3. Xi'an

Yay Xi'an (pronounced She On)! This was one of our favorite stops.  We were pretty beat after a very long train ride, and then a very long hot day visiting the caves (there were lots of stairs!), and nerves were getting pretty frayed by the time we made it to the end of 2 (or was it 3 -- do you count traveling days, and if so how? that time change throws it all off!) Anyway, we arrived in Xi'an very tired, and kind of cranky.  Luckily, though, we had the good fortune to have found an amazing hostel to stay in.  I had never stayed in a hostel before, and this was a very good introduction to the experience.  First, they had air conditioning, a definite plus.  Second, the staff spoke English, which alleviated some of the load that Jon had been carrying solo since we could finally do some things for ourselves (like ask where the bathroom was).  Third, we had our own space (the four of us had our own room) where we could drop our bags and breathe for a few seconds without being surrounded by millions of Chinese people (it's surprising how that really gets to you after a while).

Our first full day in Xi'an we toured the city by taking a bike ride (tandem style) around the top of the old city wall (see pictures from a couple posts ago).  No, riding a bike on a tandem bike doesn't get drafty, at least not when it's nearly 100 degrees out with over 90% humidity! Though there is the problem of riding up your leg as you pedal, and exposing white lines from beneath the white skirt! This particular problem came up later, because as we were riding around the wall, two other bikes came up next to us with three foreigners.  They turned and asked us if we were from Utah.  Chrisy (also wearing a skirt) and I thought for sure they had noticed our exposed lines! But, come to find out, they were old friends of the Felt's from Sandy.  Five of their family were in China touring for a couple of weeks.  Doesn't that just make you want to break into a nice long round of "It's a Small World"?! Our coincidental meeting led to spending the day with them to go to see the famous Terracotta Warriors, and then a great fountain show that evening. 

        (The outside of our hostel.)
     (The city wall which we biked around.)

The next day we went to see a very large pagoda, and to the Xi'an museum.  They were both interesting, but sorry, not many stories to tell. Suffice it to say, Jon was in heaven surrounded by so much ancient Chinese history!

On our third and final day, we got up and went to the Great Mosque in Xi'an.  One of the oldest and largest Muslim communities is in Xi'an, and they have a large mosque there.  It was so fun to see the Chinese style mosque in the middle of the city, as well as to see the Chinese Muslim people with their Chinese appearance with the traditional Muslim clothing.  I found it absolutely fascinating! That day we also went to see another, smaller pagoda.  This one we actually got to go into and climb, which Jon thought was even more great.  After that we went to the drum and bell towers of the city, and heard a short concert of traditional Chinese instruments.  

      (Jon in his seventh heaven at the base of the pagoda.)
At the end of the third day in Xi'an, we braved the crowded train stations again to get on for another overnight train ride to Beijing.

2. Next up: Luoyang and Longmen

Okay, are you ready for more?

After a night on the long train ride, we arrived in a small town (read 1 million people or so) named Luoyang. If we thought people stared on the train, we didn't know what we were in for when we got off! We got lots of stares all around, but when they heard Jon speak Chinese they were fascinated, and people flocked (literally!) around him.  He had to fight his way out of a crowd of Chinese men to try to make a phone call (they all wanted to either help, listen, or stare)! (You can just see his face peeking through in the picture)

Not many tourists make it to Luoyang, because it's not large and kind of out of the way.  But our expert in Chinese history and so-called professional tour guide (a.k.a. Jon), knew that this place was a must-see.  Nearby, at Longmen, there are thousands of grottoes carved into the mountainside with Buddhas inside them.  During the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907 A.D.), the grottoes were commissioned by Chinese rulers and rich families, and the monks carved them.  Each Buddha you had carved increased your merit, and better merit means a higher state in the next reincarnation.  Although the day was extremely hot and muggy, which was fairly unpleasant, it was balanced by the fact that the whole place was incredibly impressive.  It made a pretty good introduction to China, if you ask me.  

1. From the Beginning...

Here's the story thus far. . .

