Parents Trip- Around Nanjing

Well I know it has been FOREVER since I blogged. My parents came over Christmas and we had such a great time. They ended up getting moved to first class because the flight was overbooked, and have now decided that that is the way to fly...as long as the airline puts you there and you don't have to pay.

I was able to take them around to the different sites in Nanjing while Jake had class. I had them ride the bus, walk, and take taxis all through Nanjing.Coming down from the top of the city wallAt the Nanjing City Wall

On a rock scuptlureThe folklore museum

Mom and me walking down the street

The Massacre Museum

There were a few times in the Taxi that I thought my dad was going to have a heart attack because of the driving but he did great. My mom always sat behind the driver, so she couldn't really see what was going on, which was probably a good thing.

Jake and I also took them to a place call Purple Mountain, that has Sun Yat Sen's tomb and a lot of cool statues.

Jake and mom by the lion

At the top of a lot of steps...Chinese people love stairs

Sun Yat Sen Mausoleum
These next couple of pictures I made us each stand by one of the soldier guys and imitate them.
Jake
Mom
Dad
Britney

I think this is their dragon face...my dad was getting a little tired of all my crazy poses I was making them do.
Smile!
On the train to the Ming Ling Tombs...which were actually closed.
Jake and me doing a "chinese" pose. Chinese people love to do glamor shot poses...so he are our poses.
Work it mom!
Awww, how cute.

Hotels in Hong Kong

We stayed 4 nights in a Courtyard Marriott when we first got to Hong Kong. The hotel was a little out of the way and we decided that if we were going again, we would get a room more in the city.

Jake's job was to book the hotel in Macau. He found a Best Western and told me that in China, these are actually pretty nice hotels. Unfortunately that was not the case for Hong Kong. We were laughing so hard when we pulled up in the taxi. It wasn't in the best part of town and then when we were checking in the lady said they were doing construction on the 14th floor and was going to move us down to the 6th and hopefully we wouldn't hear it. Well we didn't hear anything, but it was one of those rooms, that you don't want to be in or even sleep on the bed, but the floor is even worse then the bed.

The best part was when I opened up our window and found this as our view.

Here is Jake not wanting any part of the room to touch him.

When we went back to Hong Kong, we got a hotel that was more in the city and stay at Marriott Renaissance Harbour View Hotel. It was really nice and had a great location and a great view.

Day 6- December 5, 2008

We woke up early and took the speed boat back to Hong Kong and checked into our hotel, that was right on the harbor. We were walking to the subway when we stumbled on a church building (which was right across the street from the visa office...I have no clue how we didn't see that before). We went in and realized that they have 2-3 chapels on different floors and then Jake realized this was also the office of the Area Asia Presidency...Jake's old mission president is the Area President. So Jake asked the front desk if we could go and see him. His secretary said he was in a meeting but to try back later.

We then took the subway out to Lantau, which has the worlds largest Buddha statue outdoors. We took a cable car up to the top and then hiked up to statue. I has pretty tired from our week and was exhausted by the time I reached the top.

The stairs up to the statue.


Can you see Jake...he's just a little guy compared to this statue.

There he is!
Jake fits in the palm of his hand.

Statues surrounding the Buddha.

The view from the top.

I have no clue what I was doing.

The ride back down.

Well as you can tell from the picture we went back to the office and headed up to the 10th floor. It was pretty funny because the security people have to put a card in to get us up to that floor. We rode up with some missionaries and they said, "Wow you get to go to the 10th floor. You must be important." Jake told them that Pres. Perkins was his mission president. Then when the elders got off on the 7th floor there were some people waiting to go down and they informed them that we got to go to the "10th" floor. As the door was closing everyone was trying to see who the "important" people in the elevator were.

That night we went to the Ladies market, where I heard about a million times, "You like, you pay more." I got a couple of purses and some scarfs. I got better by the end of the night to sticking to what I wanted to pay. Well that was our trip. We had a lot of fun and loved how clean everything was. It was also nice that we were able to speak English and be understood. So if you are thinking about taking a trip, put Hong Kong on your list.