Beautiful Sanya Resort - China's Hawaii

Sanya, the capital city of Hainan Island, is a resort at the southernmost tip of China that reminds us of Hawaii.

This picture was taken at a Hot Springs Resort that was very exotic and beautiful.









We are standing at The End of The Earth beach at the South China Sea...so gorgeous. The big rock behind us is a famous landmark where sweethearts go to proclaim their love for each other.













We don't know what these writings say, but it was a spot where all the other tourists were taking pictures!















Monument at The End of the Earth beach resort in the South China Sea. Windy, cool day, but warmer than our hometown of Jinan in January!

Pictures of Shanghai

China Pavilion at Expo 2010 - this exhibit was amazing!


Luci freezing at the China Pavilion!


View of some unique architecture at Shanghai Expo 2010


Overview of one side of Shanghai Expo


Entrance street to Expo 2010


Amazing freeway roundabout in Shanghai

Market (t0urist trap) in Shanghai - very fun!

Concrete and Skyscrapers intertwined block after block forever.


Bridge to Expo 2010 Site

Beautiful greenery, but crowded Shanghai

Shanghai Tour January 2011

January 2011 was a busy month for us. We have a 7 week break from teaching as the semester ends and the Chinese New Year is celebrated. Our first tour was to Shanghai, the financial capital of China, and the largest populated city, with 19,214,000 people. It hosts the first Stock Exchange Office in China and China's tallest building.

Snow Sculpture Park in Harbin, China

This is the largest snow sculpture in the world. I think the size was a football field length. It was truly impressive.













This snow sculpture was elegant and royal looking. They told us that the sculptors are just regular hired workers, not artists, but that was hard to believe...very professional.









Standing on the bridge we crossed to get to the snow sculpture park.

Tiger Park in Harbin

Kings of the jungle and Harbin, China!
















Liger, rare lion/tiger creation.












Dinner time for these gentlemen.















Enjoying a little sun.












Two leopards at the Tiger Reserve















One very beautiful tiger.

The colors were beautiful...and changing regularly so it was spectacular to see.














I loved all the blue designs.












These sculptures were made from blocks of ice taken from the frozen river!

Enjoying the ice sculptures in Harbin

Keeping warm at night in the sub-zero temperatures turned into quite an art. They had a couple of shops where you could go in and buy souvenirs and food and also warm up so several of us women went in several times to warm up and re-adjust scarves and face covers, etc.

Harbin Tour 2011

We spent a wonderful, wintery weekend in Harbin. This church was one of the highlights, plus visiting the world famous Ice Sculpture Park and the Snow Sculpture Park. We also went to a Tiger Reserve to spend some time among the beautiful tigers, some lions, leopards, a liger, and a beautiful Siberian tiger.

We had to bundle up as it was -17 degrees. We used hand warmers in our gloves and pockets to keep us from frostbite, but still got ice crystals on our eyelashes, etc. It was great fun for two days, but we were happy to fly back to Jinan where it's above freezing! We had a lovely dinner at a Russian restaurant and did a little shopping to pick up a few souvenirs representative of the Russian culture in this city of 4.7 million. We thought we were traveling north to a small community that had a famous Ice Festival each year. We also witnessed swimmers diving into a swimming pool made of ice! Great weekend for us.