The Middle Kingdom

Eclipse trip, August 2008

2008-10-26T17:19:00.000-07:00

It took me a while to get this video put together. This is from a trip we took at the beginning of August out to Gansu province to see a full solar eclipse. You can check out our google map (sidebar-->) to see where we went. I hope you like the video.

My Week Off

2008-10-05T02:34:00.000-07:00

The office was closed last week because of the October 1st holiday, which is the Chinese national day. So in case anyone ever asks you if they have the 4th of July in China, you can say yes, but they celebrate it in October.
I spent the first part of the week being sick. Not so awesome.
I also painted a bit. I may post some pictures at some point.
The interesting thing about being in youth ministry is vacations and weekends are often the best time to hang out with youth. So on Monday I shot a Youth Camp promo video with some of the kids, and on Friday I went to ReGen (youth group). We had planned on canceling ReGen for the week, but the kids still wanted to meet. I told them that we could meet, but they would have to take care off everything.
They did, and it was really great. A couple of them lead worship, my sister Anna was sort of the MC for the night, and one of the guys gave the message. In the course of the evening Anna also sort of let it slip that she would like to have a niece or nephew (and then she looked right at Kara). It was a funny moment.
Anyway it's really cool to see the kids take more and more ownership of their youth group. We don't have many youth leaders this year, but I think it's turning out to be a good thing because it allows the students to take more leadership.

Long time, no see....

2008-09-18T16:53:00.000-07:00

Last weekend a good friend of ours from Eau Claire, who just moved to Wuhan came and visited Kara and I. It was really fun to see her. We talked about the EC and our friends there, good reminiscing. Right now I'm listening to a Peer Validated podcast off the Volumeone website. Jon Sunde is guesting on the show so its fun to hear the voices of friends.

I've been in a place where I've felt really guilty about this blog. I haven't posted on anything in a really long time and since I last posted we've done a lot of cool things, but since I haven't written about any of those things I've felt like I can't write anything about our everyday life until I write about those things. Basically I'm saying this blog has been really boring for the past three or four months. Sorry.

So here's what's happened that we haven't written about:

April
We found an apartment. We looked at a bunch of different ones. Some were really bad, some were too expensive, but we're happy with the one we got. Two bedrooms, one of which is my studio/guest room.

May
Wrapped up ReGen for the year. Started planning for the next school year. Did a bunch of graduation stuff.

June
We said good-bye to most of the people that we had met so far. 75% of our youth volunteers left in July and June, so we are sort of starting from scratch now. Which is good and bad. Oh well. We started a summer Bible study with the few kids that were still in town for the summer. Small groups are cool. It was good to get to know some of the kids better in a smaller group setting.

July
Summer flew by all month. It was crazy. I felt like I would have a lot of time this sumer to get caught up and plan for the new year, but it turns out that there is still stuff to do during the summer. We did a lot of fun things with the youth group this summer: waterpark, frisbee in the park day, ice skating, bowling, etc.

August
Eclipse trip: we went out to the midwest (China) and to see a full solar eclipse. Honestly a solar eclipse is like nothing I've ever experienced before. The rest of the trip was "ma ma hu hu" (translation: alright but not great), but it was worth it. Kara worked on a nice full post about the trip, but then we lost it.

Olympics: Beijing was lots of fun during the the Ao yun hui (oww yun hway). There were actually a lot fewer vistitors than anyone was think there would be. It was weird because most areas of Beijing were quieter and less hectic. They took half the cars of the road and opened up two new subway lines.
We went and saw Beach Volleyball, we saw the US women win a match and the Chinese men win a match as well. The crowd was always awesome whenever China competed in anything anywhere.
We went to Athletics (twice) at the Bird's Nest. Highlights were seeing a Russian girl set the world record in pole vault, and seeing the USA team sweep the 400 meter dash.
I went to a women's soccer match and Kara went to see flatwater kyaking.

September
ReGen and Element (the new name for our Middle school ministry) started on September 5th. So we're in full swing now. We're still building our volunteer team, so we're a little short handed. It makes things busy for me.
Kara started her new job as a homeschool teacher for a family out in the Beijing suburbs. It's kind of a pain to get out there in the morning, but she likes the job.

