Chinese National Day

Every year on the 4th of July, America celebrates its national Independance Day. Every October 1st, China celebrates its National Day. This year was especially important as it marks 60 years that China has been part of the Communist party.

The celebration was marked with red lanterns lining the streets everywhere, and public areas posted large red banners with the number 60 on them. Living here, you could feel a sense of a pride the people felt for their country. In Beijing, the week prior to the holiday, areas were closed where celebrations were to be held for preparations, and the airport in Beijing was closed the day before October 1st for security.
During the celebration week, schools and offices are closed throughout China. Most people use the time to travel, but we decided to do some local sight-seeing around Shanghai. Lucky for us the weather could not have been better, and we even had to take a picture outside our house to remember what BLUE SKIES really look like, as most days here are very grey.

Last year, one of the largest buildings in the world was constructed here in Shanghai---the World Financial Center. The three tallest buildings in Shanghai are shown here from left to right--Pearl Tower, Jin Mao, and the World Financial Center.

We took an elevator to the top of the World Financial Building (right), and were able to get the best views of the city. The building also has a glass floor for those brave enough to walk on, enabling you to see all the way to the ground.

After our tour, we went for our favorite dumplings and steemed buns at the bottom of the tower. The boys have all become pros with chopsticks leaving only mom to ask for a fork!!

Another day during the holiday week, we spent at the Shanghai Wild Animal Park. Here they offer photo opportunities with basically any animal---wild or tame. Tyson's choice for the elephant was definitely better than some of the other choices!!
The park here is so large they offer trams for visitors to rent. The trams come with a chinese tour guide who offers interesting facts about the different animals. No worries if your chinese is not fluent, as the sights and spectators around are interesting enough to figure out what is being said.

Again, not only can you take a photo with your favorite animal here at the park, you can also feed almost any of them as well. We were a little more reserved, and stuck with the pigeons. (vs. feeding the tiger dead chickens) However, for a REAL zoo experience, we recommend coming here.

The rest of our holiday week, we spent doing very practical activities such as:

Making new suits for the boys at the fabric market........
Spending a morning with Dad learning how to PROPERLY iron your clothes. (Proud to say our dad is an expert at ironing clothes.....mom would never want to take this title from him)

And, last but not least we spent a day at the barber shop where every boy got a great shampoo and cut for a couple bucks!

In any other spare time, Bracken and Parker were able to finish some community service for boy scouts at a local chinese library. Unfortunately we don't have pictures for this because we would have LOVED to see them in their tan vests sorting, straightening, and checking out books. The boys have become good with reading some Chinese characters, but they were grateful to find out even China uses the dewey decimal system!!!

At the end of the week, we realised it had been a great, productive week that we enjoyed together as a family.