Our schedule for Spring Break 2014

First outing in Hong Kong was to the LDS Temple…but the taxi driver said this was “not a temple, only Chinese have temple, this is a church”

Chi Lin Nunnery in Hong Kong was very peaceful, although we never saw any nuns while there

Did some souvenir shopping at the “Ladies Market”

The people in Hong Kong hang dry their clothes right outside their apartment window

My roommate and I at the 12 story church building where our conference was held

Streets of Hong Kong are busy

Cool Asian boat at the Hong Kong harbor

Old fashion double decker tram only costs about $0.30 to ride, but it doesn’t go very fast and makes many stops along the way and is crowded on a Saturday afternoon

Hong Kong Park is right in the middle of the city, but you wouldn’t be able to tell once you were surrounded by the fountains and trees

Unique teapots on display at the Teapot Museum located at the Hong Kong Park

Aviary at the Hong Kong Park

My friend who was in our ward in Texas, flew the 10 hours or so from Saudi Arabia to attend conference

My 2 friends who I got to join me from the Philippines

Tiananmen Square; we didn’t cross the street, so this was what we saw of it in front of the Forbidden City

Part of the Forbidden City. This view reminds me of the Disney movie Mulan

Behind the Forbidden City is Jingshan Park. It offers a fabulous view of how huge the Forbidden City is…9,999 rooms total before a fire destroyed some of them

A pedestrian walking street full of stores. Many familiar store were seen

Down a side alley of the pedestrian street is the “Food Market” where people can eat scorpions, starfish, seahorse and other items…yes, Matt ate some scorpions after they were deep fried

Around the corner from the scorpion area is this souvenir alley full of people and trinkets

We had time to do a little bit of shopping at this 4 story “gray market” where you bargain down and should only give the vendors 30-50% of their asking price. Matt got a couple of clothing pieces, Kalani got a pair of gloves and I got $20 knockoff Ugg boots that Kalani wears

We ended our first day watching a 45 minute acrobat show. It was the most amazing show that we had ever seen with a variety of talent and tricks

First stop of the day was the Great Wall of China and we had perfect visibility

We took these “ski lifts” up to the wall

We wished Kalani a Happy 10th Birthday on the Great Wall of China

To get down from the wall we rode this “Luge”.

We got to go see the 2008 Olympic park

Our last stop for the day was to the Summer Palace which has a ton of artwork since everywhere you looked there was some kind of painting, carving, mural, etc

This massive stone marble boat has held many functions and is just beautiful

The water around the summer palace still had some ice at certain areas

We started off the day by going to the “Dirty Market” to look for a painting and other souvenirs, and we weren’t the only people there

We visited the aquarium where we saw Beluga whales and heard the loud noises that they make

The sea lion, dolphin, whale show was also pretty cool

Of course we had to visit the zoo to see giant pandas in their home country

And we ended the day by visiting a silk factory where we learned about the silk process

We got to ride a Rickshaw through an old neighborhood and tour a traditional “Hutong” courtyard home

We stayed at the Shangri-La China World Hotel and had this view

Motorcyclist have warm gloves and blankets attached to their motorcycles to keep warm while driving

The BEST Chinese food we have ever had was in Beijing and didn’t cost very much. The servers take down orders on these devices that look like a walkie-talkie or cell phone (this is our tour guide Iris)

I don’t know if they block the doorways year round, but while we visited all of doorways had some kind of “blanket” to keep the cold air out

Last photo with our tour guide Iris, who we highly recommend

We arrived at Mulia Hotel around midnight. Only a 4 hour flight from Manila and the hotel was wonderful.

