Little Miss Martha....

Ok so I got back to Cincinnati late Monday night, and got up and put in a full day at work, and then Martha it up!

Home made pumkin pie!

Deep dish super American Cherry Pie!

Grandma's leftover tarts, with a twinkle.

Shantou, China

Shantou lies in the eastern part of Guangdong province. It is 2043 square kilometers in area. The population is 3.8 million.

A view of Shatou from the bridge.

The Shantou Suspension Bay Bridge, it is pretty in real life!

This a memorial to one of the major generals.

This hill is called Lotus Hill because of the natural split in the rock. It really does look like a Lotus flower. This was in park on the way to the beach.

Shantou coast line with a really old wooden boat. I am not sure if it was washed up or placed there on purpose. My tour guide did not speak English very well.

The beach in Shantou, I need some sunscreen and a blanket... and more time off!

It is winter here so no one was on the beach, however in the park entrance there a million kids on a field trip. They even a had few rides including a roller coaster, and bumper cars.




I apologize for not being more informative about this site but my tour guide was one of our vendors and she knew very little English. However, I think the pictures speak for themselves.

Summer Palace

My favorite place so far!

Located in Haidian District, some 12 kilometers northwest of the downtown, the Summer Palace is the largest imperial garden in the world. It is a veritable museum of classical Chinese garden architecture.

The initial construction of the Summer Palace began in 1750, commissioned by Emperor Qinglong as a gift for his mother's birthday. The construction took 15 years to complete. It had the name "Qingyi Yuan" (Garden of Clear Ripples) at that time.
The plundering of foreign troops in 1860 destroyed most of the buildings, but they were renovated in 1888 by Empress Dowager Cixi, who was said to have embezzled the funds of the Imperial Navy to build the garden. After China's liberation, the garden became a park and got the name Yiheyuan (Summer Palace).

Covering an area of 290 hectares, the park in Beijing is an outstanding example of imperial gardens. The landscape architect utilized Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake to create a paradise of hills and waters. Artisans reproduced the garden architecture styles of various palaces in China and combined them to create a harmonious atmosphere.

For example, the buildings in the palatial administration area and residential area near the East Palace Gate are courtyard dwellings linked to each other. The lake area in the south is divided by a dyke, imitating West Lake in Hangzhou.

Structures on the northern side of the Longevity Hill area feature Tibetan Style Lamseries and Suzhou Street is lined with shops in traditional Chinese buildings. The Garden of Harmonious Interests is similar to the water town of south China. An elegant 700-meter-long corridor with exquisite color paintings links the buildings and gardens together and enables tourists to more easily appreciate the whole scenic area.

The whole Summer Palace is divided into three parts: the administrative area, the residential area and the scenic area.

On to Shenzhen

Late last night we flew out of Beijing to Shenzhen. Now that it is Monday It is all about work.... So I have saved a few more posts from my Beijing.

After the Great Wall Lucy took me to the heart of the city to walk around Tiananmen Square, where you can visit Tiananmen Tower, Monument to the People's Heroes, Great Hall of the People, and Mao Zedong Memorial Hall. Thousands of people come to the Square every day. It is the must place to visit in Beijing City.

At the north end of the Square is Tiananmen Tower is the Forbidden City, built in 1417. Unfortunately we arrived at Forbidden City rather late and it was closed to tourists. It will be on my list to visit next time.

Located in the center of Tiananmen Square is a granite Monument to the People's Heroes. Built in 1952, it still stands as the largest monument in China's history.

Next is the Great Hall of the People. This building, is used for China's National Congress meetings and other political activities. Built in 1959 the Hall contains three main rooms; the Central Hall, the Great Auditorium and of course a Banqueting Hall. Impressively the the Great Auditorium seats 10,000 and the Banqueting Hall 5,000.

Finally, Mao Zedong Memorial Hall is located on the south side of the Square. This memorial is where the Chairman Mao's body lies.

Tiananmen Square is a relaxing place for the Beijing people and has be come a common gathering place. The Square extends over 440,000 square meters.

2008 Olympics Beijing China

Don't forget the 2008 Olympics will be in Beijing! They are super excited to host the Olympics and you can see paraphernalia every where in China!

A view from The Great Wall of China

The icon is even on beer bottles,

and water, bill boards, various products and tons of stickers on cars, it is very exciting. I can only hope work will send be back during the Olympic games....

I won't hold my breath.

Beijing China

The Great Wall; Badaling

I am lucky enough to have been able to experience one of the 7 wonders of the the World. (this is my first one) The Great wall is amazing and when arriving I couldn't help thinking what it would have been like to build. The Great Wall winds up and down across deserts, grasslands, mountains and plateaus, stretching over 4,163 miles from east to west of China. The wall has over 2,000 years of history with some sections in ruins, others crumbling, and most well preserved.

The Great Wall in Beijing was built during the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644) and is the most often seen and best preserved, running over 373 miles and containing about 827 city wall platforms, 71 passes and countless towers.

The section that I climvisited was all mountainous region. We trooped up countless stairs, very slippery inclines and altitudes that reached over 3,282 feet. The Badaling entrance took over three hours mostly up hill. This is a great work out and I defiantly want to go back and spend a whole day. Make sure you wear good walking shoes because the stone is very slippery and tourist are very pushy. We were running short on time so we used a cable car to get back down, this saved us about three hours. My tour guide Lucy told me that it is easy to go up rather than down.

Finally I have arrived in Beijing China

After a very very long flight, and very long drive from the airport to my hotel I am exhausted. I arrived at the hotel, checked up on emails and went to bed. I look forward to posting my experiences during my trip. As for now I received an email and think this is an awesome idea.


This sounds like a good idea..............
When you are making out your Christmas card list this year, please include the following:
A Recovering American soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue,NW
Washington,D.C. 20307-5001


If you approve of the idea, please pass it on to your e-mail list. (Which I did) Hope you do also. These guys need all of the good cheers and will that we can give them.

Busy, busy, busy

I have been incredibly busy with work so I have had not time for crafting or blogging. I also found out late last week that I would be going back to China for work. I will try to post as much as possible while i am gone.

He is a picture from my last trip. I am excited I get to see the great wall of China this time!

This beautiful Shanghai at night.

Vintage Lunch box

Here is the newest addition to my lunch box. I have been wanting to make one for friend at work and could not find fabric to match her personality. Then I shopping at the Goodwill for my Halloween custom and found a pretty vintage scarf which I promptly bought for no reason. When I arrived home and sorted thur my treasures it hit me that Rebbecca would love her lunch box to made out of a this scarf. The one thing I didn't do was take a before picture of my pretty treasure. Oh well. He are the results. What do you think? Do you think people would buy these?