Thank you God!

We had a very tight connection for our flight home, so in Korea when we checked into our flight from Seoul to Seattle we were a little late and got some BAD news. The only available seats were middle seats, in four different rows! This meant that someone would need to give up their seat and switch to a middle seat (which most people don't like). Trejan started crying when we told him that he might need to be independent on this flight.

I started praying....HARD. Not only did two people change seats, but they offered to switch! We didn't even need to ask them. I am so very thankful that these people were so considerate, and that the flight went great. We had two sets of two seats.

It is great to be back in America. We are relaxing and trying not eat TOO much delicious food.

Thanksgiving Weekend in Shanghai

This year for Thanksgiving, we celebrated at the Shangrila Hotel buffet in Shanghai. The food was amazing! The sushi and Indian curry was my favorite. Nicole also filled up on sushi, she was so happy to have avocado rolls. Damon had turkey, mashed potatoes and a taste of almost every kind of food you can imagine, and Trejan got his favorite... macaroni and cheese (it really was delicious, I had some too). Everyone was happy, and VERY full by the end of the evening. I think I tried five different deserts.
YuYuan Gardens in November is absolutely stunning! We enjoyed the perfect weather, it waited to rain until the afternoon.
The highlight of the weekend was the acrobat show, although no pictures to show. The Chinese really know how to put on a show, with their gymnastics and fearless motorcycle riding, flying through the air, we were all on the edge of our seats.

It is our family tradition to decorate for Christmas this weekend, so we continued on. This year the house won't smell like pine trees, and our decorations are homemade, but we are going to enjoy the season while we live here!

Halloween

Ninja Nicole, and Mario Trejan (doing the Mario pose, from Nintendo Mario Kart)

Where can you fully embrace Halloween for what it is (or what it should be): a child-centered excuse for playing dress-up, going door-to-door essentially begging for sweets, leading to what can only be described as blissful, massive, candy-consumption? Where can you enjoy all that Halloween has to offer without cowering under an umbrella of "political correctness" or fearing that you may offend someone, somewhere...CHINA, that's where!

The kid's school spent an entire afternoon enjoying festivities - Halloween-themed games in each classroom and a costume parade. Then we went over to Campus Village - where we live - and had more games, a petting zoo and hayride, a kids buffet of Halloweenish foods, and a costume contest.

(This post was written by my great friend and neighbor Geneal Fendrick.....see her blog for many laughs! http://dalianadventure.blogspot.com/)

Nicole's 9th Birthday

I spent WAY too much energy on a cake that turned out dry and partially burnt. Nicole really wanted a "scratch" cake. I personally like box cakes, but I used eggs, flour, baking powder, sugar.....however, the convection oven is NOT my friend. Every time I checked this "scratch cake" the middle was gooey and the edges were getting too dark. It is weird to continue baking something, knowing that part of it is burnt. I am glad that I didn't put the entire effort in (I didn't sift the flour!) Maybe years from now I will remember Nicole's 9th birthday cake and laugh. At least I gave it a try!

Oh well, the frosting was good (thanks for the powdered sugar Geneal, and thanks for the butter Debi). I made brownies to make up for the small (burnt edges shaved off) cake.
Nicole's 9th birthday was awesome! Unlike our usual tradition of planning for weeks, we threw together her party in two days. I loved it! An entire evening was spent on the sign, notice the Wii drums in the happy, and the microphone for the "i". I shouldn't need to point out the guitar, right?
Beattles Rock Band was a huge hit, although I got very tired of "We All Live in a Yellow Submarine".
I can not ride this (actually I can not even get up on this) but Nicole spent a few days learning, and now she can move pretty well.

RipStick Skateboard

The RipStick (RipStik) is like nothing you've ever ridden before! Part skateboard, part snowboard, and part surfing all in one.

Your motion makes the Ripstick go. You do not need to kick your feet like a skateboard. Twist back and forth to make it go.

