Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors as well as the Bell and Drum Tower.  Behind the Drum Tower there is the Beiyuan Men Islamic Street Market where you can buy little trinkets and street food.  I recommend going to this street market if ever in Xian.  I also recommend going to the  Defachang dumpling restaurant (on the 2nd floor) to get a course of 18 different dumplings.  The shapes they come in are very cool!

After my parents left I had to work for the next 2 weeks straight...needless to say I was exhausted.  I told myself I didn't want to travel and do tourist things...just relax.  There isn't much in Qinzhou to do so I hoped a short flight to the island of Hainan. There I stayed at a nice beach resort and spent 4 days just reading and napping on the beach, it was glorious!  Got a lot of sun too - no sunburn though!

The crew here used to be around 30 people but recently the customer released more than half so we are down to 13 people.  That being said the schedule has changed so much where I do not really have a long stretch of days to travel to many places.  I am due to a visa trip so will be heading to Hong Kong again soon.  We have been able to make our own fun around here in Qinzhou though.  I was here Halloween weekend; I dressed up as cat-woman and the guys were dressed in toga's - options are very limited here.  We went out Saturday night and were the only ones in costume however the next night, other UOP people went out, and the bar was decked out in Halloween decorations being that it was actually Oct. 31st that night.

Halloween Saturday Night

GXPC Dinner - Remaining Crew (3 people already gone from this picture even)

 

All and all I have had an amazing time here in China - as I expected nothing less.  Not sure how much longer I will be here or where I will be heading next but I update this as soon as I know more.  Until next time...which I vow to try to not make so long!

View pictures from the past 2 months and before at http://picasaweb.google.com/KatieMarcene