Our life in China!

We took a train from Beppu back to Fukuoka the next day and I immediately went to the doctor. As I suspected, I had full blown bronchitis - but the doctor told me something I hadn't expected. "Hasn't anyone ever told you you have asthma?" he asked incredulously. Um, no. Since Adam and I moved to China, they had either been preparing for or hosting the Expo (basically the World's Fair). When we got back from our wedding in October, however, the Expo was over and China was no longer concerned about keeping up appearances. All the construction projects and factories that had been suspended were suddenly unleashed in full force, and a hazy smog had definitely been apparent. This led to a diagnosis of asthma, which I'm hoping will disappear when we move back to the US. Right now I'm taking a long acting inhaler twice every day, in addition to an emergency one if I'm in conditions that worsen it (extreme cold, strenuous exercise, etc.). The good news is that a.) I haven't gotten seriously since taking the inhalers and b.) I had never realized I couldn't breathe well until I COULD breathe well, so I'm feeling better than ever! Sorry for the digression, back to Japan...

I learned how to play rummy that evening and realized I like it. A lot. We then met up with Nathan's friends at a park and strolled around, looking at the Christmas trees and lights. And then...

CHRISTMAS! And a white Christmas at that! My first one as a newlywed, my first one in Japan - there were a lot of great firsts that day! First we opened presents next to the mini Christmas tree (more like a potted plant), then we went grocery shopping in preparation of making sushi for the dinner party at Nathan's friends' house that evening. Yes, we had SUSHI FOR CHRISTMAS DINNER! It was a blast - each person got a turn to make their own sushi, using everything from crab to octopus to salmon. And I must say (yes, I'm bragging) that mine got voted best looking (and it was mighty tasty too!) It was definitely the most unusual Christmas I've ever had, but one I'll never, ever forget!

We spent the next day souvenir shopping and happened upon the Best. Noodles. Ever. for dinner that evening. The restaurant started out very similarly to the one in the onsen we went to our first day, in that you had to insert money and push the picture on the button of the dish you wanted to get a ticket. There were not tables at this restaurant, though, just a long counter separating each patron with wooden dividers. Basically, you couldn't talk to (or see!) anyone without leaning way back and peering around into the other person's section. The weirdness of it all quickly fled my mind as I was given a piece of paper on which I could "personalize" my noodles. Basically, you could choose a range of the broth's "richness," adjust the spice, type of noodles, etc. As soon as I tasted these noodles I knew that THIS was the best food I would ever have in Japan. Yes, the sushi is fantastic, and I especially liked the fried blowfish Adam ordered one night, but this... this was amazing. Wonderful. Fabulous. [insert overused cliche here]. Adam and I both agreed that this was our favorite dish in Japan, and that we would pine for it forever - or until the next time we went to Japan, at least.

We decided to make a day trip to Nagasaki the next morning, so we left for what was to be the most sobering day of our trip. While the town was beautiful - filled with parks, grand old churches, sculptures, monasteries - everything had been destroyed and rebuilt after the atomic bomb was dropped. We visited the site where the bomb had hit and we visited the museum where they showed the events leading up to the bomb drop, stories of survivors, and objects that had been hit. The moment I teared up came when I saw a metal lunchbox with a black lump of charred rice still in it. The owner's name was carved in the bottom, and they had a picture of the girl (I believe she was in fourth grade) next to the lunchbox. She had been on her way to school when the bomb hit. It was an emotional visit, but I'm glad we went. I hadn't been so affected by a museum since I visited Washington DC's Holocaust museum in eight grade.

We took the train back later that evening and ate dinner at a noodle stall, which any anime fan has to do when visiting Japan - it's just like it is in the shows! We ate all kinds of grilled meat and noodles - it was good, but surprisingly expensive (oh, Japan and your expense). On our last day, we sat and overlooked the water from the city's tallest building, Fukuoka Tower. For dinner, we went back to the restaurant where Adam had made such good friends with the waitstaff - and sure enough, the manager came over and split a bottle of whiskey with us. Adam and Nathan spoke to him in their broken Japanese while I sat back and enjoyed the lovely absurdity of it all.

The next day we flew back to Shanghai. The difference between clean, polite, orderly Japan and noisy, dirty, chaotic China is quite remarkable - but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was happy to be back. Home sweet home!

So I know my "promise" to write more blog entries hasn't exactly come to fruition the way I planned... hence I'm writing an entry in late March about events that occurred over Christmas. *sigh* My apologies. Work has picked up quite a bit (yay!) but I realize that's no excuse. Anyway, onward and upward!

