"Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it" - Confucius

This week we paid a short visit to the Confucius Temple here in Nanjing.  Very briefly, the Confucius Temple in Nanjing was originally constructed in the year of 1034 in the Song Dynasty. It was a place to worship Confucius the great philosopher and educator of ancient China.   We did not stay long since it was around 45 degrees outside, however we plan to go back in the Spring (March) when the weather is nicer.  We walked through the market area (anxious to go back and explore) and arrived near the Temple area.   In front of the temple is a golden wishing tree where you can make a wish on a ribbon and throw the ribbon up in the tree. The higher you achieve on the throw, the better the chance the wish will be received.  The boys had a great time doing this and we attracted a big crowd of Chinese people around us, who knows what they were thinking...  Strangely enough we did run into another family from Canton who just arrived a few weeks ago...  I have attached some pictures below.  We also took a nice boat ride through the channels around the market and the residence. The water channels and the Qinhuai river awarded to the City of Nanjing in 2008 with the title of The Most Harmonious City in the World by the United Nations.  It was a nice visit and we are excited to go back.

I also wanted to touch briefly on the simple things we take for granted in the US which become a week long research project here in China.  I am speaking in particular about getting a haircut....  Back home I have a great friend Aaron Michael who styles my hair at Cole Street Salon.  I spent the better part of the week asking friends what they do for their haircuts and quickly found that none of them have found a place to go where the stylist speaks English.  I was also advised that the men often experience very very short cuts with little input into the result..  So I decided to go to a nice local Mall here in Nanjing called Aqua City and ended up at a Salon recommended by one of the young ladies at the front desk where we live.  I arrived at the Salon with a note written in Chinese (from my front desk helper) that read "men's haircut, same style, not to short, high-end stylist please".  Here is China, similar to home you pay more for skill of the stylist.  My stylist "English name David" (you see many Chinese have English names that have either been assigned to them or chosen) just looked at me very briefly and then I went through the normal process (shampoo, cut, rinse, & style).  To my great surprise, he did an excellent job and I luckily did not experience situations that many others have.  I used my iphone translator to thank him and tell him what a great job he did.  Of course I got his card for return visits.  Natalie is still debating whether to wait until our summer home visit.  It is funny how even the simplest things can be challenging when you do not speak the language, but in the end it sometimes works out good.  All this for the high end price of 120 RMB or 20 USD's!!  A box of US cereal cost $10 but a haircut cost me $20 ;)

Things to look forward to this week; our permanent driver and also our air shipment arrival...  Keep your fingers crossed!