A week gone by...

Sorry for my followers who check in on me daily that haven't seen a post in a little over a week.  I warned you i would be busy, between resting and entertaining my in-laws and Blake I was exhausted this week.  So here we go day by day what we were up to, i have pictures from almost everything so you can see where we went and what we did!

Day 1: Dinosaur Park in Changzhou, most of you probably read a previous blog post when Brian and I took Blake to the Dinosaur Park but here are some of the photos from Blake's trip there with Grandma and Grandpa Hudson!  He went on a few rides, ran around the park until he was tired and then slept in the stroller during out walk into the museum (which says no photos, sorry).  We found a cotton candy station and had to try some, also got some coke icees!

Day 2: The Aquarium in Changzhou.  We wandered through the aquarium on a rainy day and saw lots of fish, some sharks and ran around to get our sillies out!

Day 3: We traveled to Wuxi, a neighboring city in China that is home to the Giant Buddha.  We were able to take a tram around in the rain and see the Buddha, some additional beautiful Chinese architecture and see the baby Buddha fountain music show.  It was a great place to see!

There are many stairs to get up to the Giant Buddha!

 Day 4: Safari Park in Wujin.  Lions, Tigers, but no Bears!  We were able to see lots of animals up close.  Blake and Grandma Hudson fed the deer off the side of the train ride, and Grandpa Hudson helped him feed the giraffe. It was a nice park, but they were advertising Pandas on the brochure and had lots of signs with Pandas around, it appears they got our hopes up and are still building the enclosure the Pandas will be housed in, i guess there will be another trip back to the Safari Park in my future!  There was food around the park, mostly Chinese food so I think my in-laws both had rice for lunch, Blake and i had rice, chicken wings and green beans.  The train we rode was a nice ride around the big loop of the park where only the train and cars can travel, however it appears there is only one train actually running so wait time was about 20 minutes seeing as we walked up right as the train was leaving the station :(

 Day 5: Happy 4th of July!!! Comb Street in Downtown Changzhou with a boat ride!  As you can see below it was a garden area with Chinese architecture, however we were there to ride the boat down the canal and get a different view of the city.  There was no rain this day so it was really nice to be outside!  Afterwards we headed on the high speed train to Shanghai for the rest of their stay.

Day 6: We spent this day getting some dr. and dentist appointments out of the way while in Shanghai and wandered around Shanghai.  We stayed in the Changning district and found some American Food to help us celebrate the 4th of July weekend!  Stubb's BBQ from Austin Texas has a restaurant and they even served Dr. Pepper in the can, Score for Brian!

Day 7: We started the morning out with the Shanghai Children's Museum which is free to go into.  They have a space room where Blake was walking on the moon, a nautical room with boats, and then some play areas that were interactive.  You can also pay 5 rmb to go into a room for smaller kids where there is a lot of interactive rooms and toys, such as a dr. office, music area, climbing ropes etc.  Blake really enjoyed running around this place but compared to the Children's Museum in Phoenix it was quite small.  In the afternoon we went down to the Bund and showed the in-laws around the water area that splits old Shanghai and new Shanghai.  We went through the Super Brand Mall (weird names here) and found our first Toys R Us. Blake picked out a giant dump truck that we were lucky enough to have Grandma buy and have to bring back on the train with us :)  That night Brian and I were able to get a night out and went to Morton's Steakhouse near the Oriental Pearl Tower which is the pink building with the sphere everyone sees in photos.  Dinner was delicious, Brian said it reminded him of home :)

 

Day 8: The two bottom left photos above are from the second day we went to the Bund.  There is a river splitting old Shanghai and new Shanghai, with an underground tunnel where you can ride in a cable car and get from one side to the other fairly quickly.  Here is the cable car and the glowing tunnel, Blake had a fun journey!  Below are photos of the Bund area waterfront and the Yu Garden area where there are lots  of shops to buy anything from silk scarfs, oriental fans, handmade combs, jade jewelry etc. as well as eat at some of the oldest restaurants in Shanghai.  Its a great place to wander around, we were pretty surprised at all the people coming up to us trying to sell things, it was a little like being on the beach in Mexico.  The last night here we took the in-laws out for Mexican food and Maya our go-to restaurant when in Shanghai for Mexican food, it was delicious!

Now everyone is back at home, we are in Changzhou and they are back in AZ.  It was a very busy 8 days for us and i saw some parts of China I hadn't yet seen.  So for those of you coming to visit, make sure you check these points of interest out before hand so we can take you out to sight see!

Note: I apologize if this week's entry isn't an humorous and my haircut experience, i got lots of emails and texts about all the laughs you had :)