Adam and I went to Fukuoka, Japan for ten days over Christmas - partly (mostly) to visit friends, partly because it was our first Christmas as newlyweds (!), and partly because we figured we might was well spend our last Christmas away from home (fingers crossed) doing something completely out of the ordinary.

It's actually only a short plane ride, about an hour, from Shanghai to Fukuoka, so that was pleasant surprise number one. Pleasant surprise number two was the weather, a crisp but sunny winter day - that kind of weather lasted for all of, oh, a day, before rain turned into sleet which then turned into snow before turning back to sleet. But hey, we got a white Christmas which I REALLY wasn't expecting, so it was worth it! But I digress...

Once we landed in Fukuoka, we were whisked to Adam's friend Nathan's apartment he shares with his wife, Wendy. I was fascinated by the heated tabletop they had on their coffee table - apparently this is common in Japan and, I thought, absolutely genius! All four of us biked to the beach (nowhere in Japan seems to be more than a fifteen minute ride to the beach) and admired the beach, the water, the general awesomeness of Japan. Then we went to dinner in an onsen (a hot spring - more on that in a minute) where you went up to the wall, chose what you wanted to eat based on the picture buttons, put your money in (like a vending machine), and had a ticket spit out at you based on what you ordered. You then take the ticket to the counter and your food is ready within minutes. Weird method, but delicious food - it's going to sound silly, but I was surprised at how similar "stereotypical" Japanese food is to, well, real Japanese food! Good job, America and China, for replicating it so authentically

We then paid our entrance fee to the onsen. Anyone who is in the least bit squeamish about nudity, please skip the following paragraph! Wendy couldn't be with us the rest of Adam's and my trip, so she came along on an onsen trip with us to show me how to do it while travelling with "the boys." Thank God she did! There are separate facilities, with guys going one way, girls another. Once you enter, you get naked in a locker room and put all your belongings in your assigned locker. Next, you enter a cleansing room where you each sit in front of what is basically a vanity, shampoo and condition your hair, wash with soap, and rinse with the bucket provided. Remember, this is all out in the open, in front of MANY women of all ages (I saw everyone from toddlers to women in their 90's who could hardly stand) - the onsens always seemed to be full! Then you enter the actual onsen, which is a delightful outdoor hot spring (some can be inside too, as you'll see). This particular one had steaming hot water that pooled in caves, cascaded in waterfalls, and even streamed into old-fashioned claw-footed tubs. There were rocks everywhere, and the hot water against the chilly night air was an addictive sensation. I did notice that Wendy and I were the only non-Japanese people in there, so we got some extra stares - but for the most part, it's amazing how this group of naked strangers pay each other absolutely no attention. It was actually quite liberating! You can't stay in the water for too long, however, or the heat gets to you (think hot tub) and you start to get light headed. So after about twenty minutes, Wendy and I called it a day, got dressed, and met the guys outside. My first experience in an onsen = a little awkward at first but thoroughly enjoyed!

The next day was full of bike riding and sight seeing around the town, which was quite beautiful and quaint (at least compared to Shanghai - its population is around four million). That evening for dinner, we picked a random restaurant and Adam started up a conversation (as he's prone to do) with the waitstaff - and yes, much of the conversation was conducted in Japanese on the waitstaff's part and gesturing on ours! Adam's knowledge of Chinese helped quite a bit, as some words are similar - by the end of the trip, Adam had already picked up a handful of Japanese words and would strike up conversations with people! He's my social butterfly We ate some random things, like emu, almost all of which were good. The only thing I wasn't crazy about was what they call a "Japanese pancake" - basically shredded potatoes gelled together with egg and other things, topped with mayonnaise and shrimp flakes. Yeah. Anyway, the staff wound up running (literally) after us once we left the restaurant, asking if we could all hang out again before we went back to China. Awww

On the third day (ah, I feel so biblical!) we took a train to Beppu, a town made famous for its onsens. We went to an indoor onsen first, filled with small oranges that made the air and water smell heavenly. The temperature, however, was so hot that I lasted exactly eight minutes before I had to leave - I was light headed, shaky, and a bit nauseous. I left thinking I was going to have to wait for Adam and Nathan, but it wound up they were already out! We all agreed the water was just a bit too much.

