Reviews and Events: 2012

I went to my first Chinese wedding this weekend. I want to mention here, before I go any further, that these two people are the sweetest, most adorable couple and have been so nice to me on the few occasions we've met. Ok, disclaimer out of the way, the fun part.

Unfortunately, for me, they had a very traditional western wedding. I was hoping to see a Chinese one, but the only nods to their country were that they had a minister hold the ceremony in Chinese (after every couple of sentences an interpretor would translate it into English. They also did their vows in both Chinese and English) recognised the couple's parents as also being united by the ceremony, and after the wedding they changed from their white dress and tux to traditional Chinese wedding clothes with a lot of red.

The wedding was very simple. It was a very budget wedding, the couple warned in their invitaions, with no real reception afterwards, and no gifts requested.

My favorite part of the wedding, I'm almost ashamed to say, was during the speeches given by the bride and groom. Their messages were lovely, I'm sure (they were delivered in Chinese only) but the pianist, who was behind them, was playing away at what was probably a beautifully soft, sentimental piece of music with his headphones on. It was an electric piano and something had obviously gone wrong because for the whole 15 minutes or so, no one could hear what he was playing but himself. I was cracking up the whole time. The speeches were not as fun for me because I couldn't understand them, so the hand flourishes and the slight rocking of the proud musician were hilarious. I felt so bad for the guy. I kept waiting to see if the bride or groom would look back to see where their music was or for someone else to go pull one of the guy's ear phone out so he could hear what we were hearing... which was nothing. But no. He played his silent music through to the end. Bwuah ha ha ha ha!

Something I thought was pretty cool was that they had friends/family in china that couldn't make it so people brought their tablets from home and the people in china got to see the wedding through skype.

I didn't catch the bouquette. Sigh. Some brat kid punk decided it would be funny if he caught it. Grrr.

The groom sang a beautiful song to his bride. The best man made a speech in which he likened the bride and groom to a flower in a dung heap. LOL. And I think, I think, I avoided sticking my foot in my mouth as I met some of Xinye's . It was a good day.

I saw a lot of awesome things in China and many things that left a real impression on me. I hope never to forget some of it, and other things I would be willing to take a drill to my skull in order to lose. ~Laughs~ Ok, that's a bit extreme. Anyway, the park Window of the World is definitely one of the things I really enjoyed and would love to do again. If anyone visits Shen Zhen, I would strongly recommend visiting this place.

Disclaimer: I was in China for 10 days so I'm in no way qualified to tell you why things are the way they are there. I've made judgements about what I like and dislike but these are founded on a very brief encounter and should not be considered informed nor even necessarily valid. You've been warned. That is all.

My first full day in China was kind of a transit day since Xinye and I were catching a plane to the town his parents lived in in the early evening. Luckily, Shen Zhen is a fairly large city despite its relative newness and offered one of the most interesting attractions I've ever been to.

We got there by subway (tube for you Englanders). The entrance/exit to the subway is through a glass pyramid modelled after the one in front of the Louvre in Paris.

The entrance was guarded by statues depicting different cultures' arts and that was only the beginning. From somewhere inside the park, the top of the Eiffel tower was visible. The admission price was equal to about £14, which is equal to about $21.

The first thing we see is a large ampitheater with a huge globe behind it which looks like it could open up during a show. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see any performances, but we were on a time limit and didn't get to see the whole park anyway.

Next we found a model of The throne hall of Kyongbok Palace, South Korea, then the grand palace of Thailand and then so on and so forth.

Grand Palace, Thailand

Throne Hall of Kyongbok Palace, South Korea

Um... Borobudur, Indonesia?

Cambodia? Psh, I don't know.

Shwedagon Pagoda, Burma.

Um... another head scratcher. But it's pretty!

Pulled and Amber right before taking this next picture and spilled stuff on my shirt. Thus the awkward cover up. The spitting lion fish thing, by the way, is called the Merlion and is from Singapore.

This is, um, a big impressive dome building from somewhere in Asia... probably. I dunno.

Above is Xinye standing near the entrance to Bhaja Chaitya Hall, India. The interior of which is to the right. Both walls were lined with the pillars, each topped by those little figures and at the end of the chamber was a huge bell shaped thing. It was all very impressive.

This is the Itsukushima Shrine in Japan.

Mount Fuji! (Inside is a theater where they were showing under-sea 4D movies.

I don't think I'll name everything I took pictures of. Not because I'm lazy, but because the odds of me misnaming things is high and I don't want to be made fun of. So there. Suffice to say that it was amazing fun.

Ooh, I know this one! The Taj Mahal was amazing!! As you can see, they didn't just make the building, but the fountain and the trees. Yes, you may be jealous if you wish. It is reasonable.

The Taj Mahal!

A close up of the detail on the Taj Mahal entrance. Pretty cool!

