The Video to Match the Poster

Our "Together" Video

Get ready for it!!! Our Super-Dooper "Together" video is coming to a (computer) screen near you!!!!!! It's the motion picture event of the year!!!
...okay not really...but it's exciting!

PS check out those dramatic facial expressions. Ha!

Let the Games Begin.

The videos are up!!!
So let these wild voting games begin!!!
YAAAYYYY! team Asia!!!
(although I have to say,as much as they intimidate me, I love love love the others' videos!

You can watch, vote and comment HERE

and I'll be sure to post more extra videos on this blog in the following weeks :o)

Day 13 & 14 - Goodbye China :o(

About five or six of us did a little walking tour yesterday with our guide. Normally I love getting lost in new places and discovering things on my own, but we only had one full day in Shanghai and it was our last day on the trip, so we had to make sure we got to places and saw as much as we could... and this was a great way to do it. We walked to the the Bund Area, I'm sure if you've ever seen a photo of Shanghai, you've probably seen the Bund. It's a beautiful street along the river, lined with over 50 historical buildings of all sorts of (mainly European) Architectural styles, from Renaissance, to Gothic, to Neo-Classical. Across the water you see Shanghai's famous skyline (except the sky was nowhere as clear as that linked photo haha..you'll see on the videos) with the Oriental Pearl TV Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Centre (that people normally refer to as the "bottle opener building" hehe.

We then walked through many side streets, and that was probably the most interesting bit. Shanghai is China's economic centre, you've got all these old European style buildings, and fancy, shiny, new modern buildins...and then , you have the side streets which feel like you've stepped into a different decade completely! Clothes hangs on clothing lines that are stretched from window to window, people are making and selling food on street corners, and overall it feels like a small town rather than a huge world city. I loved it! I thought it was so interesting.

We went to the Fish, Insect and Bird Market, and then to the close by antique market. After drooling over all the pretty things (and some funny, there was lots of Chairman Mao stuff too) we went for a quick visit to the museum. The entrance is free and we figured we might as well check it out, and cool down in the air-conditioned space (it was soooo hot and humid!!!). We didn't stay too long cause it was after all our last day and we wanted to be outside, so instead we headed back to the gardens we had gone to the night before and found the little market area (that was opened during the day yay), did our last minute souvenir shopping, tried tea in a tea shop and then hurried back to the hotel to meet up for the acrobatics show!

What a super great ending to the trip!!! They had everything from a clay pot juggler (way cooler than it sounds, trust me!)to plate spinners, to hat jugglers, to bike girls...and much much more!












That was it! Our last night in China :o(
The next day (today? I dunno, I'm confused with the time difference), Fiona and I just walked around Nanjing Road (the famous 6km shopping district) mainly to get some shots of it, but we soon decided to step off onto the smaller streets instead, and got some really delicious breakfast. We found 3 different food stalls and couldn't decide what we wanted to try, so we tried them all...and then went back to one cause it was sooo good!!! I wish I knew what the thing we ate was called, it was basically like a scallion pancake with an egg cracked on top, but the preparation process was really interesting to watch too so we didn't mind standing in the long line filled with locals queuing up for some yumminess! (I have videos of it!, and I promise it'll be up here soon!). I think I would've been tempted to check out even more stalls, if I hadn't of had to go back to the hotel to get our luggage and head to the airport to leave. :o(

There was A LOT of turbulence on the flight from Shanghai to Vancouver, but we made it back alive, and then I had to run for my plane to Toronto.

I'm back home safe and sound and ready to shuffle through all the clips. The two weeks in China were SUCH a great experience! I'm so happy I entered this contest and so grateful for it.

Let the video editing, posting, and voting begin! ;o)

Day 12 - Boogie with Locals

Yesterday after breakfast, Fiona and I headed to Remin Park. SOOOO incredible! I had never experienced anything like it. There were people everywhere!!! And they were all busy either dancing, playing badminton, doing tai chi, playing music....my hear sweled with happiness! hahaha...no but seriously I was ridiculously happy to be there.
I wish we had public spaces/parks like this...I mean we do...but we often don't make great use of them. We even saw groups of people dancing on street corners (with music and all) it just adds so much life and energy to the atmosphere.

At the park of the locals dragged us in to dance with them (well it didn't really take much dragging, we kinda hopped right into it). We spent a good hour or two dancing and walking around the park watching people do their thaang! We then went to one of the tea houses in the park, ordered tea by the pond and just relaxed and wrote post cards.

The tea houses are amazing and so relaxing, but they're pretty funny too though cause you have people coming around asking if you want a massage or your ears cleaned. Yes! Your ears cleaned! haha. They come around with dental-looking tools and clean peoples ears. It's not the most appetizing thing, but it was amusing.

