Old Town

Old towns are quite common in China.  Huzhou is located in the Yangtze River delta so their is an old town here in the Nanxun District which is the oldest part of the town and to the east about 45 minutes from where we live.  We went to explore this old town about 2 weeks ago but I took the wrong lens for my camera so I don't have very many pictures.  It was an interesting place.  Reminded me a little bit of old western ghost towns where it is definitely geared to tourists.  But we did get to see lots of old Chinese furniture and lots of interesting architecture.  There were lots of wealthy people who lived here because of the silk trade. The silk from Nanxun won in the world expo in the 1800's.  This town has been here since the 9th century.  The old towns are built on the waterways, most have water canals that represent the streets, travel is mostly by boat.  There are usually one or two rivers that go through the town then canals that intersect and circle the town.  The buildings are built on both sides of the waterways and usually face the water.  There are typical structures from the Ming and Qing Dynasties along with some European buildings.  Most have been well preserved.  There were several large mansions that included inner courtyards and gardens.  It was definitely worth seeing.  

Again, I apologize for the terrible pictures, hopefully next time we go to one of these I can get better pictures.

 Hand carved chairs and table

 lantern

 This guy had no arms so he painted fans with his feet

 It was amazing to watch him, he is doing calligraphy on this particular fan

 Old painting

 It is spring here in China

 More old paintings on some sort of scrolls

 Waterways, the people on the back stand and 'row' with a single long oar.

 Selling stuff to tourists

 These birds are used to fish with, they send them down to catch fish, then there is a wire round their beaks so they can actually swallow the fish.  They are tied to the boat.

 These are ancient 'books' they are actually wooden tablets and the characters are carved in to the front.

 costume dresses, you can try these on and they will take your picture by the water, kinda like dressing up in the old western clothes and getting a black and white

 These ladies are doing laundry.  This is actually typical here, you can go by most the rivers in China and people are doing their laundry, not sure that anything is getting very clean here...

 Our driver, Mr. Jong and Madi

 This is Madi's life.  Posing for the masses...  she loves it, total ham

 checking out all the worthless things she would like to buy

sisters

I'm back....

We are back in China.  We actually stayed in the States an extra few weeks because of the Chinese New Year.  They celebrate the 1st two weeks of February and everything shuts down.  Most people either travel and go sight seeing or they go inland and visit family, which means most of the businesses in the city completely shut down.  Everyone is off for at least 10 days.  When Kyle got back to work they were still missing 200 workers from the floor out of a total of around 450...  most filtered back in over the next week.  It is like this giant wheel that comes to a complete halt and it takes a while to get it rolling again.  There were about 30-40 boats still parked along the banks in front of our apartment for at least 2 weeks after the New Year ended.  It is pretty crazy.  Anyway, because of this we stayed in America until the middle of February.  We had a great time visiting family, the girls had lots of fun with grandparents and cousins.  They got to see Delta for about 4 weeks which was probably the highlight of the whole trip.  They keep asking why we can't bring here to China!  I don't that crazy animal could handle a 16 hour flight, she would probably die of cardiac arrest!  My parents had lots of snow when we got to their house and Kyle's parents had a huge storm while we were there so the girls got all the snow time they could want this winter.

 The pure bliss of snow :)  Kenz LOVES it! The child is meant to live in the north.

 Sled Patrol

 Madi was not really a fan...

 Delta in all her glory...  loving life chasing all the squirrels in the neighborhood

 Kenz loved Grandma's fancy wrapping

 TOO MUCH CHRISTMAS!

 not sure

 Kaylie turns 3

 best buddies

 The girls made gingerbread houses with Grandma

 On our way out west

 Devil's Tower

 Grandpa's toy, which all the girls LOVED

 Kyle got a new toy...

 Actually he got two, I was just trying this one out for him

 cousins

 Kyle decided to get in on some of the fun

 In the mountains

 Exploring sinks canyon cave

 Took the girls to a ranch that one of Kyle's buddies works on, Kaylie had her nose plugged the entire time :)  Kenz loved all the baby calves and they got to see one being born while we were there.

 Kenz one true love in life:  horses

 Got about 15 inches of fresh snow while we were there

 Madi would ride on the front of that thing for hours!

 Kyle built the girls a snow cave

 Definitely one of my favorite pictures :)

 Big horn sheep on the way to Jackson Hole

 LOTS of snow up on Togwotee Pass, Kyle and I got to go up to Jackson for a night without the kids.  Amazing!

 Tetons

This is what greeted us the morning after we got back to China.  There was about 3" on the ground.  It didn't last long which was good because it is not fun trying to walk everywhere with little kids in the snow.  That sums up our time in the states.  Lots of fun had by all!