The RipStick is on caster wheels that can rotate in all directions. The board itself, is flexible and is propelled by your movements.

Birthday package from our Oregon friends!

Thanks guys! We LOVED everything! Hopefully the thank you notes will be there before we see you at Christmas.

Beijing with the Flennaugh's

Tiananmen Square

Summer Palace

Mutianyu Great Wall

Temple of Heaven

Trejan's Birthday

Today Trejan turned seven!
Not too many kids get to spend their birthday in two different countries
and get wished happy birthday by China airlines and sung to in a Japanese Cold Stone. One more added bonus is with the time change he got a 25 hour bday
and slept in his own bed!Trejan had another party with some new friends in China.
What was his favorite gift? Goldfish from the import store!

make a wish Trejan!

Traveling back to Dalian from Japan

Waiting at the airport in Japan I had a lot of mixed emotions. Glad to be going home, but also sad to be leaving the friendly, polite, Japanese culture. I will miss the smiles and the respectful bows given to every customer at every store. I will miss clean, hygienic bathrooms with warm seats with 10 different buttons. I will miss the western food that comes with being in a big city.

When we got back to China we new we were here because we....

• were in line to go through customs and someone blatantly cut in front of us
• were stared at too many times to count
• Trejan was getting A TON of attention and was asked how old he was. Good news, he got to say "qi sui" instead of "liu sui". A question he will be asked a thousand times this year
• three ladies (working at the airport) were smiling and commenting in awe of Nicole's hair, they may have never seen hair like hers before. I know they wanted to touch it, but we were walking too fast.
• almost got ran over by a taxi, got honked at in the parking lot of the airport
• on the drive 2-3 min from the airport we saw an accident and realized that in 11 days in Japan we did not see one accident!
• debated on asking the driver to roll up the windows because it smelled....

There are things that I didn't know I would miss about Japan until I got back to China..but in all, we are all glad to be back home.

Hiroshima Peace Park

We were all touched by the peace park that was made in remembrance of the bombing of Hiroshima in World War II. I would have liked to spend more time there, but we were all exhausted and the whole museum is quite intense. It was a very unique experience to go through these emotions with the kids.
Nicole and Trejan wrote about it in their journals. Although I helped with prompting questions, these are some of their thoughts and words...

I wish we (America) didn't bomb Japan. When I saw the pictures it made me think about what our neighborhood would look like if we got bombed.

It makes me sad to think about. I felt really sad when I saw the pictures.

I hope we can all get along and not have another war.

I learned that such a small bomb can destroy so much.

There were a lot of colorful and bright paper cranes. They made pretty pictures with them.

Children's Monument-inspired by Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Beautiful Kyoto

The Kinkaku, Rokuon-ji (Golden Pavilion)

The historic city of Kyoto brought us some relaxation and sightseeing. Our guide Mr. Mori helped us the first evening and we saw a couple of temples walking distance from our hotel, the Kyoto Tower Hotel, shown below.

We also enjoyed dinner with him (he read the menu for us and ordered everything). He gave us a good plan for the next day as we were on a self guided tour of the city using city buses.

The Kinkaku, Rokuon-ji (Golden Pavilion) was our favorite temple. The setting with a pond and the changing trees of fall made it an unforgettable, amazing wonder. The top photo is my favorite of the entire trip.

Tokyo, Shibuya

We were on the 22nd floor with a view of one of the busiest intersection in the world. Tokyo has the largest population in the world and it is amazing to see so many people. It reminded me of New York City, only bigger. This intersection has a traffic light for cars each way and then a green light for pedestrians only. They then get to walk anyway they want. It was amazing to watch. The kids went to the middle with Kevin and Kiana and waved to us in these photos. Look for the bright shirts in the middle of the intersection.

We shopped, took trains, ate good food and walked around the city for a couple of days.

One of the highlights was going to Yoyogi park, 代々木公園 Yoyogi kōen, Meiji Shrine.

A view from the Toyko city municipal building.

