Today we had a delayed start as lots in the group still not feeling too well. Everyone (except Anne and Annie) rallied and off we went to a nearby forest park with springs. Jiao Jiao’s Dad’s best friend (who is the local chief of police) led the caravan in his car, with his driver, with…

Woke up early, so I thought I would add more thoughts. It is hard to describe Inner Mongolia. The town we are staying in is actually pretty big. People milling about the streets everywhere. Buildings are all very colorful–red, white, blue, yellow. We are all getting stared at a lot–much more than Beijing. Annie and…

How to begin–so much to tell! Wow is all I can say. The most incredible experience I have ever witnessed. Never again will we attend a wedding like this! The morning started out at 7:30 AM with an entourage of Audis to take us to Jiao Jiao’s home about a half an hour away. Just…

We had a great asian breakfast buffet for our start.  Because Hailar is a destination for Koreans and other Asians, their food was available at the buffet.  Don’t ask me what was what, however. Our entourage proceeded in 2 minivans to the edge of town to tour a forest park.  Since there are grass lands…

Unfortunately, Chinese internet controls precludes us from readily posting pictures.  Locally, here in Hailar, access to this site has been blocked on a sporadic basis.  Typing in the site address gets to a search engine age with results for goodrich family in Mandarin. We all arrived in Hailar yesterday and were met by the entire…

Went to the Great Wall today at a location that was less touristy and further into the mountains. We had to take a cable car up the mountain and then a tram to get to the top of the ridge where the Wall snakes along the top. It was amazing to see how the Great…

Last Wednesday, our neighborhood friends took us out to dinner to celebrate JiaoJiao and Jimmy’s upcoming wedding.  We had a great time at Bernard’s as can be seen in the photo below. (I have no clue how to make it smaller and fit properly. Well, I just did and some how moved the picture to…

Copy and paste the links below as the site has details on Hailar and our hotel.  We are staying at the Friendship Hotel and I believe the wedding is there too. http://english.cri.cn/2245/2005-6-20/[email protected] http://www.virtualtourist.com/hotels/Asia/China/Inner_Mongolia_Autonomous_Region/Hailar-1016890/Hotels_and_Accommodations-Hailar-BR-1.html