Thanksgiving Dinner

Last Thursday, we had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We did all the baking and a lot of the prep on Wednesday, but I didn't think to take my camera with me to record all the action. I did remember to take it with me on Thursday. Here is some of the food sitting on the stove waiting for the turkey to finish cooking.

Here is our imported turkey cooking in the oven. It looks done, but the button timer hasn't popped yet.

Finally, it is ready to carve and eat.

Here is my plate all piled up with good food. The missing stuffing and cranberry sauce is only because I don't eat either of those things. Both of them were available. In fact, we had 2 different kinds of cranberry sauce. Both the jelly kind and the kind with whole cranberries.

Here is the apple pie that we baked on Wednesday. I was especially proud of my woven lattice. I thought it was a nice touch.

We also made a pecan pie. Not quite as pretty, but it was definitely tasty. We did not make a pumpkin pie, because we don't have many pumpkin pie eaters.

Here is my dessert plate, complete with some whipped cream. It was a tasty meal, and a good day.

Mosque

One of my favorite places to take people to visit in my area is a mosque that was built in the 1700s.

It is still a functioning mosque, but it is only open for worship on Fridays and special days.

Even on a normal day, a few people will be wandering around. Like this woman who is reading "Our Daily Naan".

The main worship area has wooden pillars and beams for the ceiling and carpets on floor.

There are halls and smaller rooms on sides.

The mosque is unusual because it only has one minaret.

The minaret is 145 feet tall, inside is a spiral staircase of 72 steps. The outside bricks are carved in geometric patterns.

Decorating for Christmas

Last Sunday, I helped my neighbor decorate for Christmas. Yes, we realize that it was only November 2, but she will be gone for most of December and wanted to see her decorations for a little while. We started with an empty tree.

I was put in charge of the garland.

I had some problems reaching the back of the tree.

And there was too much garland for the tree, so I found other places to put it.

Some of the ornaments were just too big for the tree.

We also did not have a tree topper, so we had to get creative with one of the ornaments.

A few days later, we decorated a smaller tree. Here are the little people all snug in their bed from their long summer nap.

Here they are on the tree.

GaoChang Ancient City

GaoChang has a history of over 1400 years. I tried reading a book I bought about GaoChang so I could fill this post with fun little facts about the historical significance of GaoChang, but the book was pretty boring and filled with lots of bad English, so no fun facts today. 1400 years is all I got.

We rode a donkey cart from the front gate of the city to the back where the main ruins were.

The donkey cart ride was fun. I had no idea that a donkey could go that fast.

Along the way, we went past some scattered ruins, but nothing big.

In the back was a larger group of ruins which must have been the main city. I would have liked to look around more, but our donkey cart driver threaten to leave if we took more than 10 minutes.

We did get a chance to take a few pictures while we were looking around.

The donkey carts raced back to the front gate.

I am not sure why since there were other drivers taking a nap at the gate.

City of Grapes

About 3 hours south of where I live is a city known for its grapes. The city is on the edge of desert, and there are grape vines growing everywhere.

In the spring, the grapes start out small.

These are some of the last remaining grapes of the fall. I have never been there in the summer for the height of grape season, because it is simply too hot to be enjoyable. I was there the last day of September, and the temperature was in the 90s.

There are also small houses like this all over the city where the grapes are dried to make raisins.

Wind Power

Along the road to the City of Grapes, there is a large wind power plant.

I had trouble finding information about the power plant, but I read that it is the largest in the country with a capacity of 100 megawatts.

Here is a picture of me pretending to be one of the wind turbines. Unfortunately, I don't generate much power.

The Egg

The National Centre for the Performing Arts also known as the Egg is one of the most unique buildings in Beijing.

It is an ellipsoid made out of titanium and glass. It is surrounded by an artificial lake. The lake reflects the dome and makes it look like an egg floating in the water.

The entrance to the dome is through a hallway under the lake.

Olympic Green

One of the fun things about the Olympics was the Olympic Green. The Green was filled with fun activities. The sponsors had buildings with fun displays and activities. This building was shared by Coca-Cola and Kodak.

Inside there were huge Coke bottles, one for each province that were designed by local artists.

Many of the sponsors also had photo ops. Omega had this fun kayak to sit in.

Another sponsor had a huge set of Friendlies.

I really like Friendlies.

Samsung had an Olympic torch. We actually got in line to pose with it by accident. Most of the buildings had lines to get in the building. We thought we were standing in line to enter to the building, but it turned out to be a line to take pictures with the torch.

I don't know if this was supposed to be a photo op, but it was still fun.

Bird's Nest

The Bird's Nest is the nickname given to the Beijing National Stadium. It is considered one of the most unique designs in Olympic history. There is no distinction between the decorative and the structural portions of stadium.

The outside consists of enormous beams that resemble silver twigs making the stadium look like a huge bird's nest. Although, the design was inspired by the study of Chinese ceramics.

The 24 main columns weigh between 500 and 800 tons each. It is the world's largest steel structure, containing 110, 000 tons of steel.

The stadium was host to the Opening and Closing Ceremonies as well as Track and Field events and Soccer finals.

Thanks to NBCOlympics.com and Wikipedia for the details.