Puzzle maker

Isabel has a real talent for putting together puzzles. Even I am amazed at how fast she is learning. this is a 24 piece puzzle of Winnie the Pooh. She can put together the whole thing by herself. I just caught the second half on video.



- Lei

Isabel at Fairyland

Isabel loves Fairyland - especially the music box

What a little dancer!

Isabel has taken dancing to a whole new level. Not sure where she learned all these moves, but they are good! Enjoy! I laugh every time. What a cutie!

Isabel loved the petting zoo

The SF library had a temp. petting zoo a few weeks ago and Isabel had a blast.



Lei

Kunming and LiJiang - Yunnan Province China

I am so glad I scheduled 5 days in Yunnan Province. The weather was a nice 70-75 degrees compared to 95+ in Tianjin and I got a chance to hang out with my cousin - who is basically my older sister. I miss her even now.



- Lei

More family in Beijing + some site seeing

I stayed with my dad in Beijing since he had a suite. Went to Olympic garden with my uncle, Tiananmen square and national Opera house with my cousin. Of course some more street food and also big banquet family gathering.

I saw my great-uncles - 84 and 81 years old and sstill very healthy as well as Isabel's cousins - Emma 4 years old and David 2 years old. Four generations at one table. It was nice to see so much family. I also saw my cousin - Guao Nan who I haven't seen in over 10 years and my other cousins Zhao Ying and Zhao Peng, whom I haven't seen since my wedding 3 years ago.

all together a wonderful trip!

My large family in Tianjin - China

finally photos with my family in Tianjin - China

Birthday party for Ellie and also hanging out with Lauren

Isabel is such a big girl now and so friendly with her friends. She is very generous with her kisses and hugs. See for yourself.

It's winter in sf

I know I said I won't complain about the weather after humid and 90 degrees in china.  But come on - high in mid 50s in aug is extreme.  No wonder mark twain says the coldest winter he spent was a summer in sf.

I guess global warming is catching up with us.  It's too hot in some places and too cool in others.  Remember to recycle and carpool as at this rate,  it will 10 degrees in the summer in 50 years.  Ugh

Lei

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Lao ye visits Isabel - July 2 2010

On my way to China, my dad was able to visit Isabel for 5 hours and they had a lot of fun playing at the park. Laoye is Chinese for grand pa on the mother's side.

Enjoy!

Food, food and more food

One of the biggest reason to go to china was for all the yummy food - street food especially was cheap. I was prepared to gain 5 pounds and brought tums, acid reducer and diarrhea pills but nothing was going to stop me from eating everything.

Well, I fared pretty well. Probably I walked a lot and the humidty, I actually lost a pound and 1% body fat. I had to take 3 acid reducer over two weeks but that's it.

I had a tons of mangosteen, watermelon, papaya, mangoes plus 3 meals a day + snack. here are all my food photos. Enjoy!



- Lei

Oh, I am so clever

I usually don't brag, but I thought this was pretty smart and a great way to SAVE MONEY!  I was booking a flight for us to San Diego for a wedding.  I found on Orbitz that United had good, cheap rates $180.  So I went to United.com to book - sometimes I get extra miles if I book directly.

On the flight search page, there was a field for promotion code or electronic certificates.  I thought what the heck, I will google United airlines electronic certificates and see what I find.  A whole new world!!!  Many people are selling their electronic voucher at less than face value since they cannot use it in time.  I found out the best search is for United Airlines electronic vouchers.  I found a few people on craigslist and on a few sites selling $150 certificate for $110 etc...

 
Still I wasn't sure.  What if I pay for it and it doesn't work?  Well as it turns out, if you pay by PayPal and you and they are verified, you are protected I think.  Also I actually got the seller to send me the code first to try/use it before paying him.  Some tips are

• flight has to be operated by United and NOT their partners
• flight base price has to be higher than the voucher value
• if you are buying two tickets, you need to do it separately to use two vouchers.

I ended up getting two vouchers from two different people - the second one, I paid first and then he sent me the code.  Both worked great.  I ended up paying $40 each for the flights + $110 each for the vouchers, so $150 instead of $180. Yeepy!  I am sure I can get the voucher for even cheaper next time, but for a first time experience, this was great!  ;-)

Happy Travels!

Lei

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"Vision without action is a daydream; action without vision is a nightmare!"

Faster than the bullet train

Did you know China has the fastest train in the world? Faster even than the bullet trains in Japan. I took this one from Tianjin to Beijing - a typical 2-3 hour car ride took only 30 minute by this train.

Lei

Home sick

I know I am back home in SF, where I belong with Jaime and Isabel. I cannot help being home sick though for China. I have a big extended family there and I was surrounded by activities. It's probably because I was visiting and I was on vacation as usually life there is probably pretty simple and quiet.

I guess I just missed the feeling of close family. Being an only child with my parents in Houston, I am used to being far away, but when I do get a dose of family like this, it's addictive. I am sure if I had it everyday, I would not be used to it.

It's always a balance. This must mean my trip was the perfect length - enough to visit to all family, not too long away from Isabel, and leaving me with only fond memories and strong feeling of closeness to my far-away relatives :-)

Lei

Rollercoaster ride with tv and a meal

What am talking about? My flight to kunming, actually. We hit some turbulance and we felt our stomaches hit free fall afew times. Being scared would be useless as there is no way out so I just tried to enjoy it.. The bumpiness actually can feel like someone rocking me to sleep. .

I am not too surprised this happened in china. I hear some ex-military pilots fly commercial sometimes tends to go a bit faster. I remember taking a flight to shanghai from HK when I used to work in asia where the whole plane started scraming as if we were on a dead drop rollercoaster ride. My male korean colleague had to go threw up. That was a lot worse and about 15 yrs ago. This was just entertaining. So be prepared if you fly within china.

Lei
Ps: perhaps I stand corrected. I sat next to someone on my flight back to sf fro beijing that is a pilot in china. He said the reason it's bumpier flying in china is becoz the chinese military does not allow commercial flights to deviate much from their path for national security reasons while american airspace has more flexibility to fly around bad weather turbulance.