Wandering Browns

The Birthday BOY! This weekend, we celebrated the birth of a special little boy. I would say toddler, but he's definitely over that stage. He is full-on little boy! I had him pick out a birthday activity, birthday dinner, and birthday cake/dessert beforehand so we could do his favorite things. There is only so much you can do when you are living across the world from all friends and family, so we tried to make it as special as we could. Main pool of the outdoor pool place For his birthday activity, we visited an outdoor temporary water park/pool place that is relatively close to our hotel. We can see it from our window every day, but it is a little pricey, so we have only gone one other time this summer. There are four pools with various large, inflatable slides and obstacles that he loves the play on. There is a shallow pool with a soccer field and an area with a swing! He loves the swing because we have not found a park with a swing during our time here in Ningbo, and...

I am happy to report that I feel much better this week about life in China. A few things have transpired to help me along the way, and I began reading a book that was just recently translated into English from Chinese about a Chinese factory worker that has helped me see a little better what all these people around me are thinking. First of all, I had my birthday this week. I ordered my dream baby carrier (here's to hoping it's as great as I think it will be, I bought it online sight unseen) for my birthday, and Austin took me out to a great Italian dinner. I had gnocchi with a delicious tomato sauce, and we shared gelato for dessert. There was cheese involved, in our appetizer, on my gnocchi, and I was a happy camper. The gelato was homemade and also awesome. The next day, I ordered a cake from a little shop down the street named Black Magic. It is a chocolate shop and cafe, but they also do a limited selection of cakes. You basically have a choice of chocolate, dark chocol...

View of Nanjing road from the river/Bund Mid- Nanjing road with the crowds There are only a few options for crossing the river at the Bund. You can take a water taxi, the Bund sightseeing tunnel (for too much money) or metro line 2. We opted for the metro as we had day passes that were significantly cheaper than the sightseeing tunnel. That meant to return to our hotel, we visited Nanjing road at night. Much like the buildings along the river, Nanjing road was lit up with all sorts of multi-colored lights, and it had cooled off making it a slightly more enjoyable walk. The crowds and late hour deterred us from walking around more, but as the central street of downtown, it was worth the few minutes we spent enjoying it.  Nanjing road with the Brown boys After a long day of walking, lines and crowds, Austin and I limped back to our hotel room. We discovered that me in my pregnant state and we both in our older state with a toddler could not do as much trekking around ...

Late afternoon view of Lujiazui area with the Pearl Since we were only in Shanghai for 30 hours or so, we opted for activities that would give us an overall impression of downtown Shanghai. Since Landon loves boats, we decided to go for a little river cruise down the Huangpu river, which runs through downtown Shanghai and divides the Bund and Nanjing Rd from the Oriental Pearl tower, Lujiazui and Pudong- our hotel area. Tickets were 160 rmb for adults, and Landon was free. We opted to go with the Shanghai Huangpu River Cruise company- they operate many of the river cruises from the southern end of the Bund. Since it was a busy Saturday afternoon, there were cruises leaving every 15 minutes and we had no problem getting tickets. After hiking all the way down the Bund river walk, I discovered that there are ticket booths for this river cruise company all along the river! We aimed for 7:00 pm- late enough that the buildings would be lit up, but early enough for Landon to be awake an...

Tower from the pedestrian walkway Pearl close-up Austin had two days off in a row, so we took a quick trip to Shanghai for the weekend to see what we could see and attend church in real-life (vs. via phone). We took the high speed train from Ningbo and it took about two hours. It was nice to see the Chinese countryside in between the cities, and to visit a different part of China. We were NOT prepared for how crowded Shanghai was on the weekend. WOW. I don't think I have been around so many people in my entire life! PEOPLE EVERYWHERE! We chose to visit the Oriental Pearl tower first because it is a major landmark of Shanghai, and it had many different activities involved that I thought would be fun for everyone. Plus, it was 95 degrees outside with high humidity and I knew we did not want to be walking around too much outside until later on in the day. We stayed at the Grand Hyatt very close to the Pearl, so it was a sweltering but easy walk o...

Main entrance from the parking lot/ taxi drop-off I am from a rural area of California, so city living is not really my style. After a few long weeks in the city, I needed a break. I needed fresh air, trees, mountains, and no cars. Our afternoon at Tiantong Temple filled all of those needs.  Entrance gate Located in the mountains 25 km east of Ningbo, Tiantong temple is a large Buddhist temple that was built in 300 A.D. The legend goes that the founder went up into the mountains to pray and then decided to build a temple and monastery there for other pilgrims. Once it was more popular, he needed to build an indoor eating area. He went high up in the mountains to cut down trees for the building, but he was having a hard time doing all of the labor himself. He prayed for help, and a big storm washed all of the wood he had cut and needed to haul down to the temple. In thanks for that gift, he planted 25 km of trees to shade pilgrims as they journeyed to the temple. We ...