CRYSTAL AND ISABEL This is a weblog for Crystal Sun Zhao and Isabel Sun Zhao. As parents, we'd like to keep the records for them as much as we can.

On Nov. 2nd, 2011, Isabel is 6 years old. On Nov. 25th, 2011, Crystal is 9 years old.

Since September, 2011, Isabel started her elementary school at Shanghai Soong Ching Ling School. Crystal has moved from her old school to this new school too. So now, they go to the new school everyday together.

We attent American School’s, International Day. American School is Sophie’s school. All the kids had a great time.

We went to Xiamen with Dandan’s family. In the first a couple of days, we stayed at 厦门鼓浪屿. It’s a small island, taking 1 to 2 hours to walk around the whole island. Lots of tourists and many delicious local food.

Next, we drove the car to 永定 to visit 福建土楼. These old buildings are amazing. They were totally made by locally available cheap materials by people with no money hundreds of years ago and strong enough to hold a big family with a few hundreds of people in one building. One building not only surivived the earthquake, the broken parts healed back automatically after some time because of the materials used for the building. That’s truely un-believable.

I take Crystal, Isabel and Dandan to a 5 days’ trip to Zhejiang.

Day 1, Aug. 15th, 2011: we left Shanghai to Zhejiang 石浦. In between, we stopped at Hongzhou Bay Sea-crossing Bridge, the Sea Platform, for a couple of hours.

Day 2 and 3, Aug. 16th-17th, 2011: we stayed at 中国渔村, spending two whole days on the beach.

Day 4, Aug. 18th, 2011: we visited a couple of places and then head to 宁海. We had a lot of fun at 宁海. We tried 漂流 and 泡温泉. Both are the best around Shanghai area.

Day 6, Aug. 20th, 2011: we drove back to Shanghai. No picture today.

We took a summer vocation again this year by car. This time, we visited Shandong from July 2nd to 15th.

Day 1, July 2rd, 2011: from Shanghai to Rizhao(日照) and stayed at Rizhao for one night. It took us 7 hours to drive 600 KM. No picture today.

Day 2, July 3rd, 2011: from Rizhao(日照) to Qingdao(青岛). We drove through 胶州湾大桥 and visited Underwater World, the beach and 五四广场 in Qingdao.

Day 3, July 4th, 2011: we climbed the 崂山 from the bottom to the top. 崂山 is 1133 meters high. It took us 6 hours to climb it all the way. It’s amazing to see Isabel and Crystal to climb such a high mountain for them, especially for Isabel. She was totally exhausted and don’t want to climb another mountain again. In the next few days, her first question was almost like this before we went to a new place: “Do they have a mountainer there?”. We left Qingdao to Weihai(威海) late afternoon.

Day 4, July 5th, 2011: “Weihai has the best sands in North part of China”. This is a saying in China. I think this is true.

Day 5, July 6th, 2011: we went to 成山头 to visit 神雕山野生动物园. This is the best zoo that we have ever visited. A lot of interactions between visitors and animals. We had a lot of funs.

Day 6, July 7th, 2011: we took a boat to an island, called 海驴岛. It has thousands of Seabirds on the island, very beautiful and unique place.

Day 7, July 8th, 2011: we stayed on the beach and in the sea whole day today. So, no pictures today.

Day 8, July 9th, 2011: we visited another island, 刘公岛, today. This is where Sino-Japanese War happened in 1894-1895. Late that afternoon, mom has flied from Shanghai to join us in the trip.

Day 9, July 10th, 2011: we drive from Weihai to 蓬莱 today and visited 蓬莱仙阁, 田横山,

Day 10, July 11th, 2011: we drove one day from 蓬莱 to Jinan(济南) and had a big dinner in Jinan. No pictures today.

Day 11, July 12th, 2011: in Jinan, we visited 趵突泉 and 大明湖. Later afternoon, Isabel got sick. We left Jinan to Taian(泰安). When we arrived at Taian, we had to take Isabel to see a doctor. Isabel got some medicine.

Day 12, July 13th, 2011: since Isabel was sick, we only visited 岱庙 today. Isabel felt a little better today after one day’s rest.

Day 13, July 14th, 2011: in the early morning around 6am, I got up by myself and climb the Tarzan mountain by myself. After 3.5 hours, I was at the top. The Tarzan mountain is 1532.7 meters high. Later around 11am, Crystal, Isabel and Mom got to the top by cables. Later afternoon, we drove to Qufu(曲阜), which is our last stop.

Day 14, July 15th, 2011: Qufu is the home of Confucius. We visited 孔庙, 孔府 and 孔林. After 5pm, we started to drive back to Shanghai home. We arrived around 2am the next day morning after 800 KM of driving.

Crystal says goodbye to her teacher, Ms Li, and her classmates because Crystal will transfer to a new school, Soong Ching Ling School, next sememster.

On June 1st, 2011, Isabel performed in a shopping mall with her classmates.

On May 27th, 2011, Isabel performed again in her kindergarden to celebrate June 1st Kids’ day.

On May 1st, 2011, we had a one-day trip to 青浦薰衣草园.

From April 3rd to 5th, 2011, we went for a 3 days’ trip to 安吉 with Dandan’s family.

Day 1, April 3rd, 2011: we drove from Shanghai to 安吉藏龙百瀑.

Day 2, April 4th, 2011: we visited 天下银坑 and 神秘部落村.

Day 3, April 5th, 2011: we went to visit 黄浦江源龙王山.