The Taj Mahal was contained in a huge tiled court yard. So, so pretty. Maybe I should have gotten the whole thing instead of just the fountain and tree area.

There was an amazing little Japanese town place that had a costume rental place. It cost about £2 per costume and we could take as many pictures as we wanted in them. We chose to be royalty... of course.

This next one is Alcazar Castle, Spain... I think.

And these next are of Venice, St. Mark's Square, Italy. I was so happy that we went to Window on a Thursday morning. Almost no one was there which, I think, really helped my pictures. If you've noticed, there aren't a bunch of strangers in my pictures, and it's not because they were all so busy being awed at the amazing, talented, and beautiful foreigner. It's because they were all busy being at work! Ha! Sukers.

Xinye's so good to me. I asked him to pole-dance and he was kind enough to do so because there was no one else there. (But now I'm sneaking it onto the internet, hehehe)

Crap. I knew what this was when I was taking a picture of it, but all of a sudden, my mind is going blank. I think there have been just too many pictures. That's my excuse. Is this Winchester Abbey? Um, I think so. Anyone want to tell me different? It might... might be the Cologne Cathedral in Germany.

And the Leaning Tower of Pisa! Well, the park says it's the Pisa Leaning Tower and the picture below is of the Pisa Church of Italy. Heh. I guess I'm just an American because I didn't even know that the leaning tower had anything to do with a church. It's pretty though, right?

This is the Versailles Palace. This is the big old court yard in front of the palace and below is the statue of some prince or other. I'm guessing Phillipe, but I don't know because it wasn't labelled. Jeeze. Don't these people know that people like me are going to be showing up with no fore-knowledge of anything of culture??

It was the ultimate luxury to be a world traveller without all the jet lag and inconvenience of having to pack and repack and spend a ridiculous amount of time on air-planes and all the other things people don't like about travelling. I was practically giddy that I was taking pictures of all the famous monuments of the world so easily and comfortably.

You may know that I've been to Stone Henge and taken so many pictures I could put every one to sleep showing them all, but my camera was stolen before I uploaded the pictures and they were lost forever. I got to make up for that just a little here. This might even have been better because I could get right up close to these monoliths and even sit on them!

Heh. When I first saw this, I shouted out, 'Ooh, look! It's the tower of Babel! That's awesome!' But alas, it was not to be. Turns out this building is The Tower of Kuwait... which I think it slightly less impressive. I think it was a grain silo or something.

And these things are labelled on my map as part of the tower or Kuwait tower. Don't know how. Doesn't look like they belong with the spiral tower at all.

This is part of the Wall and Clock Towers of Kremlin in Russia.

Yep, still Russia. So pretty!

Buckingham Palace!! Aw, like being at home.

L'Arc de Triomphe, France.

It cost a little money, but Xinye and I went to the top of Eiffel tower. At least I didn't have to climb any stairs! Oh, and I got a picture of the sign outside the elevator. Can you spot the Engrish? Hehehe.

This was a random Europian town they built. Wish I'd had time to explore it!

This is a shot of the inside roof of L'Arc. Pretty cool. Never knew there was that much detail.

London Bridge!

The gardens of Versailles. The detail of this maze was amazing.

Notre Dame! How awesome is that??

Ok, yes, this pictures is a little crooked, but that's because it was hot and we'd been walking around for hours already and my attention to little details like 'straightness' didn't seem vitally important at that moment in time.

No replicas here. Just thought the tree was cool looking.

The Sydney Opera House, which is awesome because I've been wanting to see this in real life for a long time now. Perhaps next time I get a picture like this I can get a couple from the inside as well!

The red mesa thing in Australia. It looked better in real life. You'll just have to go there and see for yourself.

Yes, that is me conducting my imaginary orchestra. I'm a natural. I can tell.

The Mermaid... Australia? It doesn't say.

The Idyllic Sights of Windmills and Tulips, Holland.

The Acropolis of Athens, Greece.

Really hope you guys recognize these. The Colosseum, Italy!

Ooh, aw! So pretty! And intractable. See?

And then I found America! The coolest part about that was that I'd actually seen the real versions of half the things they had there. But again, it was a chance to get up close and personal with it all.

My first attempt at the panorama setting on my phone because my camera had run out of batteries by this time. This is New York, by the way. No one's updated it though. See the twin towers?

New York again, a little closer.

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Why yes, that is Mount Rushmore and the White house and the capitol, all in one picture. Now that's talent! Woot!

Apparently, there were jaguars in all native american camps... who all lived in Teepees.

The Globose, Mexico

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Me being as serious as ever

I'm pretty sure these are the Statues of Warriors in Mexico

Me being a Easter Head

Do you see the Jesus back there? From Brazil?

Ran out of time to see the dinosaurs.

There was a statue garden which I wish we'd had more time to explore. We only got a couple pictures with the ones that were right in the way between us and the exit. This might be one of my first stops on my return trip to the Window of the World park.