Our view of Jakarta from our hotel window

Happy Chinese New Year…year of the Horse. Our first stop of the day was to a Chinese Temple “Vihara Dharma Bhakti.” There were so many people there and the air was full of smoke from the incense

We spent time at Sunda Kelapa seeing huge wooden boats and then taking a 15 minute boat ride with this older gentleman

Next stop was to “Old Town Jakarta” where Matt was approached by a few teenagers asking him questions for a school project

In “Old Town Jakarta” there is a European feel since the Dutch where here. You can rent these bikes with matching hats for an hour and ride around the square

We bought this painting off the street from the artist (middle) on our way to another attraction

This Cathedral is built directly in front of the largest Mosque in Southeast Asia

Istiqlal Mosque is the National Mosque of Indonesia (3rd largest mosque in the world) and we were told President Barack Obama visited here in 2010

People still enjoying their time at the mosque after the Friday noon prayer

Istiqlal tower as seen from within the mosque grounds

Holding the National Monument…maybe she can get us some of the gold off the top

A late lunch at D’Marco where our tour guide is part owner. We enjoyed all of the food that she had prepared for us and these are the “dessert pizzas”

In the evening we went to Grand Indonesia Mall where there were “Chinese New Year shows”

Also at the Grand Indonesia they have this music/water show that lasts about 5-10 minutes and was pretty fun to watch; and it was right next to Baskin Robbins ice cream

We drove out of Jakarta for our next adventure. In some areas beggars are sitting between the lanes of cars

Taman Safari was our first stop of the day where we were able to feed animals from our car window…guess he didn’t want to feed the zebra though

There were lions, tigers, and bears (oh my)…plus many other animals we could see up close from the comfort of our car

We found a komodo dragon in it’s own country at Taman Safari

Predator vs. Prey. We were in the reptile exhibit during feeding time.

Driving to our lunch appointment we were able to see the traffic that everyone talks about in Indonesia. It was the worst traffic we had ever seen; people were sitting here for a couple of hours waiting.

We had lunch up in the mountains, but it was too cloudy to enjoy the view. After lunch we bought some souvenirs and the other vendors would not go away

Our last stop in Indonesia was to the Flower Garden

The kids could have spent another hour or two here enjoying the garden. They really liked doing this maze

We hosted a Christmas party for our help and their family and gave everyone gifts

We took Matt’s brother, Drew, to Divasoria to buy some gifts to take to our family in Siquijor

We spent an evening at Republiq Dance Club with friends

Less than 24 hours after my parents landed in Manila, we took them to Siquijor to see our family. Our cousins hosted us for lunch/dinner many times.

One cousin opened a Sari Sari (store) and Kalani spent a lot of time there helping to sell items and pretending to be the security guard.

We took my parents to one of our favorite places, Cambugahay Falls

We also found new places that we had not visited on the 3 previous trips we took to Siquijor. Like Infinity Heights Resort where the view was breath-taking and we were glad to share it with our many cousins.

Of course when you find a beautiful place the Filipinos take photos

Drew at Lugnason Falls…a new attraction we hadn’t been to before.

On Christmas Day our cousins rented a karaoke machine.

Also on Christmas Day the boys learned how to prepare lechon (pig)… from slaughter to table, we got the full on Filipino experience.

The boys also went to a cock-fight where our cousin had a rooster fighting.

We couldn’t leave Siquijor without a basketball game…or 2 or 3 or 4 games! Matt was invited to play with the police against a club team one evening.

Our cousin/tour guide takes us around in this rented car every time we come to visit. And we always pack as many people as we can inside.

We love spending time with our cousins.

My dad and his half-grand-nephew were similar in various things…like where they slept. It is a good thing they caught up on their sleep in Siquijor since the fun didn’t stop in Manila!

While waiting for our plane to arrive we spent some time in Dumeguete shopping mall with our cousin Belinda who lives there.

Our cousin ready to board his first plane and spend 5 days in Manila with us.

Our first meal in Manila was at the mall near our home where we had some yummy ramen noodles.

We took the group to the Mall of Asia where we watched the firework show and also people ice skating.

Sherwin had never seen a mall this size.

We had a wonderful buffet dinner at Manila Peninsula and Drew’s “friend” joined us…who Mason liked to be with all the time.

One evening we invited the cousins living in Manila over to our home so Sherwin and my parents could see them.

It was beautiful weather, good company and a lot food while everyone was visiting us for Christmas. We felt truly blessed to have our family with us for the holiday season