Paralympics: When Rachel (Eau Claire friend) was here last weekend we went and saw a Murderball (wheelchair rugby) match, which was awesome. We also got to go to back to the Bird's Nest and see some wheelchair races there.

So there it is, now we're up to date. Now I can write about whatever I want. So what I want to write about is Fantasy Football:

I've decided it's a lot hard to do well in Fantasy Football if you never get see any of the teams play. I sometimes get to follow games via the internet on Sunday mornings, but they don't usually broadcast them here. Currently I'm in 9th place (out of 10) in my league, and I don't really like my team.

Bus Ride Video

2008-07-08T05:54:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted anything. Sorry. I think I may have given up on posting a picture for each day that we're here. Maybe I haven't, but I obviously haven't done it for a while.
I'd rather write more, but things get busy around here.
I finished up this video of the bus ride on our way from our place to the office. It gives you a pretty good feel for what the streets of Beijing are like. Enjoy.

What does Kara do?

2008-07-02T20:10:00.000-07:00

I just checked the weather. According to Accuweather.com, Beijing is currently 88°F and feels like 106°F. It's sunny, though, with shadows appearing and everything, so I'm content. Don't worry; we have air conditioning. Personally, I've decided to try the Beijingers' habit of taking umbrellas around to block a bit of that sun. I'll let you know how that goes.

Sunblock is amusingly difficult to find here, at least for decent prices; most people here just wear clothes that cover their extremities because they don't want to risk getting tan. That's actually been a treat for me: paleness is beautiful here. There are all kinds of skin-whitening creams, and every once in a while people will tell me how great I look because I'm not the slightest bit tan. It's a nice change from the tan-obsessed US, especially for someone with skin as light as mine. Maybe that's the secret to self-esteem: move to a country where they value whatever you look like currently.

People have been curious about what I do here, other than taking care of Matt's injuries. Because he has the job, I'm doing the very housewife-y thing these days, cooking and cleaning and grocery shopping every other day. All of these things take more energy here, so it's been a challenge. Cleaning is difficult because dust and grime comes through the windows and window cracks from the air outside. Cooking is a different experience because apartments rarely have ovens or more than two burners. Plus, cooking requires shopping for ingredients, which can be tough because the stores (obviously) carry very different things to some extent, and the produce must be washed properly after being bought. Those of you who know me well know that I'm not awesome at the housewife thing to begin with, so moving here has forced me out of my comfort zone in a lot of ways.

Speaking of these duties, I should probably be working on them. I hope you enjoyed a little taste into my world. As the internet allows, I will try to be more specific in my stories. Those of you in places where it feels like less than 100°F, enjoy it!

The art of tripping, falling, and landing on your jaw

2008-06-06T18:39:00.000-07:00

Youth ministry has drawn its first blood from me now.

What happened was that last week Kara and I took a day trip "Happy Valley," which is an amusement park here in Beijing. We went with a bunch of homeschooled students from our youth group.

Towards the end of the day. I was watching something and then turned around to go the other way and didn't see the donut shaped rock outcropping that was right behind me. It was about knee level high and I tripped right over it and landed on my jaw on the opposite side of the donut. I scraped up my knee, shin, chest and hand along with getting a really good gash in the underside of my chin. (All of the other injuries are pretty minor, just scratches and bruises).
One of the families had a first aid kit with them and we bandaged up my chin as best we could and someone was able to give Kara and I a ride home.

It actually didn't seem like a very serious injury at first, it actually didn't hurt much so we didn't go to the hospital right away. Later that evening I took off the bandage to try to clean it better and bandage it up again and realized that there was a lot of dirt in there still and the gash was much deeper than I thought, so we decided we needed to get a doctor to look at it and clean it out properly or risk an infection. I actually tried cleaning it myself and almost passed out at the mirror in the bathroom.

Kara called a friend of the family who was a doctor, but he wasn't available.
We were actually in sort of a bind because the status of my insurance coverage was unsettled. The paperwork had been taking a long time to get worked out and my application form had only been sent in the day before. So we weren't sure if we would need to pay for the full cost of any treatment I received. Which led us to the next series of events.

