Our Trip to China

We're both back from China now (although Jessica is still dealing with jetlag). I'm going to post some pictures of the trip here.

I've added some descriptions to the pictures since this was first posted.

Here's the summary:
We flew in to Shanghai on Sep. 11th (I'd highly recommend flying on Sep. 11th, as the plane was 2/3 empty)! From there, we took a bus to Jessica's home city of Hangzhou. The next day, we got on a bus headed for J's dad's hometown of Sui Chang in the southern Zhejiang province. There, we had a dinner to announce that we are getting married to this side of the family. The next day, they took us on a tour of the rural area around the small town of Sui Chang. After this, we went back to Hangzhou for a few days before returning to Shanghai on Wednesday evening. This wasn't a particularly picturesque trip, as September is fairly hot and hazy in southern China, but we had a good time nonetheless.

KFC is probably the most popular American fast-food chain in China.  I'd never eaten at one until this trip, but I'd always heard that the chicken at the Chinese KFC tastes different.  After trying it, I guess I'd agree.

Hangzhou is a fairly affluent city.  This area of town has Rolls Royce and Ferrari/Maserati dealerships.

The chinese writing system is complicated, and the etymology is even an order or two of magnitude more complex.  The modern character in the middle at the top means "healthy long life".   The array of 100+ characters below are different versions of that character that have been used throughout the history of the language. 

This is an "ancient villiage" that we stopped in during our trip to the countryside.  Neither of us can remember what it was called.

Jessica and her sister-like cousin QiMing.

Jessica's dad's extended family after our dinner in Sui Chang.

Some of the cousins and 2nd cousins.

Mountains in the countryside (a national park called Nan Jing Yan).

We stayed at Jessica's aunt and uncle's house outside of Sui Chang.  This is their front yard, which has a garden with all sorts of stuff, a small goldfish pond, and a chicken coop.   

The Xu family sorting through chestnuts grown by Mr. Xu's sister (on the right).

They've built a nice walkway along the Hangzhou Grand Canal.  The canal itself is fairly amazing in that it was built over 1000 years ago and goes all the way to Beijing (about 1000 miles away).  It's still very much a working canal.  As we were walking along, we'd see a boat pass by about once every minute.

The Xu family.