We headed back to the hotel, met up with the group and went to the airport.
In a few hours, we were in Shanghai!

It was already dark when we got there, but we really wanted to go to a night market so we were told to head over to the Yu Gardens. I reeeeally wanted to try something crazy like scorpion or something while in China...but I never found it...and turns out Yu market isn't the place to find it either. It wasn't really the type of market we were looking for, everything was closed, but there were some shops and restaurants opened and the Market/Garden itself looked spectacular all lit up at night!...so the adventure turned out to be a success after all!...plus we had dumplings and ice cream...amongst all the lights..can't go wrong with that! :o)

Day 11 - Panda Love

We got to Chengdu pretty late in the evening yesterday so we couldn’t see much that day, instead we walked around a little, had ice cream for dinner and went to bed.
We woke up early today to go to the Giant Panda Breeding and Research Base!!!!

I know there’s not much I can write here that’ll make you want to read when there are adorable Panda photos. So instead I’ll let you look at the photos and leave you with a cheesy Panda joke we were told on the bus on the way to the base.

What are a Panda’s two wishes?
I think the joke originally has three but I was in the back of the bus and couldn’t hear the last one haha

1. They wish for colour photos
Cause they’re black and white!!! get it!? haha....yeah no, I know it’s pretty bad

The next one’s a little better in my opinion though:

2. They wish for a good night’s sleep
Cause they have the black circles under their eyes!!!...huh?...huh?...come on, that one’s not too bad!



My new Panda buddy was too busy eating his apple, it was a lot more interesting than I am. I find these photos hilarious cause you really can't even see that he's holding an apple.
Gahhhh! It was so so so cute!

Oh and Look! A Mini-Giant Panda!!!

Later in the day we visited the Wenshu Monastery, a well preserved Buddhist temple filled with cultural relics, calligraphy, paintings and several beautiful buildings.





In the evening we went to see a Chinese Opera - Oh so cool!!

The horizontal photos are horribly small, but you can click to enlarge.

It's really more of a variety show than anything cause they had acrobats, dances, and a little comedic sketch (in Chinese!...but there were some subtitles on screens beside the stage hehe).








The last bit of the show was the opera/mask changing part and it was...Wow!!!
I still don't get how they change those masks so quickly. Trigger or no trigger, it's amazing!

We were told that we'd be able to go behind stage and see the performers prepare for the show. But we weren't able to. So we (our tour group) all walked around looking for an entrance, trying to ask someone. I went to the back and found the door, started going in and was stopped by a lady who didn't understand English. We were all about to go back to our seats, but I couldn't resist trying again, so I kinda sorta snuck through the door. When I got to the back I found a woman who spoke English and explained that I just wanted to see the make-up process and film it. She let me stay for about a minute... so here's a bit of what I saw (it's short and shaky, but I was being hurried, and not gonna lie, kinda nervous about the fact that I wasn't technically supposed to be there. But hey what can I say...I tried okay!?!? hehe)

PS Thanks lady who let me sneak past the other lady!

Day 7, 8 , 9 - Gorgeous Gorges

So I’m going to condense the three boat days into one blog post because I realize that my posts are getting a little too long.

On our first day we passed through the 5 locks of the 3 Gorges Dam in the morning, and then went for a tour of the dam...I’d share the technical specs, and facts with you, but I need to do a bit more research because I’ve been told different numbers by different guides and people (well guides are people too, haha but I mean and other non-guide people..okay you get it- see this sort of stuff is what makes my posts too long, I'll stop now). Basically all these human beings got me a little confused...I made video clips of each version though just in case haha. The rest of the day was spent lounging on our boat’s deck and enjoying the views of the gorges.

The next day we took a tour of the Lesser Three Gorges and the mini gorges. We had a great local guide, she helped to really give me a sense of what the area would have looked like only about 7 years ago before it was flooded by the dam. It was nice also to have the chance to talk to her and find out a little more about the effects the dam has had on her and on others who live in the area. It seems that the consensus is that for the elderly, the dam and the ensuing displacement has done little good for them. For the younger locals however it has actually provided opportunities that they may not have otherwise had, such as the ability to get out of the smaller towns and get an education. I’m sure everyone has a different story and a different opinion on whether or not the dam has had positive or negative effects on the area and its people, I wish I had had time to speak to more locals from Wushan to get an even better sense of the issues.

At night the boat crew put on a little dance show for us, it was super cute! It was also nice to see the variety of music and dances that are performed here. We got to join in with a choo-choo train type of dance hehe, and musical chairs! Then they completely handed over the stage to us and a night of major karaoke-ing began! So fun!

Today was our last day (or rather last few hours) on the boat. A couple of us snuck off this morning after we docked to see the Ghost City here in Fengdu before meeting up with the group to make our way to our next destination: Chengdu.