It was about 8pm by this point. We called up a friend who spoke some Chinese and went first to a Chinese clinic near our house that someone had recommended.

When we got there it was just closing and all of the doctors had already gone home. There was one security guard wandering around, and a TV on in a little couch pit area. The place didn't seem much like a medical institution actually. Kind of dirty and old and I couldn't figure out where they did any of the treatments. It was surreal in a soap opera sort of way. We finally caught a glimpse of one person in a lab coat down a hallway, which gave it just enough credibility that we could conceivably suspend our disbelief and accept it as the clinic it claimed to be. But with no doctors we decided to move on.

The next place we went was a Chinese Hospital. As far as we could tell there was one emergency room doctor and about 10-15 people hanging around waiting to see him. The reason I saw hanging around is that you sort of have to stand by the door to his observation room to convince him that you are actually injured and hold your place in "line." After a couple minutes at the door the doc motioned me in and had me sit on a bed across the room from his desk at which he was looking at the MRI brain scans of a child who was, with his family, also in the room. The doctor motioned for me to remove the bandage that I was holding on my wound. He sort of glanced at it from about six feet away and informed me that it would be two hours before he could properly look at it. This is not an uncommonly long wait, but it was already after 9pm and I had sustained the injury at about 5pm so were ready to get it treated, so we decided to move on. Upon leaving we saw a middle-aged man stumbling around the hallway with his hand holding a bloody bandage to his left eye. There was blood all over his face and on parts of his clothes. Our friend Rich made the observation that it can always be worse.

Our final stop was Beijing United Family Hospital. An American run hospital that was in all noticeable ways the same as any small hospital you might visit in America. They brought me right in, the ER doctor looked at my wound and explained that it would definitely need some aggressive cleaning and sutures. He gave me some grief for waiting so long to come in. Some topical anesthetic, lots of water and scrubbing, four stitches, a tetanus shot and a war-hero like bandage around my head and I was done. I was very happy to be dealing with an English speaking, western doctor. Kara was happy too.

Afterward: I had a wound check two days later and the stitches taken out three days after that. I was actually the last person to be treated in that ER area and BJU was opening up a new ER ward the day I got them out. The insurance stuff worked out fine, the church will reimburse us for the cost of the treatment so its all good.

Cops, Robbers and Impersonators

2008-05-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

Something that kind of bugs me here in Beijing, even thought it doesn't really affect me much, is the police cars. They always have their lights on. Whether they need to get someplace or they are just moseying along on a Sunday afternoon, red and blue strobes all the time. So no one pays attention to them. I don't know if it's police policy here to do that, or just that the individual officers want everyone to know who they are, but it seems very self defeating if you ask me. If they were an emergency no one would move out of the way because they always use the lights. Or if there were a crime taking place the perpetrator would likely see the cops coming and stop.
So that's bad, but what's even worse is that ordinary people install lights and sirens in their personal vehicles. Today I saw a guy in his SUV trying to make a U-turn so he turned on what sounded exactly like a police siren to get the other vehicles to make room for him. He definitely wasn't an officer because I could see he was dressed in a polo shirt and driving a luxury vehicle and he wasn't in a hurry because he was sucking on a popsicle as he made the turn.
Any way, that's my rant for the week.

Snapshot of China

2008-05-21T06:36:00.000-07:00

The other day I saw a scene that made me laugh, I was just riding by on my bike.
There was a black tinted-window-freshly-washed-I-think-I'm-a-big-deal car that pulled up to a closed gate. The driver was just laying on the horn. Not honking, just holding it down.
The funny thing was that there was a guard sitting on a chair slumped over and fast asleep. Didn't hear the car at all.

Earthquake

2008-05-13T03:02:00.000-07:00

Most of you have probably heard about the massive earthquake yesterday here in China. The epicenter was in Sichuan province in southwestern China. Please pray for the people of Sichuan, it is a very mountainous and poor area and it has been difficult for rescue workers to reach some of the hard hit areas.
The quake was 950 miles from Beijing. Kara and I were out having lunch at a first floor restaurant when it happened and we didn't feel anything but most of my coworkers felt their buildings sway or felt dizzy from it. That's like an earthquake happening in Dallas, Texas and us feeling it in Minneapolis.