Tokyo Disneyland

View of the "Journey to the Center of the Earth" mountain at Disney Sea. Yes, that is real fire!

Tokyo Disneyland is amazing. We loved it. The experience was very similar to California Disney...clean, friendly, very organized, long lines, and expensive. Tokyo also has a park connected called Disney Sea. Some of these rides are similar to Six Flags or California Adventure. The kids went on a lot of thrilling rides for the first time: Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Tower of Terror (very scary free fall ride) and a loop roller coaster. This adventurous side of our kids shocked Damon and I both.

Traveling to Japan from China is so easy! Only a two hour non-stop flight. We traveled with our family friends the Barrs. Kevin, Trejan, Kiana and Nicole are great friends and all of the kids (and adults too) got along terrific together. Mike and Damon have worked together for over eight years now. It is wonderful having them in China with us.

Xinghai Square, downtown Dalian

Damon and I had a weekend downtown Dalian and toured around the city a little. We saw about twenty brides getting photos taken in the park. It was interesting to watch, I am not sure why they lay on stairs, but it is probably for good luck or something. Here in China the photos are taken months before the actual wedding, so they have hours to go all around the city (and to the beach by our house) to take photos.

The castle I am posing with is a Shell Museum. We were told "it is not worth it to go in and look at common shells, a waste of money", so we didn't pay the entry fee. We did hike up a lot of stairs, so we got a nice view.

First Day of School at DAIS

Nicole started third grade today, only eight kids are in her class. She is feeling very grown up now. Her countdown to her birthday is 70 something days.

Trejan is now a first grader-look at the smile on his face when school got out. He loves school! His class has ten kids right now, and there are more coming as the year continues.

Every day the kids have three "specials" where they are in a different classroom. Four days a week he has Mandarin, then twice a week Art, Technology (his favorite), P.E., Music and library. This schedule makes the day go by fast, even though they are at school from 8:45am-3:45pm.

Bingyugou, the little Guilin of the north

Traveling China with Noriko and David

Wow, a lot has happened in the last couple of weeks.... My sister Noriko and her husband David arrived to Dalian and we traveled to Dandong (three hour drive north of Dalian) and saw North Korea and the Great Wall there. It was fun and exciting, even though it rained on us for part of the day.

DANDONG
This first photo is at the boarder of North Korea and China.




















Second photo, Great Wall at the North Korean boarder...























We spent one day Dalian, I was feeling a little feverish, but not too terrible.


SHANGHAI

We flew (less than two hours) to Shanghai. It was really hot, and after we got from the light rail (Maglev) to the subway station to the stop by our hotel we were all exhausted. We couldn't catch a cab because we were too close to the hotel, so we drug the suitcases and kids for a NOT so short walk. It was the longest two blocks I've ever seen. Next time I think we should just get a cab from the airport!

That afternoon Trejan wanted to relax in the hotel, so I stayed with him and took a nap (we just ate at McDonalds). Nicole went with Nori and David to the mall. (I should have been clued in that I was getting much more sick but I was in denial.)

The next day we went to the YuYuan Gardens which is the most beautiful garden in Shanghai.



We then shopped for pearls and went to the "knock off market". Under the Science and Technology Museum is an underground shopping area that has copies of every kind of name brand you can think of (hence "knock off"). Stress free shopping it is NOT. If you see a price, you typically can barter and pay 1/3 or less of the price they had posted. If they really want to sell you something they will grab you as you walk away and pull you back and give you a lower price. It was a great day, but I think I had a slight fever for the entire day. The next morning when I woke up I had a bad cough and was having a little trouble breathing. We continued on with the plan of the day, going to the Shanghai aquarium.


After the aquarium that afternoon I woke up from a nap and I couldn't breathe very well. That evening I was getting more and more worried. I called Damon and he talked me into calling ISOS (International S.O.S.) which is the health network Intel has provided for us. They help you (in English) seek medical attention. I was really not that worried, but I was feeling glad I called. We were waiting for the doctor to call me back and I sent Nori and David off to spend their last night in Shanghai doing something fun.

