Important News Update

I have in my hands (well not really cuz I'm typing), a plane ticket that says I will be arriving in Madison at

10:25pm on Monday, June 30, 2008!

Just six more weeks in China.

Earthquake

Hello Everyone,

I hear there was an earthquake in China recently... no, we didn't feel it. It occurred in Southwestern China and I live in Southeastern China. I am surprised there are reports that it was felt as far away as Beijing and Vietnam and we are not any further away than them and yet didn't feel anything. It probably has something to do with where the mountains are.

When my family was here, we were pretty close to that area at the start of our cruise in Chongqing. But the center of the earthquake was still more West than that near the capital of Sichuan: Chengdu.

Thank you for your concerns about Sara and I. We are fine. Nothing exciting happening these days :) Pray that none of my friend's families were affected by the earthquake. One of my friends, Colline, is from Chengdu and is awaiting his baby in June.

Olympic Torch - Guangzhou

Wow, this trip was crazy. It started off great! We got to Starbucks in Guangzhou with no problems and hung out there for a little while until Stefic arrived. Then we walked to the metro (subway) and went to the hotel her father owns. By this time it's almost 7pm and we're pretty hungry. They took us to dinner. The food was delicious but they didn't believe that we liked it. Also, her father kept asking why we chose XX over GZ and kept suggesting that we teach in GZ instead. It was really exhausting dealing with them. Finally we got back to the hotel and planned what time to leave in the morning, and we were alone. We stayed up watching a movie until 12 and then I couldn't sleep for a long time. It was too hot, we had coffee too late in the day, and the bed was uncomfortable. Eventually I could feel the AC after turning it WAY down and getting Sara cold, then I put my ipod on and drifted off to sleep.
Today we planned to leave at 9:30 but didn't get going till close to 10. We got to the place we planned to catch the torch at by 10:30 and it wasn't supposed to arrive until close to 12 but the place was PACKED with people already. We were the only foreigners and everyone was surprised to see us so they wanted to take pictures of us. At one time a reporter with a cameraman came over and I snubbed them, but we were suddenly surrounded by people. Sara talked to the reporter for a question or two while I covered my face from everyone. I do NOT like that at all. I'm so glad I'm not famous. We spent a while dodging people, but eventually we didn't have any more problems.
Since no one knew when the torch would arrive exactly, there were many surges of excitement and we got stuck in a crowd for a long time. We actually would have had a good sight of the torch from where we were, but it never came. We ducked out of that crowd and just stood outside of it for a while after that. We lost Stefic then until after the torch went by. I met a guy, Frank (university student studying public relations), who told me that the torch bearers had stopped to have lunch which caused the delay. Finally, at about 1:30, the torch came through. I was able to get fairly close to see the beginning of the parade of people, but I was soon shoved out of the way and I couldn't find anywhere to go, so I gave up and walked back out of the crowds. I was able to see the flame through the people and got a video to prove it, but that was all. :(
Then, after we found Stefic, we went out to lunch (on the way, I saw a group of guys with a bunch of t-shirts that say "I *heart* China", so we bought some). At lunch we had more annoying questions to deal with between her and her dad about GZ vs. XX, if we regretted coming/trying to see the torch, and if we liked the food or not. We finally got out of there alive, and went back to where we saw the torch (we had to in order to catch the metro). It looked very different since all of the people were gone... but across the street was a Subway restaurant so we got food for later (mmm!), and went down to the metro to go back to catch a bus home.
So here we are at home again. It was a whirlwind trip... I don't regret going. I have very few regrets in life because without experiences I wouldn't be who I am now. I'm disappointed about what happened and that we weren't able to see the torch after all that planning and anticipation, but it was a good trip over all. Just the excitement of being in the crowd was worth it.

Dinner Party

We had a really fun evening today.
I've been thinking about doing my other job lately but being scared of how to do it. So finally we did it. I invited friends over (there was 8 of us), shopped and made supper (everyone brought something). When our friends arrived, we ate supper, told the story of the spring holiday we like to celebrate, and played some games. I was really happy with how it all went.
So our friends seemed interested in the story. They knew some of it but not all of it, and were making comments and questions along the way. Then we just played some Uno and some other games. I think everyone had a really good time. I'm really happy we did it. I didn't want to go home regretting that I didn't take every opportunity I had to talk to my friends. And this is one step closer to that. It's never too late.
For supper we had spaghetti, mashed potatoes and gravy, dumplings, "bacon" (it looked more like a hot dog, but wasn't too bad), some green vegetable, apples and oranges. It was quite good. I made the first two myself. Our friends were so funny! They wouldn't go thru the line first cuz they didn't know how to eat the food. They needed to watch us to see how to do it :) I'm pretty sure they all liked the food. It was almost all finished.