Just a thought

2008-05-12T07:23:00.000-07:00

I had a thought the other day that I've never had in America. I was in a cab driving past a construction site when I pondered: "Why is that building only going to be fifteen stories tall?"
This struck me as odd considering the last place I lived didn't even have a fifteen story tall building in the city. Here, just fifteen stories seems like a waste of horizontal space. If you're going to use up a square block on the ground you might as well make use of as much vertical space above it, right?

Stars

2008-05-10T08:34:00.000-07:00

Kara and I went down to Wang Fu Jing (a shopping area downtown) today and found a couple bookstores with a whole bunch of English books. It was exciting, Kara even found Norton Critical editions which are her favorite. They have a classic book and then essays and critiques on the those books all in one edition. We rode the subway and ate at a hot pot restaurant with our friend Tim.
The stars were out tonight in Beijing, we counted them: 15.

Two more weeks of photos

2008-05-09T20:03:00.000-07:00

These are mostly pictures from the car. My favorite one is the fashionable lady on her pink bike with the horse drawn cart behind her.

The first picture is of me and some friends in giant inflated spheres on a pond. They are impossible to stand up in unless you run at full speed. I'll put up some video of it sometime. There's a picture of our favorite coffee show when it was closed for filming a TV show one day, some pictures of our newly painted green wall, a picture of the doctor on the street outside our building, the market near our house and some guys in camo (camo is kind of big here).

April 6th - April 15th

2008-05-07T17:07:00.001-07:00

This is a fun group of pics. We've got a couple mistranslations which are always fun, a picture of our apartment just before we moved in, some pictures from our recent youth retreats (thanks David Nugent), and the Olympic stadium. Enjoy.

Pictures for March 27-April 5

2008-05-06T06:04:00.000-07:00

These are mostly pictures that we took while on a photo scavenger hunt at the summer palace and some other random picture. Our team came in last place, but we still got a pretty awesome jumping picture using the automatic timer.

Also I'm going to put up a couple more posts of pictures this week to catch up and from then on I'll be posting "words" on Mondays (our time) and "pictures" on Saturdays. That's right, a bold prediction that I may or may not follow through on, but I'll try.

Pigeon vs. Pigeon

2008-04-23T17:49:00.001-07:00

Just a funny video of our cat and her adjustment to the new apartment.
She thinks there is another cat on the other side of the mirror.

The Wonderful 104

2008-04-16T18:35:00.000-07:00

Our favorite bus in Beijing is the “Wonderful 104.” In fact I’m currently typing this entry while riding it. It was really the first bus we were comfortable with. It was the one bus that we knew went from my parent’s house to the Xizhimen (pronounced shee-jer-men) subway stop, which is the nearest “di tan” (subway) stop to their apartment. There are plenty that go there, but when we first got here we weren’t really interested in just getting on a bus and hoping it went the right place.

Actually the reason we always remembered the 104 is because my family refers to it as the “Infamous 104.” Apparently on more than one occasion they have boarded the 104 expecting it to bring them home (because there is a 104 stop right outside their complex) and it just brought them further away. My mom warned us about the 104, she said we could trust it to take us to subway, but no further.

Luckily a friend of ours told us that the 104 is actually one of the most useful buses in the city. We just moved into an apartment in Wang Jing, which is just outside the north-east corner of 4th Ring Road. The 104 had a stop just a couple blocks from us and is currently bringing us all the way across the city and will drop us off right at my parent’s complex on the western edge of 3rd Ring road (click on the “Map of Beijing” link on the right if you’re confused). It takes a long time, but because our stop is one of the first 104 stops after it leaves the garage, there are always plenty of seats available. The only way I would be able to write a blog entry while riding the bus is if am sitting in one of the forward facing seats near the back.

Right now Kara is on the aisle “zai you bien” (z-eye yo bee-en) or on my right side and we have an open window “zai zou bien” (z-eye zo bee-en) on my left.We probably have the best seats on the bus. There are about 30 seats on this type of bus and they are currently all full. Another dozen or so people are standing in the aisles holding onto handrails. There will undoubtedly be another 30 or more people crammed into this box on wheels before we arrive at my parents house.

