BigWorldAndSmallWorld Blog

Having been lived in Minnesota for over 25 years, I know Minnesota winter can be long and hard. We are lucky if it does not snow on Halloween or in May. Over the years I have learned a few tips to overcome the cabin fever. As I was looking at the pictures on my phone, I realized winter here is not all that unbearable. First tip, we use school’s winter break (normally a week in early March) to take a vacation in warm places such as San Antonio, Death Valley, San Diego, Florida Keys, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah’s National Parks. When we returned home, I always felt winter goes by more quickly. A short warm weather break makes a big difference. Second tip, do something outdoors such as making a snowman or snow-tubing. Before the pandemic, we used to host Japanese students in February and March for 3 weeks. This gave us the opportunity to take our students out and about and to check out local winter wonderland such as Minnehaha Falls, museums and Como Zoo and Conservatory etc.

Above pictures in the order are snow-tubing, Minnehaha Falls and Walker Art Center.

Como Zoo and Conservatory in the winter and how about a hearty meal at Cafe Latte?

Let’s make a snowman or two! My sons, my sister and my niece and one of our Japanese students had so much fun.

Don’t forget the Ice Castle. I really love this place.

When I saw these pictures, I couldn’t help but smile. My son just loved snow.

Winter wonderland is beautiful, especially after the first heavy snow.

I hope my blog cheers you up on this snowy day. Being a travel agent I had the privilege to go to Iceland in January for a travel trade-show, I’ll share that experience in another blog.

I’m taking photography lessons from Kent Johnson at Community Ed. I found myself making huge progress since I started the lesson and I fell in love with taking photos with DSLR (single len reflective digital) camera. Thanks to my photographer friend who lent me his camera so that I didn’t have to invest in a new camera to start with. This worked out beautifully for me, now I purchased this Nikon D7000 camera from my friend. After five Level 1 lessons and some practices, I would like to share with you some of my best works. As Kent told us: from now on, we should always show our best work. Kent also told us that a professional photographer always process their photos using some sort of software. But I don’t have any software at this moment, therefore I have to show them in the original shot.
Before taking photography lessons, I had no idea what aperture, shutter speed and ISO are and I have never used manual mode. Now I know this essential triangle, how each works and how they work together. With modern meter, I found it very easy to use manual mode and I also intentionally explore over exposure and/or under exposure (called bracketing) to see which one(s) I like the best.

After warming up with a few fall color photos, our homework was taking some photos showing cold. I did so when the first snow fell and practiced with aperture, shutter speed and ISO triangle and bracket. As you can see below, some of my shots are under exposed and the moon over the roof ISO wasn’t quite right.

Then we learned how to take portraits. I used a 50mm lens with the largest aperture F1.4 to take the following shot since our lessons were in the evening, it turned out to be pretty cool. After learning composition rules, I found myself feeling comfortable with framing a shot. On Thanksgiving we were on a farm, I did a lot practices and I liked some of my shots.

These two shots I like the most. Even though it was late afternoon before sunset, I feel the shots looked more like moon, do you agree? I sent one of the shots to Kent, he agreed and did his PhotoShop magic for me.

Then we learned using continuous shots and panning for moving objects such as child, pets and moving body, and for sports. I used my son’s basketball for practice. It was fun hearing the sounds of shutter continuously shuts. I feel a little more like a profession now, it’s a good feeling :).

Last but not the least, I continue to take more practice shots and used one of them to make my holiday greetings to you. I hope you like it and I wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! And yes I can take a very clear moon shot now.

On the way to Maui, we flew to Oahu and made a stop there first because we wanted to see the Pearl Harbor. In order not to do a overnight stay, we arrived early in the early morning via flight, stored our luggage at the airport and took a taxi to the museum. We pre-booked the Pearl Harbor tour tickets online at https://www.pearlharboroahu.com/. We spent the afternoon at the museum and returned to the airport for our late afternoon flight to Maui. I would highly recommend taking the boat ride to the above water museum to see the ship wreckage under water. This full day arrangement is efficient but could easily go wrong if anything went unexpected.

Maui is the 3rd island we visit. We had been to the Big Island and Kauai. The Big Island is the biggest so we saw different landscapes and experienced different weather. Kauai is like a little grand canyon, we liked its unique and charming land-form. At each island, we rented a car, stayed at a place for 1 or 2 nights and drove around to see places and moved on to another place until we completely circle the island. This is our way of Hawaii vacation. We spent 8 days in Maui. My oldest son loves Hawaii, he said he would like to live there one day. Surfing, snorkeling, swimming and many nice beaches for example this black sand beach, and of course beautiful scenery and nice weather too.

