Dad actually got away from work and the hotel this time and went to see the Hushan (Tiger Mountain) Great Wall just north of Dandong... |
For this picture he just used cropping to avoid modern signs, but he left the modern handrail in the background... |
In this one he used careful photography (and a lot of Photoshop) to get a picture with no people, signs, or handrails... |
Here is his first picture of North Korea... He didn't use Photoshop to make North Korea look grayer... He used Lightroom :-) |
This one was just supposed to show you how steep the stairs were, but don't feel bad for him, he chose to walk both ways and not ride the bus back... |
More trickery to get the stairs going up without people or handrails... |
This was not actually the closest Dad got to North Korea, but it was the biggest sign about how you could get in trouble... |
As you know, these bright red tags symbolize... well, since you know already I guess I won't waste your time telling you about them... |
On the way back over Tiger Mountain Dad took this picture of the Chinese countryside (but he really wants to point out how small the wall looks so far down the mountain...) |
I don't know what this is supposed to represent (and neither does Dad) |
Dad didn't retouch this one so you can see what the wall really looked like... |
This is just the statue that greets you at the entrance to the park and since thtey don't actually get that many English speakers there wasn't anything for Dad to read here... |
This is Dad's second picture of North Korea. He's standing at the end of The Broken Bridge (bombed by America during the Korean War) looking at The Friendship Bridge (which is closed) and an empty amusement park... |
Again, not a lot of English around here, but this was a large monument celebrating victory over "the bad guy" (that would be America) in the Korean War... |
This is back in Dalian - I think Dad had a similar picture of the international school from an earlier trip... |
Dad just thought this was a dramatic picture with the one person in the park and the train running by... |
And he thought this one of the UFO landing site was just bizarre... Of course the giant statues of smiling ears of corn in the park were also a little weird... |
And I don't know what to say about the golden baby riding the flying bull... |
And Dad actually included one picture of himself, though there isn't anything uniquely "China" about the location... |
What a waste of guitars! |
That's right - that's Aunt Maggie, not Mom. We met her in Seattle and went up in the Space Needle... |
I guess Mom thought it was even colder than Aunt Maggie... |
I don't think Dad would have been thrilled with the looking down aspect of the Space Needle... |
But apparently the pictures don't cause him any problems... |
Not quite a concert ussie, but close enough! |
Sandra might have a problem with Dad's copyright notice, but that's a copyright of the image of the image... anyway... Happy Father's Day |
We also went to the beach while Dad was away... |
Isn't Buttercup cute? And boy does wet dog smell great too! |
Obviously no one else decided to go to the beach... |
A girl and her dog... or is that a dog and her girl? |
Oh that's right... It is a dog and her ball (someone to throw the ball is just beside the point) |
Logan, Flynn, Mrs. Matuszak, me, and Kada after the summer dance recital that I obviously wasn't in... |
Well, we're already halfway through the year... Of course, when I posted this we were really only 48.995% of the way through the year and I have no idea when you are reading this so you could be up to 58.05% of the way through the year. Or, you could be reading this in the photo gallery and 2019 could be over already. That's practically the same thing as time travel! What have I done?!
Oh yeah... nothing. I wrote something down and then imagined you reading it in the future. That really isn't like time travel at all. Oh well...
So now that your heart is racing with disappointment let's move on to discussing the month of June. As you can see from the pictures, I had (I mean, "got") to go to China again. Caroline and Lucie took full advantage of that to travel up to Seattle and out to the coast. I hear Lucie even drove into Seattle before Caroline had to take the wheel away from her :-)
Of course, the big question is "what can I tell you about June that you can't tell from the pictures?" You almost certainly already know that June has one birth flower (the rose), two zodiac signs (Gemini and Cancer) and three birthstones (pearl, alexandrite, and moonstone.) But, you may not know that Kentucky became the 15th state on June 1st or that Tennessee became the 16th state on June 1st or that Arkansas became the 25th state on June 1st as well. And, I'm pretty much 100% sure that you didn't know that I just lied to you about Arkansas... It actually became the 24th state on June 1st. And guess what. I just lied to you again. Arkansas was the 25th state, but not until June 15th, but it was so much more exciting to claim that it happened on June 1st that I just couldn't help myself... Oh the shame... :-( Or not, just ask our president...
But you know what is really exciting about June? June is Pam Bingham's favorite month! And I'm sure you know Pam... you know, the president of the Sherman Oaks Business Builders Chapter of TEAM Referral Network... (Isn't it great what you can discover on the interwebs?!)
Actually I did discover from Pam that no other month starts on the same day of the week as June in either a regular year or a leap year and that is actually kind of cool. Of course, it is possible that Pam lied to me about this interesting tidbit... A little fact checking on my part shows that May, June, and August all start on unique days of the week this year and May, June, and October all start on unique days next year (a leap year) so apparently ole Pam didn't make up that little tidbit, but she failed to point out that May also starts on a unique day of the week regardless of whether or not it is a leap year! So much for June's coolness... it is just copying May! But I'm sure it had a bigger inaugural crowd...
Well, at least we did something different in June, so enjoy the pictures...