On almost all busses there is a driver and an attendant. The driver’s only responsibility is to get to each stop and avoided collisions. The attendant calls out the next stop and informs the passengers at each stop that they can only get off using the rear door. Every bus has one “on” door and one, or sometimes two “off” doors. On some buses (like our Wonderful 104) there is an automated recording that informs you of the upcoming stop and aforementioned exiting strategy. One of the most endearing features of the 104 is the recording that reminds us to “Please getting prepare for your arrival.”

One of the least enduring qualities is the fact that there are several TV screens on the bus, as there are on most buses. This wouldn’t be so bad, but all they play are videos about the upcoming Olympics. Also not so bad, except that you may or may not know about the Five Friendlies. They are the mascots for the upcoming Olympics, animated and peppy mascots who star in the same four commercials that play over and over again on the buses as well as on the TV and before some DVDs. They are actually pretty well-designed, but there is the feeling of brainwashing after seeing too many of these same commercials. Especially since we can’t understand the writing on them, it feels like being inundated with subliminal messages is the real cost of taking cheaper public transportation.

The easiest way to use public transportation in Beijing is to buy a rechargeable bus/subway card. Every time you get on a bus you press your card against a scanner and it deducts .4 yuan from your card. This is equal to approximately 6 cents. On the 104, and other buses with long routes you also scan your card as you disembark and depending on how far you have traveled the price can go up to .8 yuan. It’s really cheap to travel this way, but the downside is that on most buses you end up standing for long periods of time and are usually in direct contact with at least three other people.

One of the most difficult things for us illiterate Americans is determining which buses go where. There are signs at every stop that show all the stops along the route, unfortunately between Kara and I we know about 25 out of the 20,000 or so characters in the Chinese language. Several times we have boarded buses only to find that the route ends before it arrives where we want to go.

It does seem odd not having a car and buses are definitely not always the most fun thing, but its also very freeing, We never have to worry about parking, we don’t have to pay for car insurance, and we don’t have to do any maintenance. We are actually getting pretty near my parent’s place now so I’m going to put the computer away and “getting prepare” for my arrival.

The Rhythm of the City

2008-04-13T22:03:00.001-07:00

On the surface Beijing is primarily a city of straight lines. The entire city is a grid. The Forbidden City in the direct center with major roads radiating north, south, east, and west, and there are five major highways that create concentric rectangles around the city. All other roads run parallel or perpendicular to these. Skyscrapers dominate the skyline in every direction creating vertical lines, and even Chinese characters are made with combinations of straight dashes.

At street level, however, it often seems have no order at all. Traffic lights, street signs and road lines are ignored. Pedestrians, two and three wheeled bicycles, taxi cabs, SUVs, black Mercedes, cement trucks, dump trucks, flat-bed trucks, buses, and motorcycles share the roads and weave in and out and around each other continually. It's a constant games of Chicken and the winners are those who understand angles and timing. There is an art to cutting someone off here, and you must never make eye contact or you'll lose your edge in the situation.

I've discovered that different cities require different soundtracks. Since I've been here I've found that "Kill the Moonlight" by Spoon, "In Rainbows" by Radiohead, and "Graceland" by Paul Simon seem to fit Beijing well. This city has a very strong rhythm to it but there is plenty of nuance as well. I tried to listen to Bowerbirds the other day; the meandering melodies and simple instrumentation reminded me of Eau Claire, but it definitely didn't fit Beijing.

People talk a lot about "culture shock," which is obviously part of adapting to Beijing, but it's almost as much of a change to get used to the tempo of a large city like this.

We're still alive, just busy

2008-04-10T21:05:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to put a quick post up.
We are alive, we have an apartment now, and we have lots to write about. We just don't have time right now.
We are leaving in a couple hours for the first of two consecutive weekends of youth camp. We've been utterly swamped and working 6 and 7 days a week making sure everything gets done so this thing happens. So look for some more posts in a week or two when we can take a couple days off and recuperate.
Looks for posts about riding the bus, getting a health check-up, finding an apartment, McDonalds, and youth camp.

