Rainbow

This was definitely the prettiest thing in the sky in Shanghai!  I used Photoshop's Photomerge tool to create these panoramas.

Groceries

Cost = 50 RMB ($7.92 USD)

Cost = 439 RMB ($64.09 USD)

It is really amazing how there is such a great difference in cost for food here.

Couchsurfers and a CS party

George and Marion (our Dutch surfers) on the top of our roof.


Boots likes to lay on our CSers stuff on the bed and wait to get petted. (photo by Marion)

Marion, Sandhya and I. Sandhya and her husband Nishant hosted the party and cooked delicious vegetarian Indian food. VERY delicious!!

A very diverse group - guys from San Francisco here for the eclipse, a guy that lived at the South Pole three times (my cousin Brian did that; worked at the research station there and shoveled a lot of snow), people from Isreal, Lithunania, Columbia, the Netherlands, Italy, India and a guy with Pakistani heritage living in London - all getting together in China. The world is really small now!

Personal grooming

This girl is popping her boyfriend's zits.

In public.

You see it often - just like you see people deliberately picking their nose, cleaning out their ears with a long fingernail, or clipping their nails. Personal grooming here is NOT so personal!

Fashion around West Lake

Here we have a classic summer look. It's hot, so wear shorts and roll up your t-shirt for maximum air flow. You need to look stylish though, so wear your black dress shoes with white socks.

This white poodle had a fluorescent orange tail and ears. Poor little guy doesn't even know he looks like a traffic cone.

During the summer, many dogs are shaved like lions (to keep cool, I suppose.) They leave the head furry so that it looks like a lion's mane!

Things locals do around West Lake...

... feed the swans (Does her t-shirt mean that her fashion is the latest fashion in history?)

... practice tai qi

... sleep (why would you get up at 6 AM to go sleep by the lake?)

... jog BACKWARDS around the lake (apparently it improves balance)

... stretch

Temple in Hangzhou

(photo by Jon)

(photo by Jon)
Lots of people waving burning incense all around. Very safe.

Why do people have to touch everything? We all know that the oils from our skin ruins old things. So, they've put up a fence to stop people from touching the very old carvings of Buddha. This doesn't stop them though... they just use it to stand on to lean over and touch him!

Too many people!!! Everyone seems to need to get a photo in front of everything, so people are just constantly standing everywhere.

Jon's photos from Hangzhou

Jon is a pretty good photographer too! He has learned a lot about composition and tricks to get good photos with his point and shoot. All of these photos are his.

Jon and Emily together in photos!

It was nice to have Mr. Fan take some photos of us together... we almost never have photos together! We're too busy taking photos ourselves.

Blooming Lotus Flowers

Trip to Hangzhou and West Lake

Last weekend, Jon needed to go to Hangzhou for work. Saturday, we took the slower (and very loud and annoying) T train there. Mr. Fan is also very interested in photography, so he took us to West Lake twice, as the famous lotus flowers are in bloom.

More pretty flowers from Sweden

Pretty drinks

Seagulls

All of these photos were taken from the cruise ship with my Tamron 70-300mm telephoto lens. After getting a camera upgrade, I realize how mediocre it really is.

Swedish Cruise

We took a one-day cruise in Sweden that went from the Stockholm archipelago to an island in the Finland archipelago. Since alcohol is SO expensive in Sweden, a lot of Swedes go to other countries to get it. So, it was basically a beer run!

(photo by Jon)
We had a couple of hours in Stockholm before we left, but it started POURING rain, and we'd left our umbrellas with our luggage. Jon and I sat down at a pub and watched the weather and had a couple beers.



It finally stopped raining as the ship left Stockholm.

Celia, Hanna, Andreas, Henrik and Jon in the dining room. We ate a couple smorgasbords. All very traditional Swedish food like herring and salmon.

Enjoying a last drink.

Celia the movie star... looking fabulous after a nice relaxing massage.