We arrived in Shanghai after many long hours on a plane, followed by several hours in the Seoul Airport, followed by more hours on another plane. We like Korean Air, they treat you very well! (but if you ever fly them, I recommend the American meal choice, unless you like seaweed).

Jon proved invaluable from the start (obviously!) While waiting to get into our first ever taxi (note: taxis in China are SCARY) we watched a poor American businessman traveling alone, pull out his laptop to try to show the driver where he needed to go.  The taxi driver first gave him a confused look, then asked the other taxi drivers some questions, and then, still with a confused look, got into the driver's seat and drove off with the wide-eyed American.  We hope he made it! From that moment on, we have known not to take Jon's ability to speak Chinese for granted!

After a night in Shanghai, and a long day trying to arrange to send off several pieces of luggage to our final destination (not a small feat, to Jon's unending credit), we boarded a train for a 19-hour overnighter to Luoyang.

Trains in China are a real trip! I've never traveled by train before, so it was fun, and I've decided that it's better than a long car ride, because you get a bed to lay out and sleep in instead of being stuffed between two big guys (see June's post about driving to California!).  But, it's not very fast, especially when you're on the slow route that stops for 10 minutes in small towns, 30 minutes in small cities, and 1 hour in large cities.  There are a lot of people in China, so that means you stop a lot. It gets really old, really fast! but it was fun to ride the hard sleeper stuffed into a car with dozens of other Chinese travelers, they were apparently fascinated by the foreigners sharing a car with them.

A taste of Asia in Korea.
Enjoying the park in Shanghai.
Our Chinese welcome (kind of like Disneyland!).

China highlights (so far)

Sorry, computer access hasn't been as readily available as I had hoped, but I got a couple minutes this morning so I'm throwing in a couple of pictures of life so far in China. I don't have time for captions or stories yet, but a picture is worth a thousand words, right!

A Week in Paradise

We've been in Hawaii for a week, and we are leaving tomorrow to go to China. Here's some photo highlights of our visit to paradise:

<--We hiked through jungles! Jon jumped off a high cliff! (I only jumped off a little one) --->

We learned how to act like tiki statues at the PCC! -->




Among other things. . .

. . . We went snorkeling . . .

And spent quality time with our siblings. . .

And even found some alone time . . .

It's been fun and now we're moving on. See you in China!

Homeless

We did it. We moved out of Colorado. It was certainly sad to say goodbye to some wonderful friends that we have made in the last several years there, as well as to leave behind the only place we've called home as a married couple. But after finishing work, and saying goodbye to my primary class, we finished up packing up our apartment and taking care of other essentials before leaving Colorado. We were lucky to have the help of two very capable friends to load up our somewhat-smaller-than-expected Uhaul trailer. But, put a physicist and an engineer to work, and they were able to fit everything (minus one bookshelf) into the trailer. I kept meaning to take a picture, because it truly was a work of wonder! I failed to take the picture, but to give you an idea it came out looking something like this . . . . . . . . . .

After packing up the trailer and enjoying green pancakes with Elijah, Jon's dad, brother Will, and Will's friend Tito showed up and hooked the trailer onto their Pathfinder to load it all to California. We followed in our car until we made it to Salt Lake that night. The next morning the adventures really began as all five of us (yes, count them, four boys and me!) piled into the car together to drive out to Cali. This is a picture of the boys snugly enjoying the backseat (their smiles are evidence that this was taken at the beginning of the drive). . . .

We arrived in the Bay area that night, and enjoyed a restful night's sleep (read: foreshadowing of a contrast in things to come) before getting up the next morning to unload me to my job interview (which went well, I think, but I'm still waiting to get word) and then to unload the trailer into our very own storage unit. Once our business in Palo Alto was complete, the next high priority item on the agenda was for Tito to swim in the Pacific Ocean. Being from Spain, Tito grew up on the beach, and his six weeks in the United States, specifically Utah, have left him pining for the ocean. The Pacific, however, is not the Atlantic nor the Mediterranean! Will jumped in with him, and was blue after about 5 minutes. Spanish skin is tougher than we knew, though, and the call of the ocean held Tito jumping in and out of the waves for nearly an hour (the locals thought he was nuts!).