Pictures

2008-03-15T00:10:00.000-07:00

We went out and bought a new cable to connect our camera to the computer (we forgot the old one at Kara's parents house). So here are some pictures of us on our way to China.

Matt's Photo Journal, The First Two Weeks (March 13th-26th)

2008-03-29T23:24:00.000-07:00

Pigeon the Cat and Youth Group #1

2008-03-14T14:41:00.000-07:00

Our cat Pigeon has made it safely. She went through three days of quarantine and arrived at my parents apartment yesterday. She seems to have handled the traveling well and has taken to exploring the apartment and visiting tourist hotspots in Beijing. We also had our first night of ReGeneration (the BICF youth group) last night. It was basically a "welcome to Beijing for Matt and Kara" party. They made us sit back to back and write down the answers to questions and see if they were the same. We did really well. One question was "What are Kara's favorite shoes" and we both answered "brown ones." The funniest thing was that several times the other person knew the answer (and was right) before the person about whom the question was asked did.

How (not) to move to China

2008-03-12T23:26:00.000-07:00

We are in China. We have moved our four plastic bins, two suitcases, two backpacks, guitar and ourselves into my brother’s room. The boys have built a fort on the porch and will be staying out there for the time being. My family lives on floor #20, which is actually the 17th floor, but the building doesn’t have a 4th or 14th floor (unlucky in China), or a 13th floor (unlucky in America). It’s sunny and warmish, in the 50’s but windy, which is actually nice because it the blows away pollution and you can see the mountains to the west.
Most of you know about how we decided to come to China (perfect job, suited for our abilities and passions, lots of encouragement for others about the job, the right timing for our lives, etc.). and most would will already know that getting here has been quite a process, so as per our experience we have some advice about moving to China.

1. Visas: Get them early, and get them sent to the right address.
We had to push our leave date back three times, because we didn’t have our visas. The main issue was actually just that our Work Permit had been sent to an address that didn’t exist and was returned to China as undeliverable before it was resent to us and we got it.

2. Health Certificate for the cat: Nothing ever gets lost in the mail unless of course it is important.
In part so that I could avoid the label of “chronic cat abandoner” we decided to bring Pigeon with us. We had the vet check her out and prepare the official documents that we needed for exporting her to China, all we needed was for them to be certified by the USDA. Unfortunately the vet sent those documents to the wrong address as well (seriously, again with the wrong labeling). Discovering this error just days before our flight we had to set up a new appointment with a new vet and drove the documents to the USDA for same day certification.

3. Baggage: If you think everything will fit, you’re just kidding yourself.
We had been pretty optimistic that we would be able to fit all of our stuff into the four black and yellow bins that we had, until of course we actually started our final packing. Each of the four bins weighed between 49.3 and 49.8 lbs. The last bag, in which we packed the “few” things left weighed 69.0lbs. (We were prepared to pay the “overweight baggage” fee at the airport, but found out that we could have packed all of the bags up to 70lbs).

4. Delays: Always plan on the possibility that your plane may be struck by lightning.
We got to the airport almost 3 hours early in order to make extra sure that we would have plenty of time for the cat check-in and our extra bags etc, which was good because it did take a long time. But finally after tearful goodbyes to the Kelbles, extra scrutiny of the scary, bearded, guitar wielding guy with the weird passport issued to him by the American Embassy in Beijing*, and a light lunch at Chili’s Too, we were ready to get on our plane. But we didn’t because it had been hit by lightning and wouldn’t be leaving till the next day. They set us up in a room at the Radisson (which didn’t allow pets) so Kara’s dad came back and picked us up and we stayed one more night with the Kelbles.

5. Long Flights: It’s not really possible to avoid being in front of a seat kicking 4 year old, unless of course you would like to be right behind a screaming infant.
Our eleven hour flight from Minneapolis to Tokyo was pretty uneventful. The “whole grain industry…soy and corn” guy that shared a row with us was nice. He was kind of flirty with the flight attendant. She mentioned that she usually brings her Bible study with her, but her Bible was too big to fit in her bag this trip, as to repel his advances. If anyone was wondering I got the 4 year old from Minneapolis to Tokyo and the infant from Tokyo to Beijing. Also “Dan in Real Life” isn’t as good of a movie as you might think it’s going to be.