We spent the night at a hostel, then got up early the next day to go biking to what are called "The Hells" - basically a group of natural water formations (one lake was blood red in color because of the clay underneath and steamed constantly from its incredibly high sulfur levels; another had a geyser that went off like clockwork every thirty minutes). Now, at this point in the trip I had gotten a severe case of bronchitis (my second in two months), and I had been putting off going to the doctor because, hell, I was on vacation! But this bike trip about killed me - first of all, I'd never biked up such steep mountains before (Yes, we biked UP the mountains for a good four hours - with breaks in between. The breaks didn't help much); second of all, my oxygen intake was noticeably decreasing as the day wore on as my lungs filled up with crap; third of all, I was the lone woman on a three person bike trip, and I quickly discovered that men are not particularly sympathetic to someone with bronchitis on an all day bike trip. We got through it, though, and I was rewarded at the end - that night, on the beach just outside our hostel, they were putting on a HUGE fireworks show in honor of Christmas Eve eve. My God, the Japanese know how to put on a fireworks show! They were literally the coolest fireworks I've ever seen, in part because there were timed perfectly with all the great Christmas songs you hear that time of year. Adam and I began singing along to the carols at top volume and the Japanese people around us (the beach was packed solid by this point) started singing along with us and taking our picture! I started crying, in part because I was homesick and missing my family and friends so much at that time of year, but also because I was so happy - I was with my husband, in a new and fascinating country, experiencing the comradery of strangers during Christmas time. I truly felt... human, if that makes sense. And it was beautiful.

And that's where I'll leave off this entry for now. Next entry - the last half of our Japan trip!

Wow, have I really not written on this thing since Chinese New Year?! Sorry for slacking so badly, guys - I'll do better this go around, I really will!

Yes, we're here for what Adam calls "roughly another year," but since he said that the first time we moved here, I'm a bit skeptical My goal is to be home for good by Christmas of 2011, so we'll see how close we get to that timeframe... After a wonderful, fabulous, amazing 3 month trip home where, among other things, Adam and I got married (!!!), we're back in Shanghai and settling back into our old routine. A lot of my friends left in the time I was away, but I still have a few of them left and Adam found a bunch more in the 7 weeks he was in Shanghai without me. So things are pretty good on that end. I'm still freelancing as much as possible - luckily, I was able to keep up with it even while I was in the States (yay for the Internet!) so I didn't lose too much momentum. Always looking for more, though...

I had a pretty abrupt welcome back to China when I came - and I didn't even get a chance to get off the plane! We had landed and everyone was standing in the aisles trying to get their carry on luggage while waiting for the plane doors to open. Keep in mind this plane was PACKED. The Chinese woman standing in front of me had a small boy, probably around 6 years of age. I suddenly see her reach into her backpack and grab a ziploc bag. I don't know why this caught my attention (I guess I've been living in China too long) but I thought "Hmm, what is she doing with that ziploc bag?" Then I saw her pull down her son's pants, grab his little boy parts, and put them in the ziploc bag so he could proceed to pee in the bag. In front of everyone. On the plane. Where my only choice to look was at the ceiling. When he was done, the boy's mother calmly zipped up the bag and put it in her backpack, where I only pray that she threw it out at the first available trash can. Ahh, I'm in China again!

Jet lag hit Adam and me pretty hard this time, so the first few days here we were going to bed around 8:30pm - literally. One evening we came home and opened the door to our apartment where, as usual, it was pitch black. What was not usual, however, was the sudden wind I felt in my face and the frantic FLAP FLAP FLAP noise I heard. Naturally, being the strong independent woman I am, I screamed and ran out of the apartment. Long story short, a pigeon had flown through our 20th story window and landed himself in our apartment. Adam and I were so tired that we didn't want to deal with it that night, so Adam suggested we go to bed, assuring me that the pigeon would fly out the window by morning. Well, pigeons are dumb and we hadn't anticipated that, so the next morning when we opened the living room door, the damn thing was still there. So was a large amount of bird crap and feathers - everywhere. Adam flapped a towel at the pigeon and it immediately flew out the window, prompting me to ask why we hadn't just done that the night before. I still don't think I ever got a straight answer. So now, even after cleaning up all the crap and feathers, we still have a permanent reminder of the pigeon (besides the picture I took of it) - apparently it had hurt itself by flapping around indoors because we have pigeon blood on our ceiling. Hopefully our landlord will never think to look up when he's giving us our deposit back...

That's all for now, guys. Please keep in touch - this second round in China isn't nearly as easy as I thought it would be! I love and miss all of you. Till next time!

I was really excited to spend my first Chinese New Year IN China - most people travel during that time (either around China or to other countries) but I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Well, beginning February 14th, the entire city pretty much shut down. I mean, it got to the point where Adam and I had a hard time finding a restaurant that was open! It was the weirdest thing - all the subways were deserted, the streets were empty... it was like a ghost town! Imagine NYC's population being cut in half for a week - that's pretty much what it felt like! The only stores, restaurants, bars, etc. that were open were those whose owners a.) had families lived in Shanghai so they didn't have to travel to see them or b.) were Western. Everyone else was off to the countrysides, visiting their relatives (this holiday, above all others, is one that the Chinese must spend with their families).

