England: Oxford

On Monday we headed over to Oxford on the train. We hopped on the train at Henley then to Twyford to Reading to Oxford and were able to spend the day in Oxford. Oxford was a beautiful college town with lots of cute little restaurants and incredible historical buildings. Several of the Harry Potter scenes were filmed at Oxford and we were able to see most of those. We started the morning off with a traditional English breakfast at the Grand Cafe on High Street. Spencer had scones with hot chocolate and I had eggs, sausage, toast and freshly squeezed orange juice, it was delicious! We then went to the Christ Church college which had absolutely beautiful grounds.





Church official saying the Lord's prayer while we were there.

In front of the Science Museum, it was closed on Monday so we weren't able to go in, but they had some pretty interesting faces on the gate...
Bodleian Library: we were able to attend an exhibit for the 400 year anniversary of the first publication of the King James Bible. It was really interesting to see all of the different versions. We were able to see notes made by translators as they attempted to make corrections. We were able to see the "Wicked Bible" which is the name given to the KJV published in 1631. This version was given this name because of a typo in the seventh commandment which resulted in the verse reading: Though shalt commit adultery.
On our way to New College.

Inside New College in the quad from Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire.

Large Oak tree from Harry Potter movie.



This is The University Church Of St Mary The Virgin and is supposedly where John Wesley gave his last sermon on Oxford campus.


Dining Hall in Christ Church College where the Harry Potter movies film dining hall scenes.
Alice in Wonderland references in the stained glass in the dining hall in Christ Church. Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, taught Mathematics here.

England: Stonehenge

We were able to go to Stonehenge on Sunday after church. Jamie drove us over after church. It was very cool to see such an interesting world landmark.

London: Les Miserables

Jim was in London for a couple days while on his EMBA Europe trip and his group ended up having a couple extra tickets to Les Mis on Friday night. So we were really excited to get a chance to see it while we were here. We sat in row R seat 27 and 28. The play was absolutely beautiful and we were able to grab some ice cream afterward and have a nice chat with Jim.

Shanghai China: Sun Nov 14- Wed Nov 17

The architecture in China was phenomenal and Shanghai was definitely the most stunning. The hotel I stayed in, JW Marriott Tomorrow Square, was no exception. The tall building in the picture below with the top that looks like a scepter is the hotel. You have to go up to the 38th floor to get to the hotel lobby, the lower floors are for hotel residents who stay there long-term like apartments.

JW Marriott Tomorrow Square (Day)

Shanghai was much different than Beijing and Tianjin. Tianjin/TEDA (Tianjin Economic Development Area) is an industrial area with a lot of power plants and factories, like Motorola's. Beijing is the Country's capital and has a lot of old architecture. Beijing also has a lot of new architecture as well, but they are interlaced with a significant amount of culture like the Forbidden City. Shanghai is the economic center and is very new age and high class. There are stunning buildings in every direction and more going up everywhere. You definitely get a sense being in China of how much power they have. They are able to build pockets of 15 skyscrapers simultaneously all over the cities.

JW Marriott Tomorrow Square (Night)

I arrived in Shanghai by myself on Sunday night and went to the first supplier: Molex on Monday and the second supplier: Amphenol on Tuesday. Then flew back to the US on Wednesday.

After spending the day at Amphenol on Tuesday the supplier took my out for dinner. When the Amphenol rep and I first made it to the restaurant for dinner, he thought we had reservations at this seafood restaurant that had all of the fish and crab out for show as you walked in. Lucky for me he had the restaurant wrong and we ended up going to the Italian restaurant that was just next door. When I had dinner at the Szechwan restaurant in TEDA they brought the fish out in a bucket still flopping to get our approval before cooking it up for us. From what I hear, that is pretty common practice at the nicer restaurants in China. Shanghai is famous for their "Hairy Crab". I'm not sure what is special about it taste-wise, but it has hairs all over it's legs. Again, I was very grateful we had Italian instead :). The Italian restaurant was called Da Marco. Dinner was an interesting conversation because I was there with two people from Shanghai, the sales rep from Florida, a guy from France with an awesome accent and a guy from Italy. I had to pay close attention to the conversation in order to keep up with all of the accents.

There is an area of Shanghai called the "Bund". It is a series of buildings that were built by the British and later occupied by the French, US, Italy, Russia, Germany, etc. Their architecture stands out amidst the rest of the buildings since it is very British. It is a strip of buildings next to a small river that separates the "older" part of Shanghai from the "new". The area across the river didn't exist 5 years ago, but now is a densely populated group of skyscrapers. Most of the buildings on the new side of the river have gigantic displays that cover the entire face of the building that play commercials to the rest of Shanghai. I drove by the Bund and saw the buildings on the other side of the river after going to dinner with the supplier on Tuesday night.

The Bund Layout

We drove by the Bund in the evening so this picture is what it looked like.

I wanted to get some last-minute shopping in before I left Shanghai for the US. I asked the supplier that I was visiting if they knew of a good place to buy souvenir type stuff. He recommended the Yu Garden. I checked out from my hotel at noon and had one hour before I needed to leave for the airport. I left my bags behind the desk at the hotel and caught a cab over to the Yu Garden. I ran around for that hour trying to see as much as I could and bought some good stuff: Christmas gifts and an awesome Great Wall souvenir (hand cut stone picture of Great Wall inlaid in glass). After I was done I had to find a cab to take me back to the hotel, which I was a little worried about at first because the Yu garden is a maze of alleys and streets lined with stores and kiosks and I had gotten turned around and pretty deep into it so it took me a few minutes to get far enough out to find a cab. It all worked out though. I caught a cab back to the hotel and then the supplier had lined up a driver to take me from the hotel to the airport.

Entrance to the Yu Garden (or at least where the taxi dropped me off)

Weddings

This is really just a placeholder until I get some pictures to add here.

We had Ashleigh and Marc's wedding followed by Jared and Jenn's wedding at the end of October. We left Chicago on Tuesday October 19 in the evening and got to Salt Lake late. Wednesday evening was A/M's reception. Thursday morning was their sealing in the Timpanogas Temple. We left Friday morning for Austin. Arrived in Austin Friday afternoon. Jared and Jenn had their rehearsal dinner at Maggiano's on Friday night. J/J got sealed on Saturday morning at the San Antonio temple. Then luncheon at our house in the afternoon, followed by the reception in Jenn's backyard on Saturday night. Carroll, Bill Jr. and Bob Incerti came to the wedding. Jared also had Spencer Nugent and his wife, Derek Jones and his wife, Jake and his wife and Mark Rane fly in as groomsmen. Spencer and I stayed a week after the wedding to spend time with Heather, Jamie, Hadley and my parents.

We had the chance to meet up with Spencer's cousin from his dad's side in downtown Austin when we went to see the bats on Congress bridge.