Some Final Planning

Wei is putting in lots of overtime getting our plane and train tickets organized for the internal legs of our trip. I'd say it's all Greek to me, but it's actually all in Chinese.

We will start out in Harbin, where today it is a balmy 7 degrees F. I suppose not much worse than back home in PA where it's 18 degrees. The main thrust of our time in Harbin will be to see Wei's family and friends, eat lots and lots of food (probably fish if Wei's previous talk about home is any guide) and to check out the world famous ice sculptures, among other things. Some of the ice sculptures are huge! It is China after all.

Then it's on to Beijing for a few days where I hope to see the Forbidden City and probably the Great Wall. Someday we'll have to come back to travel out to the less touristy parts of the Great Wall, and also to Xian where the Terracotta Warriors live.

After Beijing we go to Dalian, where Wei attended the Dalian University of Technology for undergraduate. It's a little known fact that in addition to majoring in Chemical Engineering, she also played the French Horn in the orchestra!

Next we go to Shanghai for a few days to stay with two of our friends who used to live here in Santa Barbara. They are also the parents of one of our favorite little people, Sandy (below). But we will have seen her in Beijing beforehand. Might get to see a couple other friends as well, but just seeing Shanghai will be pretty cool.


Then we're back to Harbin for the final 10 days, because there's a supersized amount of family to visit with, freinds to see, more fish to eat, plus other stuff, Maotai to drink, if I can handle it this time. Heck, maybe I'll even try to find a little school to learn some Chinese while I'm there!