Shanghai & Xian

We started our trip in the city of Shanghai. Justin and I were amazed at how much this city was like New York City. Tons of billboards, shopping and it's right on the bay. We had a great three days here and it was a good adjustment to life in China. We "roughed it" eating Pizza Hut, Pappa John's and Starbucks. A couple of highlights from our time in Shanghai:

1. Chinese Acrobat Show - kind of like Cirq de Soliel. It was really amazing, they had a little bit of everything, all without safety nets.
   
2. Nanjing Road - this is like Times Square in New York and our hotel was right on it. Very cool lit up at night.
3. Shopping in "Old Shanghai" - very authentic old-school China
   
4. The Bund - old British colonial buildings built right on the harbor. Packed at night with tons of sight-seers.
5. Meeting Barbara, a good friend of one of my closest friends in China. Got to grab coffee and hear all about what my friend Dili has been up to.

Then, we were onto a city called Xian, known mostly for the burial grounds of Emperor Qin, first emperor of China. The history here was amazing!! I've been teaching about Emperor Qin to my first and second graders so it was really neat to learn about it firsthand. The coolest part by far was going to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. Basically, a huge life-sized army of clay soldiers made by Emperor Qin to protect him in the afterlife. There are around 7,000 of them and archeaologists have been digging them up and putting them back together for the past thirty years. Such an amazing sight!

The second coolest part of Xian was renting bikes and riding them on top of the city wall. In Ancient China, they used to built huge walls around all their cities to protect them from invaders. Well, in Xian, you can still go on top and walk around the whole city.

Click here to see some of our best pictures from these two cities.