Once we dragged Tito out of the water, we got on the road again to make our way back to Utah. However, little did we know what adventures awaited us! As we were heading through the San Francisco freeway system, we heard a loud bang, and realized that no, it was not a case of road rage, but our back tire had blown. Lamont thankfully was able to move us adeptly to the side of the road, where we sat as Tito and Will put the spare on. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

With that done, we set off quickly (it being 4:30 p.m. by this time) again to find a place to get a new tire. We found a great place in Oakland. Okay, really the greatest part was that it stayed open until 5:30. Other than that, when we saw that it took the guy about 15 minutes and more than 15 tries to put the spare cover back on, we realized that we couldn't expect too much (again read: foreshadowing of difficulties to come).

So, 5:30, and we're on the road again, this time with a brand new tire and set to make it for the long haul. Not to be, however. It only took, oh maybe 10 minutes, before every time we started to go over a bump in the road, we heard the most nerve-jarring screech/grind. It seriously was a textbook case of classical conditioning because my heart started pounding and I was tensed up when I even saw a bump coming. We decided that wasn't right, so we pulled over to find out what on earth was causing that horrible sound. What we found was, well, not thrilling.

I know we've all heard of shocks and struts, you know, those things that the people at the brake place tell you to replace and you just ignore them once you hear how much they will charge you. However, most of us have never actually taken a look at the shocks and struts on our car, so let me inform you for a bit:

First off, this is what a decently used, but intact shock should look like:

One of our shocks looked like that. . . the other looked like this:

Yes, it's hanging, and no, the guy at the tire place did not notice (but are we surprised by this?)

So, the next adventure was finding a place that was open and willing to change our shock -- not happening. After several attempts, we ended up at the CA equivalent of Checker Auto to buy our own shock and then figure out how to install it ourselves. Never fear, though! These four guys were up to the challenge. . . . . . .

How many guys does it take to change a shock?

Yep, count 'em, that's four under the car (though Jon likes to point out that he was the only one actually doing anything -- besides me taking the picture of course!)

But, the shock got changed, and with very few further delays, we were back on the road by about 7:30 p.m. That then meant a long, lovely night of attempting to fall asleep in the crowded backseat of a car full of guys and then trying to stay awake in the driver's seat along the lonely roads of Western Nevada/ Eastern Utah (they're actually prettier in the dark, though). We pulled back into Salt Lake about 9:30 the next morning, and then took a few days to recover from lost sleep.

Okay, that was a long story, but I think well worth the telling! I just consider it the first in what I hope will prove a summer chock full of even better stories!!

What to say?

My older brother, who is apparently an avid reader of my blog in his spare time at work, berated me the other day for not giving him new and interesting things to read often enough. Point taken.
So, I'm here to say something, although I must say it's hard for me to imagine that my life right now is all that interesting to anyone. (Partly because as I look ahead I know that my life in about one month will be 100x more interesting.) But, I suppose if anyone wants to know, I will let you know "what's happening."
1. Currently, our apartment is about 1/2 packed and covered in boxes, and 1/2 livable because we still have one week to live in it.
2. I do not yet have an internship set up for the fall. However, I do have one and a half interviews set up for next week when we go to California (the half is because one district has said they want to talk to me, but they haven't yet responded to my message that I'll be out there and can we meet then?)
3. We've changed our leaving date for the umpteenth, and hopefully last, time, and we will be moving out of Colorado on the Saturday the 31st. Because we've been assigned a furnished student apartment at Stanford, we will be dropping of much of our stuff somewhere in the Utah area, and then moving on to California to put the rest in storage. We'll spend Monday there so that I can do my interviews (and so that Tito can fulfill his dream of swimming in the Pacific Ocean), and then we'll go back to Utah for two weeks before leaving on our summer trip.
4. Other than that, there's the usual wrapping up work, saying goodbyes, etc. etc. etc. that we all love about moving to a new place.
So, for those who were wanting to know, there you have it. For those who don't care, I hope you're not still reading. And for those who want to read about more interesting events, hang on a few more weeks!