Starfish Orphanage

This orphanage is for infants and preschoolers with physical deformities.
It was run by an LDS lady but she returned to the US and someone else is in charge now.
These are some pictures of the orphanage,kids and BYU teachers inneracting with them.
We went here the second Friday in December.

GuangZhong Heritage Museum

Pictures load in a funny order, sorry.

 Ancient picture of the inside of one of the courtyards

 a typical bed. Matresses are unheard of in china.

 Some of the building artwork

The opera in action

 contain for water, an old version of a fire extinguisher

 This is a museum setup by a very rich man. He took a whole bunch of mansions from the area and moved them here. He is paying for it all out of his own pocket. XISU brought us here the end of november. Saving posts is a pain, they donot work all the time.

 Entrance to the Museum

 a Tapestry

 Traditional opera played the same as it was centuries ago.

 Map of the park

 Guide explaining a hitching post. one of 1000's here.

 Start of the tour,I do not know why they did not load in time order.

More hitching posts

Xi'an Wall Marathon and 5k

 These are pictures from the annual Xi'an Wall Marathon and 5k

 Foreign teachers than 'ran' the 5k (some only walked)

 A portion of the crowd.

Why she did not freeze, I donot know it is below freezing when I took this picture.

I had to send to Rachel the videos of riding in the bus to school. They keep timing out when I try to load them. They should appear on facebook in the next day or so.

Thanks Rachel.

I see it has been too long since I added an entry here so I will try to get caught up
In October we when to the Xi'an International Horicultural Expo Park. They had a big expo there last year. Here are a few pictures from there:

 This is Zoey, her son and some of her friends kids. She arranged a visit to this park so the kids could interact with Americans. Behind them is a map of the park. It is huge!

For those who do not want to walk, you can rent this bicycle. It appears to be 2 regular bicycle bolted together with a shade on top.

This is Rosemary and Snow White in one of the exibits.

 The have a sand sculpture area. This is Disney castles. There are 20 or 30 sculptures.

Another example of the sculptures

This is an animatronic raptor in one of the exibits, it roars and evertying.
We were at the park about 7 hours. We went in an eleven story pagoda,  took an elevator to the top and walked down floor by floor looking at the art displays. there were 2 floors of teapots.
My feet were sore by the end of the day. Lots of stairs and lots of walking. The kids had fun.

This will be a big entry. A trip on the Silk Road in China has little in the way of internet access, and when we got it, it was very sporatic. I have pictures below of the places we went in 4 days between Urumqi and Dunhuang along the silk road.

Day 1 Flew to Urumqi

 Inside the world famous Urumqi Bazar. 3 builds, multiple floors with all the junk you could dream of and then some more. Seth would like the knife collections, hundreds of different knives and swords.

 Dinner at a muslim restraunt.

 Rosemary and the bull at the muslim market. After dinner we drove for 3 hours to Turpan.

Day 2

 This is the hotel we stayed in in turpan. The beds are rated as 'soft'. I've slept on the ground camping at places that was softer. I think they useds box springs with no mattress on top.

 3-d map of the ruins at Jiaohe in turpan. On the UNESCO list of places to see.

 Large stupa in the stupa grove and the north end of the ruins.

 Daughters of a Uyghar (pronounced wee-gar) family that entertained us. The father raised grapes. you can see them hanging above the dancers. He mostly made raisins.

 Dinner at the Dinner and Uyghur show in turpan.

 Two of the dancers in the show.

Day 3 Still in the Turpan area. Same 'soft' bed.

 In china ruins that are man made caves with drawings and statutes in side are called grottos. This is one in the fire mountains outside of Turpan.

 We rode these donkey carts to the ruins of another site in Turpan.

 To conserve water from evaporation, the people in the Turpan area 2000 years ago build underground canals for the water. They are called Karez.

 Mosk in Turpan. Refered to as the Little Mecca. Muslims from the area come here because Mecca is so far away.

Took a night train to Dunhuang. 12 hours on a bed that was a little softer than a 'soft' bed in the hotel.
Day 4 Dunhuang.

 The Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang. They do notallow pictures to be taken inside any of the grottos we visited. I guess they want you to buy their picture books.

We rode a camel! Some kid stood along the trail and snapped pictures of every one and they sold them as you left the area. 20 rmb each picture.

Spent the night at the Mogao hotel in Dunhuang. the bed again was 'soft'. Flew back to Xi'an the next morning. In the evening a dumpling dinner and Tang dynasty show.

I took about 300 pictures on the trip. I am loading them to dropbox for those with access that want to see more.