Trip to Yuyuan Garden

Today we took a bus to Yuyuan Garden with some teachers from SMIC School. It's not difficult to get to, but the school provided a bus, so we took advantage of the free ride. Yuyuan Garden is a popular spot for tourists. The garden is supposed to be amazing (we didn't go this trip), but we went for the shopping. The garden itself is surrounded by shops - it's like a maze. We'll come back for the garden when the weather isn't so cold.

The Yuyuan Garden area is right in the middle of Shanghai - about a ten minute walk from the subway. You can see the Jin Mao Tower in the distance.

Trying to track down the Master Shopper. Mandy does all of the bargaining because I don't know my numbers as well as she, and I'm too nice. All of the shopkeepers turn to me in their frustration in dealing with her, and all I can do is shrug my shoulders. She's gotten us many deals over the past few months. It will be funny watching her trying to bargain with salespeople at the Mall of America. She'll definitely get some strange looks.

The area is made up of hundreds of little shops. There are people constantly trying to pull you into their stores to buy things. It's tough keeping up with Mandy in a place like this - she stops all too often. We picked up a lot of souvenirs here - pretty cheap prices too.

We visited this Buddhist temple on our trip. The detail of the buildings is incredible.

One of the many areas for prayer in the temple. Each of these "gods" represents something different.

This is the area where people burn incense and pray.

These types of buildings are becoming a rare sight in Shanghai due to the massive construction sites for more modern architecture.

Even the Macdonald's employees have the Christmas spirit. We've only been a handful of times (it would be more if it were up to me). It tastes the same over here too. There are some interesting differences though - like a bean pie instead of apple - yuck.

Happy Holidays

It's starting to get a bit chilly here - not Minnesota cold, but cold enough. The difference is that it's always cold here - inside and out. The buildings don't have the best heating systems, so you are ALWAYS cold. In the hallways at school you can see your breath. I thought that being a Minnesotan would make me immune to this "mild" weather, but I'm probably one of the biggest wimps here.

For Christmas we get the 25th and 26th off, so we're flying down to Hong Kong to celebrate. From what we've heard, the entire city is lit up in lights and it's amazing. We'll take lots of pictures for the blogs.

We'll keep you updated about our travels. It's easy to get homesick this time of year being so far away from friends and family - you're all missed very much! Maybe packages filled with lavish gifts will help cure that?