They sure do grow up fast

Do you remember those two little rascals, Wei-En and Wei Min, my nephews, in Bangkok? Well, they both have grown considerably, especially Wei-En. When I last saw him, he was cruising around in his stroller, chewing on his shoelace fascinated with empty plastic bottles. Now, he's walking around, chatting it up with everyone and has 2 nicknames for me, he has renamed Uncle Jimmy as: "Go Me" and "Jimmy-ah" (imitating my Aunt Nancy in a Chinese accent).

As with Wei Min, everyone talks to Wei En in a combination of Chinese, Thai and English. Wei En can correctly identify and say: Flamingo in English, Dog in Chinese, and Elephant in Thai. At first, I thought oh my gosh, that kid is going to be confused when he gets older, but the more I thought about it, the more it seems appropriate. It'll all get sorted out and then he'll be tri-lingual like Wei Min, which is fantastic!

Wei En, following in the footprints, or should I say hoof prints of his older brother , by riding a pony. Wei En is also very into applauding !Wei Min, Wei Min and Uncle Jimmy

Catching up

After 2 1/2 weeks of traveling in China, I have a much needed respite with my relatives in Bangkok. Dealing with all of the logistics of getting four people through China, while fun and exciting, can be a bit stressful. It feels like I've come full circle since leaving last year. I started my adventure in Bangkok and am now ending it here.

After we left Xi'an, we went to Chengdu (成都) in Sichuan (四川) Provence to see the Pandas! This is the same Provence where the tragic, devastating earthquake happened, but Chengdu was not effected. Pandas are cute, but they are pretty lazy. Most of their day is consumed with eating because their bodies can only absorb a fraction of the nutrients from bamboo, so they have to spend about 80% of their day eating. Its a hard knock life for them.

We also made a day trip out to Leshan (樂山), where the world's largest buddha is located. This place also happens to be the birthplace of my father, who I thought was born in Chongqing, but was recently informed otherwise. His Chinese name carries part of his birth place, Le (樂), which means "happy."

After a couple of days in Chengdu, we made it to the Yunnan (云南) Provence, which is an area that is worth exploring in China. The scenery is breathtaking and the old towns of Lijiang (丽江) and Dali (大理) are a refreshing change of pace from the generic Chinese cities, especially, since there's hardly any pollution. Also, we hike Tiger Leaping Gorge which was an amazing hike. My mom was a super trooper and hiked the incredible difficult trail without any assistance, namely from the 2 local with horses who were trailing us in hopes of one of us tiring and paying money to ride the horse to the top.

Anyhoo, that's brief recap of our travels, which concluded in Hong Kong with a four day extravaganza of eating, shopping and seeing relatives.

Zach, Jen and I at Tiger Leaping Gorge
The Fam:
Click here to see some cute panda cubs, the world's largest Buddha, and more!