The kids and I were waiting in a taxi line and I got a call from the doctor. I got us out of the taxi line and tried to hear what he was saying...he said that I needed to be seen ASAP. Then ISOS gave me the name of the hospital (Shanghai International Medical Center) where I needed to go. I was not too happy about this. I figured that it would be best to go back to the hotel first, grab a few things (snacks, water and the kids' DS lites). Also, then the hotel could translate to a taxi how to get to the hospital. The kids could tell I was worried and so they were a little scared as well.

We stood in line for a taxi (again) and got to the hotel.....then from the hotel took another taxi to the hospital. The driver dropped us off in this strange area and pointed as if to say "there!" I wasn't sure where to go, but after walking half way around the building we finally got in to the ISOS area. I had a big sigh of relief, it was clean, they spoke English and they were waiting for me. Then the questions came... have you traveled recently? how long have you been back in China? where were you in the US? They took my temperature and then said the dreaded words, "you have a fever". I knew this wasn't good. What came next brought me to tears....."We can't see you here until you are checked by the Chinese hospital". I could only think back to the Chinese Medical exam that I took almost a year ago. I started to pull myself together when Trejan started crying. I was saying to myself...."You can do this.....if Courtney (a friend I have here in China) had her baby in Shanghai......you can do this...." All three of us put on the masks they gave us and trotted off.

It ended up totally fine, the ISOS nurse took us to the Chinese Hospital and translated for me. They charged me money to check my temperature again, take a sample of saliva. Soon after they discharged me with "No H1N1". We all went back to the ISOS area and I was seen by the doctor. After a long wait for the doctor, and for the nurse to do a blood draw, I was told that I had bronchitis. They gave me four different drugs and sent me on my way.

I was a little concerned about getting a taxi back to the hotel because it was hard for us to find the door into the hospital I figured it may be hard to get out of this place too. I was right. We were given directions, but in China that doesn't always help you all that much. There were some Chinese people who were trying to figure out how to get out too! Finally after wandering around I saw someone and asked her. She was an ER nurse and pointed and it was the way she was going, so we followed her. I saw the exit sign, and I guess she figured we would too, she never looked back to help us again. Nicole almost followed her into a room, but luckily she (Nicole) saw that I wasn't following that nurse anymore. I was trying to just get out of there! We were walking through the ER and saw a guy with a bloody gash in his leg, people hooked up to IV's, a couple coming in with the woman leaning on the man, I didn't look too hard to see much of anything else.

We needed help getting a cab, but a nice man who I think was a security officer helped us out. We got back to the hotel and I was very comforted to see Nori and David waiting there for us. I think it was after 10pm and the kids fell asleep very quickly. I stayed up until midnight packing, we were off to Xi'an the next day.


XIAN

Traveling to Xi'an was actually quite nice. Damon met us there, and we had an english speaking guide and driver waiting for us. The Terra Cotta Soldiers were amazing and we loved that day.
















One of my favorite times was spent biking on top of the city wall of Xi'an. A long time ago the city had a huge wall build for protection, and to keep the dragon spirits from leaving. We had two tandem bikes (one with Nicole and me, one with Trejan and Damon) and Nori and David had regular bikes. We biked for about an hour in the hot and humidity and went 13 kilometers/9 miles. I really enjoyed it and the kids loved it.
















BEIJING


Beijing was next on the agenda and we had to say goodbye to Damon (again). We did have a great time in Beijing though. The great wall at Mutianyu was fantastic (for the second time) and we ate good western food (The Outback). The kids didn't really want to see temples, so Nori and David did the temple of heaven and the forbidden city without us. The evening was relaxing and we were ready to be heading back to Dalian. It was hard to say goodbye to my sister, but we had a fantastic trip together and made memories that will last forever.

We miss Oregon, but it is such a blessing that China is feeling more and more like home.