Everyone had warned us about the ceaseless noise from fireworks that we would hear, 24/7. Verdict? Not as bad as everyone made it out to be! Granted, when the fireworks were going off at 3:00am we were usually still up (LOTS of parties going on during this time since everyone had off of work! ), but overall I think the amount of fireworks was consistent, but not overwhelming. Last night, however, was the last night of the New Year (it's called the Lantern Festival) and fireworks were going off from 10:00pm to about 12:00am, then woke us up around 4:00am, then again around 8:00am. Yeeeah, Chinese New Year is over, people!

Adam and I spied a few floating lanterns during the Lantern Festival, which was cool - we also saw a young boy and his mom carrying lanterns outside as we walked home from dinner. The boy swiveled his head to look at us, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing, then dropped the lantern on the ground! Whoops - that's what we get for being white in China! Haha

Traditionally, on the first day of CNY, families are supposed to make dumplings with each other - it symbolizes working together as a family. Well, lacking any family over here, Adam and I hauled all of our dumpling-making materials over to some friends' apartment and we all made some DELICIOUS pork and vegetarian dumplings. Mmm - it was a fun day!

Making these pan fried dumplings gave Adam an idea (a brilliant, ingenious idea) - he decided he wanted to "Americanize" the Chinese dumplings. So instead of stuffing the wonton skins with veggies and pork, we experimented at home by stuffing them with pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, onions, mushrooms, and peppers. Yes, ladies and gentlemen - WE MADE PIZZA ROLLS!

On the work front, I just submitted my very first articles to www.CNNgo.com! I'll post a link when they're up. It was really interesting - for my article on teahouses, I interviewed this one woman who runs a traditional tea shop and offers classes on how to properly perform the tea ceremony, brew the tea, wash the tea, recognize tea leaf quality, etc. We sat there drinking tea she made for us for hours. It amazes me how important tea is to the culture over here - it's such a sign of respect acceptance.

That's it for now - I'm just gearing up for the flood of visitors we're getting ready to have later this month. SO excited! I miss you guys and be sure to stay in touch!

I have to admit - I got a bit cocky after Thanksgiving. Although I missed all of you (as I always do!), I thought I was doing amazingly well during the whole holiday season.

Until Christmas came.

Seeing the surprising amount of Christmas decorations up around town (i.e. - everywhere) really got me in a nostalgic mood for a while. It was absolutely beautiful to see all those Christmas lights and Christmas trees up everywhere. I loved seeing the Santa pictures and "Merry Christmas" signs on all the storefronts - who knew an (officially) atheist country would have such Christmas spirit?! But they did - I quickly learned the Chinese phrase for "Merry Christmas" (which I've promptly forgotten) from hearing people say it to me so often.

Don't laugh, but the times I would miss home the most would be when I walked into a Starbucks (yes, I occasionally go to them in China - sorry!) - the sights and smells are exactly like they are at home, especially when they're brewing their Christmas drinks. It's times like those that it really hit me how far I am from home.

On to Christmas morning - after talking to my parents and Jason on Skype (thank God for video chat!), I had a short cry in my bedroom before I moved on to less self-indulgent things (ha!) - opening presents! It was great having our friend, Andrew, visiting from the US - between that, and opening the fabulous presents people included in Andrew's suitcase (thanks everyone!), it was almost like a real Christmas over here! Being the obnoxious Americans we are, Adam, Andrew, and I put on our requisite Santa hats (Mine had lights that blinked! Granted, the lights blinked out the name of a beer brand, but oh well - the manager of our favorite bar grabbed it off a bartender's head when I said I wanted it and gave it to me) and headed out onto the Shanghai streets to wreak some Christmas havoc!

Not really - it was actually a very tame day (we had to get up early to catch our flight to Beijing the next day - I'll deal with that in the next blog entry...). We went to the market and picked up Adam's and my tailor made coats (mine was a Christmas gift from Adam - we're wearing them in pretty much all of our Beijing pictures on Facebook!), then headed to an early all-you-can-eat Christmas dinner at Bubba's Texas BBQ. Yes, we ate Christmas dinner at a Texas BBQ place - hey, I said it was ALMOST like a real Christmas! It was pretty great because we invited a bunch of other people who all wound up coming - I really felt like we were all in this we're-not-home-for-the-holidays-but-at-least-we're-with-friends kind of mentality. Overall it was a pretty pleasant day.