Port Tour - Korea

This is going to be one of them boring blogs for some of you...

The last thing that a "land locked" guy from North Dakota ever thinks about when he was growing up is a sea port and I did not have much exposure to it as well in the flat lands of the prairie. So when the opportunity presented itself to tour the world's 4th largest port in Busan, Korea I jumped at the chance. Though my job has nothing to do with balancing the trade deficit, my indirect responsibilities do have a bit to do with sending product out of these ports bound for the US of A.
Anyway this port is considered a "deep water" port. The water depth at the vessel "berth" is 16 meters or about 45 ft deep. This will accommodate the world's largest cargo going vessels. These vessels are capable of loading 50,000 tons. To put that in perspective each container (the size of a semi trailer) can weigh up to 40,000 lbs. So technically one cargo ship can haul about 2500 semi trailers.

To be considered an "ant" in this large area among these gigantic cranes & hoists is an understatement. The area of the this port was 647,000 sq meters or about 160 acres.

One other thing I found interesting is all of the cranes are operated on electric power.

These are the containers that I mentioned earlier - they come in 20 foot and 40 foot lengths. You see them all over the highway system in the US.Until next time:

"Victory belongs to the most persevering."
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

Yuyuan Gardens

Sabrina and I took some time on Sunday to visit Yuyuan Gardens in Shanghai. This week was a long holiday week and we let Ayi watch the kids so that we could see some "sites", have lunch, and so on. Information about Yuyuan can be found at http://www.yugarden.com.cn/. This garden is located deep in the heart of Shanghai and it is very beautiful. It is centuries old and was built during the time of the Ming Dynasty. The area is quite "touristy" but still very beautiful and we enjoyed the casual time.

Also providing some pictures of the twins. Caden starts baseball next week and Ava has her first dance recital in November.

(just kidding - but they are growing fast.)

"It makes no difference how many peaks you reach if there was no pleasure in the climb." Oprah

What the heck is a "moon cake" anyway?

One of the traditional holidays in China is the Mid-Autumn Festival or Moon Cake Festival. I have added a brief review of what this holiday is all about below if you have the time or are interested. Sabrina and I took part in this as we put the kids down to bed, grabbed our moon cake, and sat out on the front porch to eat our cake and watch the moon. We could see the moon off of our front porch big and bright in the sky as you can see in the picture below. The weather and temperature was perfect as well. In the busy and hectic world in which we live it really makes you think about the simpler more important things in life. So the next time you look at a full moon - think about the Moon Cake Festival...

The taste for a moon cake must be an acquired one because neither Sabrina or I were fond of it. The closest thing I can explain it tastes like is a very rich fruit cake. Not our favorite by any means...

Taken from a Google search of "Moon Cake Festival":

The Chinese Moon Festival is on the 15th of the 8th lunar month. It's also known as the Mid-autumn Festival. Chinese culture is deeply imbedded in traditional festivals. Just like Christmas and Thanksgiving in the West, the Moon Festival is one of the most important traditional events for the Chinese.
The Moon Festival is full of legendary stories. Legend says that Chang Er flew to the moon, where she has lived ever since. You might see her dancing on the moon during the Moon Festival. The Moon Festival is also an occasion for family reunions. When the full moon rises, families get together to watch the full moon, eat moon cakes, and sing moon poems. With the full moon, the legend, the family and the poems, you can't help thinking that this is really a perfect world. That is why the Chinese are so fond of the Moon Festival.
The Moon Festival is also a romantic one. A perfect night for the festival is if it is a quiet night without a silk of cloud and with a little mild breeze from the sea. Lovers spend such a romatic night together tasting the delicious moon cake with some wine while watching the full moon. Even for a couple who can't be together, they can still enjoy the night by watching the moon at the same time so it seems that they are together at that hour. A great number of poetry has been devoted to this romantic festival. Hope the Moon Festival will bring you happiness.
The moon cake is the food for the Moon Festival. The Chinese eat the moon cake at night with the full moon in the sky.

World Wide Web

This evening I was looking at the "hit map" of our blog site. I was surprised to see hits from around the world...places like Argentina, Germany, and so on. Not sure who they are...

Until next time...

"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning to sail my ship" --Louisa May Alcott

A Big Rainstorm - But Not Quite A Typhoon

A Big Rainstorm - But Not Quite A Typhoon...at least that is what we are experiencing here in Shanghai. It is raining but I would not say it is heavy rain, it is windy but nothing a person from North Dakota is accustomed to. So far not a big deal... apparently now they are calling it a tropical storm. I expected to wake up this morning with blowing straight line wind that rips the leaves off of trees, rain coming down sideways, and ankle deep pools of water. Nothing...

For you geographically challenged folks....Shanghai is located near the yellow X. I think the map I copied is old because the storm is now west of us.

Until next time...

Ponder this...whose getting more "air time" these days - OJ or Obama?

Life Is Back To Normal

We can't see our actual blog site because all of the routes we used to view it have been blocked by the higher powers to be. So unless you hear that we are back on line - please understand that we are "winging" it with the hopes that the formatting will look fine for you on the "outside". :)

Life is back to normal here. Sabrina and the kids arrived about 2 weeks ago. It took only a couple of days to get their internals clocks re-adjusted. Sabrina flew back with her Uncle Tom and the flight went very smooth. There were not major blow-ups to speak of. I think our kids are becoming routine frequent fliers. Heck, at 1.5 years of age they are already GOLD on Northwest Airlines - so they should be.

To all that we saw this summer while we were back - we just wanted to let you know that we had an awesome summer. It was great to spend time and see everyone. Our friends and our families are what we miss most about the USofA. These are precious times to us and we appreciate all that everyone does for us when we are "on-the-road" but still we feel we are home. We over the course of the summer we spent many nights in many different homes and our kids got used to their pack-n-play portable cribs. Again, thanks.

With that I'm going to close out with just a bunch of pictures randomly taken from different times over the course of the summer. Our babies are not babies any more as you'll quickly see...

Grandma Sandi...

Uncle Chad...Caden's first haircut was not a pleasant experience...
Angie, one of Sabrina's friends at Jessica's family's cabin on Lake Minnetonka..The Wixo cabin on Devil's Lake is always a treat. Here Brandon caught a finch that had stunned itself by flying into the window. Obviously his little sister and brother think he is about the coolest ever...

A hot sun burnt & baked 4th of July picture on Devil's Lake...Sadie & Brandon after a morning fishing...
Just a whole lot of Wixo's...
Grandpa Tony...
Cousins are always the coolest to hang out with...

Grandma Sylvia...

The STMA group threw a nice gathering for us at Ginger's house...always good to see everyone again. And finally back in China...

Until next time...

"Never eat more than you can lift..." Miss Piggy

Shut down again

Bear with us...we can't access our blog site again.

We can only access this area...but can not see the actual blog. We'll try to figure something out over the weekend.

Tony