Hana Highway is a must-drive. It will take a full day to complete the highway until you drive to no more road and turn back. The drive itself is very rewarding as the scenery is so breathtaking. You may take as many stops as you wish to look out and stop by a local restaurant for a satisfying lunch. Make sure to bring enough water bottles and/or snacks, you will need them. One of our favorite is Haleakala National Park where we drove through narrow canyons to a high ground. If the sun is out you will be lucky to see the colorful canyons like a canvas.

We chose Wailea area as the central location. It has several very nice resorts to choose from for lodging, many shops for shopping and many restaurants for eating. Don’t forget to use resorts’ amenities like spas, beaches, pool side bars and game room etc. Have a drink or two. We also used local grocery stores almost daily instead of going to restaurants for every meal.

Last part of our vacation was driving through North-west part of the island before returning to the airport. We stayed at a resort for 1-night and enjoyed the beach there. This ends our wonderful Maui vacation with a video of a blow-hole, what an enjoyable time with my two sons!

The first time I went to Zhangjiajie was thirty years ago. It was a fun and memorable trip with some of my high school friends. Even today I remembered many things about the trip. The place was so rural and so different than the big city Shanghai where we lived. I remembered for the first time in life we had to stone a chicken for supper outside a restaurant. I remembered we stayed at a farmer’s house for a couple of nights because at that time Zhangjiajie was not a tourist place yet so there were no hotels. The farmer’s family was so nice to us and they yield their wedding bed for us to sleep. I remembered one time we were hiking on the mountains and all a sudden the rain poured down like cats and dogs, we had no place to hide so we kept walking on the muddy slippery road until we hit a small hut. We entered the hut for shelter and dried our clothes at a fire place. I remembered at the hill foot there is a small town called Furong 芙蓉镇 where a famous movie was shot there. When we arrived at the town, I got fever and our travel group was nice enough to stay an extra day there so that I can rest and feel better again to continue our adventure.

Thirty years later, this time I took a tour. So much has changed I almost could not recognize the place. It is very commercial now. Unlike before the only transportation is on foot, today there is a cable car taking you high above the mountains where you can view the misty mountainous outside from inside the car. The view is awesome and scary at times. The most notable geographic features of the park are the pillar-like formations that are seen throughout the park, like the rocks we see in the movie Avatar. In the park, Tianmenshan 天门山is probably the most well-known sight. The name came from the arched rock high above the mountain looks like a window in the sky. I walked the 99 steep stairs down; it was quite an experience and I think you definitely should try. Besides the rock formations, there is a cave called 黄龙洞，a waterfall at the entrance to a lake called 宝峰湖, and a show at night called 湘西魅力 are worthy to see.

Even though I like the rustic nature before Zhangjiajie was a popular tourist attraction much better, I have to admit that among the new things I do like the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Bridge. Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon opened the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Bridge in 2016, it’s the longest (430 m (1,410 ft)) and highest (300 m (980 ft)) pedestrian glass bridge in the world. Walking on the see-through glass bridge high above the canyon, the feeling was a mix of awesome and scary. At times I felt like I had to sit down instead of stand on the bridge. The other new thing I like is the cliff side glass walkway where you walk along the sharp and steep cliff side via a see-through glass walkway attached to the cliff wall. I highly recommend the experience, it’s very awesome.

Finally you may ask where is Zhangjiajie? It is located in Hunan province in central China. It is the province where famous Chairman Mao Ze Dong was born.

Guizhou province located in southwest China is known for its traditional rural villages such as the 14th century Qingyan ancient town and the 74m-high Huangguoshu waterfall one of the largest waterfalls in China and East Asia. Its capital city Guiyang is a vibrant city. If you ask me ten years ago what do I think about Guizhou? I would not hesitate to say it’s poor. But after I visited Guiyang and Huangguoshu waterfall last year, my impression of this place has changed. Because I like nature, I really like the natural resources this province has.

There are two well-known Guizhou food I tried and liked: Si Wa Wa 丝娃娃and Suan Tang Yu酸汤鱼。Si Wa Wa, I take it gets its name from many dishes of thinly julienned vegetables and you wrap them in a thin pancake like a doll, then you put any sauce you like on top and eat it. Suan Tang Yu, you pick a live fish, several complements and a broth. The restaurant cleans the fish for you and brings the broth in front of you so you can cook the fish and the complements on your table in a big pot by yourself. Besides tasting good, I like the way you wrap or cook food by yourself, it makes you feel involved in the process and it’s very interesting.


