laughing traveler

I just noticed that I have not updated my blog since I got engaged. And the blog post about our engagement didn’t get past the airline travels. How is married life? Short answer, busy! So I’ll just skip the last year and a half and fill in the gaps as I good. Oops. SO being married to a Chinese man seems to immediately bring up two issues I feel I would have avoided if I married an American. Number one is the repeated question from everyone I see, “When are you going to have a baby?” I guess parents do this is the US too, but the China baby pressure is on a whole other level. Even the cleaning ladies at school are giving me pressure to hurry up and start making babies. Seriously, every time I tell someone I am married they say, “Oh, you have a baby?”  I have perfected my response in my best Chinese “wait a little! Too soon!  I have only been married 1 year!” In America that would be the end of the conversation, but a Chinese stranger will not be satisfied with this. “No, 1 ...

We will start the review of my vacation with strictly the travel to and from US and China, because that is a short in itself. So, many may call me cruel for planning Daniels first trip outside of china and first time on a plane as a 40 hour travel over 3 flights and 3 immigration points, but honestly I am just cheap. Lesson learned. Our trip started from Hong Kong at 6am, but the taxis and borders don’t start that early. So really our trip had to start the night before. On my last trips out of Hong Kong I always have to go sleep at the airport overnight to catch an early flight. But for some reason, this time we get to the ticket counter about 9 pm (after a long battle with Daniel to wait later to go to the airport, I lost) and there is no one there! I finally found someone to tell me the ticket counter would open at 5:30 am. They were on moved by the fact that I would only have 30mins before my flight left and I couldn’t get into the airport without a boarding pass. So we would ...

One of my friends told me the story of a Christian missionary in Africa. On his first day he invited the whole village into the church. He told them the gospel and warned that anyone who did not repent and turn from their sins would suffer eternity in hell. The next week only half the people came to hear the massage. The missionary was shocked by the low attendance and decided to show them pictures and videos to explain how serious he was and how awful hell really is. To his surprise the next no one attended his service! When he went to the villagers and asked why, they replied that hell was only for white men, so it didn't apply to them. Because all the pictures he showed of Hell only had white people. My friend added at the end of the story, that as an Asian he feels the same way. Many people see missionaries as an extension of the western aggression, trying to make the eastern world more like the west. It was shocking for me to hear this, but I can see the misconception....

Today is the funeral of my sister from another mister’s mom, Teri. A few days before New Years, she lost her 8 month battle with cancer.   It’s hard to be so far away and miss my chance to say goodbye. It almost doesn’t seem real when you read about it in emails; It was a few days before I said it out loud. My first thought was why not 1 month later! I just wanted 1 more month. A month later she would have been a grandma.   A month later I would be back in America introducing her to my new boyfriend. I had promised this summer that I would bring him to South Carolina to get her approval.   More than anyone else, Teri really saw herself in my travels and adventures in China. She was one of the few people that shared my love of adventure and experiencing new people and cultures. After my first year in China she sat me down and shared some of her hard learned lessons in travels. We talked about how easy it is to get wrapped up in the newness and excitement and think, ...

The trip to Korea really did sneak up on me. My friend Pina has been talking about her upcoming wedding off and on and then one day she was like so we decided on December 12 so you will need to ask off work from the 11 to 17 th . No question, just the facts! I wouldn’t have gladly gone either way but the fact that I got this information 2 weeks before the trip added a bit of panic! I’m lucky that she also added a by the way it’s cold there. I was thinking yea I’ll bring a jacket, No its -10 degrees cold, -10 degrees CELCIUS! They don’t have those numbers in DC, much less Shenzhen, so I may have been slightly unprepared. I also got another surprise when Anthony, the Korean groom, called me and asked if I would sing at the wedding as a surprise for Pina! We have KTVed often, so he had mostly heard me sing rap songs. I was glad he trusted me not to ruin his wedding; my one condition was that I would only sing in English and his condition was that I not sing Rihanna’s S&M. I cho...

So the day after I moved into my apartment my school said we would have an important meeting with the Shenzhen Education Bureau the next morning and be ready by 8am. They had mentioned something about some important people from the government coming to evaluate our school and they would want to meet us, so I assumed this is what that was about. The night before I had come home late to find my AC was broken. It was too late to call anyone so I suffered through the night, but it was BAD! There is no kind of heat like Shenzhen heat. Everyone says its Florida weather because it’s about the same distance from the equator, it’s not true. Shenzhen heat is like walking beside a fire breathing dragon. The second you step out from under a shady tree it is literally DOUBLE the heat. I can feel the sun cooking my skin. In DC they say it feels as hot as Florida because the humidity is so high, well I kind you know there are days in Shenzhen with 100% humidity. I always thought 100% humidity wou...

Living in a city of 14 million people I forget the joy of open space. If there is one thing Daniels hometown offers its space. You could stand on his roof top and there it’s nothing but mountains as far as you can see. We went off to explore the forest and walked for hours without seeing or hearing another soul. Sounds so romantic, until he sees a grasshopper and goes into hunting mode. Or he rushes out in front of me and I slide off the path and into a sticker bush. One day I will be a nature girl but it’s gonna take some time. Another simple pleasure was the mountain springs. In China I am so used to boiling everything and then burning my tongue BC I'm too impatient to wait for the water to cool off before you drink it. Or buying so much bottled water I have a tower of plastic bottles taking over my apartment. Daniels house has well water that isn't polluted BC it’s such a rural area, so we drank specked to hand. Simple joys! When ever we left the house I always asked i...