Henrik bought Hanna a Canon DSLR for a wedding present. What a sweet guy! She loved it. We teased them about bringing 4 extra people on their honeymoon, but they claim that the honeymoon isn't until they go to New Zealand in December.

Örebro Castle

In Örebro, we also visited the castle. Instead of a traditional tour, they made the tour into a play of sorts. It was much more interesting than hearing a guide rattle off dates!

A person walking over the bridge is reflected in the moat.

I think this little ducky was laying eggs in this flower pot.

Wadköping

One rainy day we went to Örebro. We walked through Wadköping, which is an open-air museum. They moved in old buildings to create Wadköping, which was a fictional place created by an author.

More of the Swedish summer home

Cute little cabins that just sleep two.

Cute little nook - perfect for a cup of tea in the morning!! I want one.

There was dew or rain every day.

Hanging out by the lake, drinking beer around the fire.

The diverse group of people staying a few days after the wedding: Mattias and Anna (they are Finnish, but are part of the 5% of Finns who speak Swedish as their native language); Sven (German); Celia (Kiwi living in England); Andreas (German)

Sweden seemed like the cleanest, most peaceful place on earth compared to China!

I Heart Faces Beach Entry

I decided to enter this at the last moment... at least it will be a lot different than all of the cute kids at the beach! This is in Thailand - a local is pulling up the anchor from a boat full of tourists.

That's SO Swedish....

When Hanna was in America, she said certain things were "SO American." Like peanut butter and jelly. Here are some things that I think are SO Swedish.

Summer homes! Swedes get at least 5 weeks of vacation per year, so it seems everyone has a little cabin in the woods by the lake to get away to. Very nice.

Woods. Green things. Nature. Sweden has a law that every person has a right to hike through and put up a tent and camp on ANY land. Technically someone could sleep in your cow pasture or field two nights. However, Swedes are very polite and certainly wouldn't set up camp anywhere that might bother someone.

Bread and cheese and meat for breakfast. Yum! Swedes have "tube food" which is just like it sounds - many different types of food processed and put in a metal tube. Flavors are things like: cheese and bacon, ham, salmon, and various types of cheese. We can get two kinds at our local IKEA, but they have whole aisles devoted to it in Swedish grocery stores.

Another cute little Swedish house. The majority of houses are red. If it's not red, it's yellow. It's just the rule!

My favorite sunset photo from Sweden

This was taken at 10 PM on the day we arrived in Sweden. We were driving to the cabin and we just had to pull over to take a photo - it was beautiful!

A Swedish Wedding - Part II

After the ceremony, a massive party commences. (It even said on the invitation: MASSIVE party to follow.)

As soon as the groom leaves the head table, all of the guys rush up to kiss the bride. The girls all kiss the groom if the bride leaves the table too. Not just once - every time either of them leaves.

There are a lot of songs sung by everyone, usually ending in a toast. We also saw lip-sync performances, many speeches by their parents and siblings, and various fun activities by friends.


During one traditional game, they had to answer questions about which partner had more of certain traits by holding up the shoe of that person.

After the dinner, toasts, games and general fun, we went to another building for coffee and cake (this was at 11 PM. Swedes love their coffee!)

The dance then started about midnight. I think it was 3:30 AM when we left. It was certainly a massive party!

A Swedish Wedding - Part I

An excited bride! Hanna was one of the most expressive (and fun!) brides I've ever seen.

We all got on a boat to take us to the castle grounds.

Approaching the castle... it was actually the summer home.


A simple ceremony was performed outside. Because they had so many international guests, it was in both Swedish and English.

SWFC

Last weekend we went to the SWFC (Shanghai World Financial Center, aka the Bottle Opener) with our Couch Surfers Marion and George. Unfortunately we enjoyed our meal at DaMarco a little too long, and the lights of the Jin Mao and Pearl TV Tower were already turned off. Be sure to arrive there well before 10:00 if you go at night!