6. Layovers: Next time you’re in Tokyo get a Johnsonville brat.
Northwest airlines gave us a total of $110 worth of food vouchers over the course of two days. We had sit-down breakfast and Caribou in MN, Starbucks and Johnsonville Brats in Tokyo and still had $40 left over. We ended up being in Tokyo for 5 ½ hours, and we literally (not figuratively) couldn’t find anything else to spend our money on.

7. Arrival: Sometimes even scrapbooks look potentially dangerous.
We finally arrived at our destination. The cat was admitted to country after a short debate about whether the USDA stamp was clear enough on the forms. On our way through customs we were asked to send just one of our bins through the X-ray. The Customs Agent then called be over and asked me to identify a large square object on the x-ray screen. I had no idea what it was so he needed me to open up the bin (apparently it is very rare for them to actually look in your bags) and we discovered it was a scrapbook.

So, yeah, now we’re here. The boys gave us a tour of the neighborhood and a nearby park this morning. My mom brought us to the store to buy cat food and litter for Pigeon (who will be delivered tomorrow). We discovered that the cord for uploading pictures onto the computer was left behind so you’ll have to wait a bit for some pictures.

*That guy was me (Matt).

Quick Update from Toyko

2008-03-11T22:28:00.000-07:00

Greetings! We are currently in the Toyko Narita airport, hanging out for a few more hours before our connecting flight to Beijing leaves at 6pm-ish Tokyo time. It's about one o'clock in the morning for us, but we both feel pretty awake; it's difficult to feel too tired when the sun is shining so brightly.

You may have noticed that getting to Tokyo took us significantly longer than we expected. The flight that was supposed to leave Monday afternoon was delayed until Tuesday morning, and we just landed in Japan a couple hours ago. It was frustrating at first, but we now have a large amount of voucher money from the airline to spend, as well as a little time to wander this little slice of Japan.

We are excited to be in Asia and to be so close to done with the complications of getting ourselves and our stuff to China. Those of you in the states who happen to be online quite late and reading our blog, please pray for safety for the rest of the flight and that our luggage arrives safely with us.

We will try to post soon after we get to China, but I have to say that I am throughly ready to do some unpacking, even at our temporary home with Matt's parents. Living out of your carry-on baggage gets old quickly when you've loaded your bag mainly with books to avoid checked-baggage overweight charges.

The flight is tomorrow!

2008-03-09T07:07:00.000-07:00

On Friday, we had our last night in Eau Claire, a place that we have come to love very much. Matt played a show with friends, and they even called me up to sing during one song. We said goodbye (for now) to some of our closest friends, and on the way back to Minneapolis Matt and I were able to talk about the ways that our friends have impacted our lives. I don't know that I could have asked for a more perfect (or bittersweet) send-off. Thank you.

Our friend Andy shot video of the show and and put it together with narration and everything. It's sweet, and, like most things these days, it makes me wish that everyone was coming with us to China. You can check out the video here.

We are still in the process of saying goodbye, but we are doing it with the knowledge that this blog, e-mail, Skype, and Facebook are all available to help us connect with our loved ones here. Because I have been too emotional to say it while hugging so many of you, know that we love you all and will miss you, but we look forward to your visit. No seriously, how often to you have a place to stay in Beijing?

PS: If you do not have Skype, click here to find out more and download it. It's free and awesome.

We're Moving to China (for real this time)

2008-02-29T21:42:00.000-08:00

We actually have visas and tickets, so we are actually leaving for China. We had to push our leave date back three times now, but we have the tickets and we are leaving on March 10th.
What happened is that our paperwork from China was sent to the wrong address. It sat at the DHL office for a couple weeks and then when we found out where it was an called DHL and they informed us that they had just sent the package back to China. So the package was resent and it got to us right away and we were finally able to apply for our visas. We just found out that they were issued and the BICF booked tickets for us for March 10th.

It has been sort of a funny time for us. We keep having going away parties and then have to tell people that we aren't actually leaving yet, but now it's happening. Soon when we update this blog we will actually be talking about China.