Suantangyu picture credit to http://xian.51xiancheng.com/article/16541

Huangguoshu waterfall is huge and truly amazing. Nowadays you can get to Huangguoshu waterfall rather easily by train and then after you get to the nearest town you can take a taxi. Plan to stay 1-night is a good way to see all three parts of Huangguoshu National Park. There are a couple of decent and cheap hotels near Huangguoshu. The three parts of Huangguoshu are Dou Po Tang 陡坡塘，Da Pu Bu 大瀑布，and Tian Xing Qiao 天星桥。If you arrive Huangguoshu after noon on day 1, I recommend visiting Dou Po Tang in the afternoon. Day 2 I recommend visit Da Pu Bu first because this is the largest scene in the park and normally it gets a lot of people in the afternoon. After visiting Da Pu Bu, then you can visit Tian Xing Qiao. You will be able to finish these two parts by the afternoon and it’s time to head back. If you plan to follow my recommendation, then you will need to buy 2-day tickets. All three parts are beautiful and easy to walk around. Inside the park, you will feel close to the nature and the air is fresh. It’s definitely a relax vacation place.

The day I went to Qingyan ancient town was a rainy day. From Guiyang city, I took a bus to get there. Strolling around the town, I like the small village feeling. There are many interesting small shops along the streets where you can look around or buy all kinds of merchants and art-work. I like the street-food the most; there are many options you can choose from. I felt like wherever I went, I could find something to eat, it’s so hard to resist the food temptation. The town has several gates, there is even a small wall like the Great Wall of China where you can climb up and have a good view of the town and surrounding areas.

Today Guizhou Huangguoshu is becoming a very attractive tourist place even for Chinese people.

People say one must see Huangshan in one’s life time, how true it is. I was lucky to see it not too long ago. Huangshan is a mountain range in southern Anhui province in eastern China. The area is well known for its scenery, sunsets, peculiarly-shaped granite peaks, Huangshan pine trees, hot springs, winter snow, and views of the clouds from above. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Huangshan and the scenery has been the frequent subject of poetry and artwork, especially Chinese ink painting and, more recently, photography. Even though Chinese people like to take pictures with rocks that are painted or carved with words or poems, I normally just like to see it and move on. I like nature stuff much better. To me Huangshan is impressive with its beautiful sunset, sea of clouds, many strong and different shapes pine trees, and unique rock formations. Climbing up and down the 1-person-wide ladders on the mountain is truly memorable, it was scary but exciting. The memory of being on the mountain was still vivid as I go over my pictures a couple of years later.





Hongcun is a charming small village at the foot of Huangshan. I enjoyed the architecture and the market; this place truly is a gem of Hui culture. If you are like me who like the movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon then you will be pleased to know that scenes from the film were filmed on location in Hongcun. It was a nice walk around the village seeing old residences and old furniture, people painting on the street, a nice pond in the middle of the village and walking over some very old stone bridges.
While in the area, visiting a market is a must. I enjoyed stroll along the street and window shopping. So many special local food and artifacts to taste and see on the market, it’s hard not to buy anything.

May 2016 I went to Seoul for Rotary International Conference. It was a super inspirational experience for me the first time attendee. Our district folks stayed at an Ibis Hotel. The hotel has a nice rooftop restaurant where I got a good view of Seoul.


The hotel is near Seoul’s famous shopping street Myeong-dong. It’s pleasant to stroll around, do some shopping and have a Korean mango ice.

After the conference, I took subway and Korea rail and took about two hours to get to an Incheon hotel where I started my 6-day Korea tour with a group.

Among all the places I went to in Korea, I like the Korea Cutural Village where Dae Jang Geum 大长今was filmed. In the village one can see Korea style old and relatively recent residences, wedding ceremony and other performance.


Another place I like is Namiseom南怡岛 a small half-moon shaped island. If you like the movie Winter Sonata then you will like this place and its pines.


景福宫Gyeongbokgung, also known as Gyeongbokgung Palace or Gyeongbok Palace, was the main royal palace of the Joseon dynasty. Built in 1395, it is located in northern Seoul.

On the trip I ate some traditional Korean food such as many different hot pot, ginseng chicken noodle, seaweed rice, BBQ, kimchee and other, they were good.

Shanghai is my hometown. Each time I visit home, I try to see one or two new places. After all, Shanghai changes so fast, it’s all new to me. But no matter how it changes, Shanghai will always be the city I love.
A day in Shanghai May 2016
In the morning I walked from the place I stayed near Nanjing Road to Shanghai Exhibition Hall to attend a travel trade show. Two hours later I was at one of the 嘉里中心 building and seeing Shanghai’s busy street from above. A friend treated me for a delicious lunch at a Japanese restaurant and then I hop on a subway heading to Pudong to see another friend.
Later in the afternoon my friend took me to see the back stage and theater of a show she was putting on. Seeing actors and actresses was eye opening for me.
The next morning I went to Tianzifang 田子坊，I like the old Shanghai nostalgia atmosphere. On the way to lunch passed by a farmer’s market we called 小菜场. Nowadays farmer’s market is much cleaner and nicer. After some delicious Yunnan style lunch, I flew to Guangzhou for my next destination.