The Captain's Bar

After viewing the SWFC, we decided to check out some live jazz at the House of Blues and Jazz. After a couple drinks, we went to the Captain's Bar, conveniently located right across the street. It's the top floor of the Captain's Hostel and has the Bund view without pretentious drink prices.

Marion and George are Couch Surfers who stayed with us 4 days. They're from the Netherlands, and George was studying business Chinese in Beijing.

The view is quite nice when the lights are still on. Behind us is the infamous view of Pudong across the Huangpu River.

37 Fuzhou Lu, near Sichuan Zhong Lu
福州路37号，近四川中路

Solar Eclipse

Daft Punk came to play Shanghai!

Actually, #14 welding glass is an approved method of looking at the sun. Steve got the whole mask to be extra safe. :-)

Steve, Jon, Dan and Wendy watching as the eclipse starts.

Mid-eclipse

Solar Eclipse

It was raining for the eclipse, so we couldn't see the sun at all. We also couldn't see the shadow falling across the city. However, it was pretty cool to see the city plunge into darkness at 9:36 for over 5 minutes.

Here is a time lapse I took of the eclipse.

Solar Eclipse in Shanghai, July 22, 2009 from Emily Minor on Vimeo.

New version of lightning

I think I like this one better.  The city looks a lot more "shiny" and less gloomy.  What do you think?

Schiphol

We got into the Amsterdam airport at about 4 AM. We always seems to be at Schiphol at weird hours. The sunrise was nice though! Schiphol is a nice airport - it has a museum, a play area, a casino, a spa, tons of shops... not a bad way to kill a couple hours. I saw that a 10-minute neck and shoulder massage cost 16 Euros. That's 153 RMB for 10 minutes; well over 10 times more expensive than China. China - 1; the Netherlands - 0.

I bought some nail polish at a shop, and the salesperson was super nice, even bubbly at 4 AM. I was so surprised at how nice she was. I've forgotten what customer service is and how nice people can be, even if they don't know each other. China - 0; the Netherlands - 1.

Silhouettes in a castle

These were taken in castle ruins about 20 minutes from Jonkoping. It was raining and the sun was setting.

Sweden in Summer = no complete darkness!

10:42 PM

11:58 PM

3:44 AM

All of these photos are right out of the camera - no adjusting levels or contrast.

Wedding

We just got back from a week in Sweden. Our best friends, Hanna and Henrik, tied the knot. We had a wonderful time and you'll be seeing photos from it for several days!!


They asked me to do a reading (in English) during the ceremony. It was really an international wedding, so a lot of things were both in Swedish and English.

One of my coolest photos ever!

Last night, lighting was flashing outside. I have been trying to get a good lightning photo for a very long time! I set my camera to take a 13 second exposure with an aperture of 22, and just kept releasing the shutter. (The shutter just needs to stay open and you hope to catch something!)



What is really crazy is that you can see it HITTING the Pearl TV tower!

Decorating with frosting

Bonnie took a professional cake-decorating course in the US, and Claire and I wanted to learn, so she put on a little class for us. I've decorated several things before, but knowing the proper way to do it makes it a lot easier! We only learned a few basic things so I think we'll have more classes later.


My roses look more like cabbage....

Pajamas on Nanjing Lu

Summer in Shanghai is the place to wear your jammies, no matter how busy the street or time of day.

The cute culture

Everything here tries to be cute. Steve was even issued a cute bank card.

Happy 4th of July!

This photo was taken July 4th, 2006. Little did we know how many fireworks we'd see in the next few years. :-)

Congratulations to my cousin Chris and my new cousin-in-law Denise! They are getting married today, and I think it's safe to say I am the first person to say Congratulations on the day of the wedding, as we're 13 hours ahead of you now.

Next year, we'll be in the US for Pete and Sara's wedding on July 3rd. I've been waiting 2 years to get to go to the US in the summer! Thanks for the excuse, Pete and Sara!