Savannah, Georgia

Finally after many weekends of almost nothing but studying and work, Ashley and I finally had a full day to hang out. So, with much excitement we went on our first road trip yesterday to check out Savannah, Georgia. About 260 miles away from Atlanta, Savannah is a coastal city filled with history and old beauty. It was a great day for a road trip in the south, a comfortable 80 degrees and blue skies all around.

We packed a few goodies for a 3.5 hour ride and set out looking to see what this famous southern city was all about. We arrived in Savannah in the early afternoon and hopped aboard a tour trolley. The tour was awesome, our guide truly had a southern personality with an accent so thick that Ashley said she could barely understand.

pictures-8-16-2007-054.jpg

The tour brought us through the central historic district of Savannah passing what seemed like square after square of historic monuments and fountains. Ashley and I both loved the wonderful elegant 19th century homes. The tree lined roads and numerous parks reminded me a little of the best parts of Boston’s Beacon Hill mixed with the Back Bay.

home.JPG

pictures-8-16-2007-061.JPG

pictures-8-16-2007-091.JPG

One of my favorite parts of Savannah was the wonderful oak trees with the hanging Spanish moss. It seemed like every scene could have been part of a southern painting. The Spanish moss as you see in the picture above casts such a hazy sleepy glow around everything especially through the rays of the afternoon sun that I spent many shots trying to capture the feeling that I got while there. Unfortunately the best I could do are in the pictures below, and they really don’t quite do it justice.

pictures-8-16-2007-058.JPG

pictures-8-16-2007-099.jpg

pictures-8-16-2007-097.jpg

Like I said earlier, there were many squares in downtown Savannah. These squares were really miniature parks. So after going down one or two block you would end up in a square surrounded by these wonderful old homes and walk another two blocks and see the same thing. Near the edge was what is the historic district of Savannah where we toured a wonderful fountain, that was actually mail-ordered I think in the early 19th century through the Sears Catalog!

pictures-8-16-2007-101.JPG

Ever heard of the phrase “Keeping up with the Jones”? Well we finally found the origin of that classic American phrase. Here in historic district was a street called “Jones St.” During the 19th century the lawyers, businessmen, and doctors would all live on this street, so for everyone else who wanted to make it big and keep up with the high society, they would have the keep up with “Jones St.”

pictures-8-16-2007-117.JPG

Here’s one of the homes I was able to snap a picture of. The house were so magnificent compared to the others around the area. But nevertheless it was a very nice street to live on.

pictures-8-16-2007-118.JPG

Savannah was a lot of fun and what was even more fun was our car ride up there and back. After such a long time, Ash and I were finally able to just relax. We even brought the laptop with us and watched (listened) to a couple of episodes of “Everybody Loves Raymond”, Ashley’s favorite sitcom. 🙂 On the way back Ashley and I had a great conversation talking about our future and doing some family planning. We’re thinking about where we will be moving to next and where we’d like to raise our children. I have to say I am excited to both move and also raise kids with Ashley, though the time to be a father is still a few years away. All in all, it was really a great road trip and I had such a nice time with my huney.

pictures-8-16-2007-066.jpg

A Lazy Sunday Afternoon

There is something I truely love about Sunday afternoons.  Maybe it’s because I never had one growing up with Chinese School filling up the time slot or maybe it’s the thought of the quiet before the storm of the imminent work week.  In any case, nothing is better than the orange and golden afternoons at our condo.  Here’s our little Cappy basking in the sunlight coming in from the living room windows.

pictures-8-16-2007-038.JPG

This Sunday was particularly nice and I took a picture of a beautiful Orchid we bought at the local Publix. I am especially proud of this picture because I thought our old 2 mega pixel point and shoot camera was too crappy to take a nice photo but look!

pictures-8-16-2007-025.JPG

Panda Arts Festival: An Atlanta Chengdu Gala

Ashley and I went to the Georgia Tech Ferst Center for the Arts last night to see the Cheng Du Performing art show.  The Panda Arts Festival is in celebration for the Panda Baby Mei Lan’s first birthday. Mei Lan is on loan from the City of Cheng Du in China, the home of Giatn Pandas.  The Festival is sponsored by the City of Atlanta, the Fulton County Commission, the Chengdu Municipal People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China, Zoo Atlanta, and several other organizations. It is hosted by the US-China Cultural & Educational Foundation.

There were More than 30 professional dancers and musicians from Chengdu, China along with some local Atlanta performing art groups.  We both had a decent time though the show had too many technical glitches perhaps because it was opening night…  Here are some snaps, these are not my own pictures nor my descriptions but those from the Panda Festival website which are much better and accurate than what I can snap or write.  The pictures are almost exactly like the show!

2-ancient_chengdu.jpeg

(Dance) Evening in the Ancient Palace: Chengdu is a city steeped in history—every cobbled street, every crowded alleyway, is witness to the city’s more than three thousand years of history. This dance celebrates Chengdu’s heritage, taking the audience thousands of years into the past. Based on murals found from ancient tombs around the city, the dancers represent an authentic part of Chengdu’s past.”

3-opera_dance.jpeg

(Dance) Pretty Huadan: Huada are the pretty, lovely naughty girls in Sichuan Opera. The dance, with Sichuan features, combines Chinese dance skills with the art of Sichuan Opera. It frees classical choreograph to make dance itself different from the others. Its strongly accented sound of Gongs and drums, beautiful historical drama costume, clear and lively melody, as well as the dances’ beautiful postures and movements replicate the charm of songs and dances of Chengdu style and character of the lively pretty Sichuan girls. ”

6-finger_shadow.jpeg

Finger shadow show: The finger master is one of the best in China. She uses her two dexterous hands to make hundreds of life-like and stunning shadow puppets.” I only wish I had these skills in school.  We saw rabbits,birds, owls, deer, goose, people and more!

7-face_change.jpeg

(Sichuan Opera) Fire-eat and Face Change: A must see during any visit to Sichuan—…This opera performer is specially trained in the age-old craft of fire eating and face changing. He can change elaborate designs in the masks he wears in split seconds, between turns and miniscule movements.”  Truly amazing though not to belittle this art, but the America’s Got Talent couple changed their whole outfit in a mater of seconds!

Great time and best of all, we got the GA Tech student discount!

Photo Hard Drive Failure

Bad news today. Turned on my Lacie 160GB Hard Drive to realize that the drive is toast. Of course there was nothing important on it, just 7 years of photos and videos that Ash and I took! After a few days of frustration and research I was able to rescue most of the photos on it. Stay away from Lacie, they suck and also make sure you back up your precious data files regularly. I thoughy my external drive was invincible. And the great movie collection that I had is gone too!

🙁hd_porschemobile.jpg

Back to Skool

As surreal as it felt, Ash really is going back to school!  We both had flashbacks of our college days as we walked through the nicely groomed campus of GA Tech.  Today was Ashley’s first day of Orientation for her Masters Program in Building Construction.  Ashley is so smart and hard working I know she will do so well and come out of school making lots of money for me…i mean us….! hehehehe just kidding

pictures-8-16-2007-003.jpg

Here’s Ash getting her Buzz Card… So when are we hitting up the dining halls?
pictures-8-16-2007-002.jpg