Sinan Mansions October 2015
Sinan Lu is a residential stretch of road located in the Luwan district and walking distance from both Tianzifang and Xintiandi. Most of the mansions there were built in the 1920s and 30s and housed Shanghai’s elite – including the political figures of Sun Yatsen and Zhou Enlai. In fact, Sinan Mansions is located right around Zhou Enlai’s house where now it’s a museum. The day when my brother took me there, Shanghai had a rare blue sky, it was a nice day.

The Old Pier老码头 October 2015
Near the Bund is the Old Pier. It was fun to visit the Old Pier with many restaurants, old buildings and even saw people taking wedding pictures there.

Nanjing Dapai Dang 南京大牌档 October 2015
If you haven’t tried this food chain, I highly recommend it. The hosts, waiters and waitresses wear old Chinese costume. The food comes in smaller dishes so that you can eat many different kinds. They have a thick menu and a ton of items to choose from. While you dine, you can listen to Pingtan评弹. Pingtan also known as Suzhou Pingtan, storytellers or Southern word, is storytelling performance use folk art forms and Suzhou dialect.

As 2013 turning to an end, I went to Taiwan for a 7-day around the island tour. I saw many attractions and ate a lot of good food. Taiwan people are nice and warm. I like Taiwan, it was a delightful experience.
Since I like nature, Taroko National Park, Sun Moon Lake and Island’s Most Southern tip gave me deep impression. Taroko NP located in Hualien County, it is one of the nine national parks in Taiwan and was named after the Taroko Gorge, the landmark gorge of the park carved by the Liwu River. The name, Taroko (formally as Truku), means “human being” in the Truku language of the Truku indigenous tribe. Long ago a Truku tribesman saw the beauty of the azure Pacific when he walked out of the gorge. On seeing the magnificent scene, he cried “Taroko!” And so it became the name of the place, in a fashion not dissimilar to how the island, Formosa, got its name.

Sun Moon Lake is the largest body of water in Taiwan, located in Nantou County. The area around the Sun Moon Lake is home to the Thao tribe, one of aboriginal tribes of Taiwan. Sun Moon Lake surrounds a tiny island called Lalu. The east side of the lake resembles a sun while the west side resembles a moon, hence the name. Taking a break to watch local Taiwanese people sing and dance at the pier was delightful.

Eluanbi Park is located at the southern tip of Taiwan and part of Kenting National park. The name ‘Eluan’ (鹅銮) is derived from Paiwan language meaning “sail” while the Chinese word ‘bi’ 鼻which means nose, refers to the shape of the cape. Though a little windy, the view of the seashore was amazing.

When you go to Taiwan, you must visit a night food market, there are so many delicious foods to choose from, it’s a foodie’s heaven. I went to Kaohsiung’s Liu He Night Market 六合夜市 and tried some tasty snacks including grilled squid and other delight. When you are in Tainan, be sure to eat the well-known Tainan noodle, it’s yummy.

Some of the other things I enjoyed to do are: visiting the National Palace Museum, it has some of the most beautiful jade collection in the world. Going to the top of Taipei 101, 360 city view from there was superb. Visiting Teresa Teng’s museum and listening to her album, Teresa Teng is my favorite pop singer of my time, her sweet voice and songs are timeless. I like many of her songs, too many to name a few.

A friend and I went to Guangdong in 2016 for two purposes: indulge in their mouth-watering delicious food and search for family root because our ancestors were from this region. Guangdong (formerly Canton), a coastal province of southeast China, borders Hong Kong and Macau. Its capital, Guangzhou, sits within its industrial Pearl River Delta region. While I don’t remember all the places we went on the 6-day gourmet food tour around Guangdong, I certainly remember some of the tastiest food we ate and I’m glad I took some pictures. Cantonese cuisine is one of China’s Eight Traditional Cuisines, it is also popular in the western world . Roast pigeon, egg custard, abalone, duck, crab, double-skin milk, dim-sum, roast suckling pig, and Foshan Chen-village noodle are among the favorite, too many to name the others.

Below are some of the pictures I took around the region. Best of all, I got to see two college friends whom I haven’t seen since we graduated from Fudan University many many years ago. It was delightful to see them and chat with them, even though it was a short time. The other fun thing I got to do was being drafted as a temporary actress for a show and I got to dress up and be on stage acting as an empress, it was so much fun and totally unexpected.