32000 feet from Alaska

According to the mapping program showing on the screen on the back of the seat in front of me, I’m 32000 feet over Alaska right now.  It’s interesting the routes that airplanes take due to the curve of the earth and wind currents and all; to get from L.A. to Beijing we flew up the coast, over Alaska, and then we’ll cross the Bering Strait and part of eastern Russia, then follow the Russian coast down into China to Beijing.  Several people have referred to this flight as ‘crossing the pacific’, but really we’re only over open water a minor part of the trip.  

Flight-themed songs keep popping into my head; I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again…right now you’re thirty thousand feet above me, I’m just out here watching the planes take off and fly…when the plane goes down, I’ll remember where the love was found…okay, maybe I shouldn’t sing that last one too much.  

I love these maps they do on long distance flights now; this is the best one I’ve ever seen.  It offers a variety of views: entire route, what’s outside the left side of the plane, what’s outside the right side of the plane, the cockpit view, the external view, overhead, 360°, and you can even set it to cycle between them.  I like knowing what we’re flying over, and how far we’ve come, and how many hours are left to go (exactly seven right now).

It’s a good thing I’ve got the map view, because I can’t see outside for sure.  This plane is set up with nine seats across, three three and three.  I’m in the aisle seat of the middle set, which is quite comfortable since there’s no one in the middle, giving us some space to stretch out.  I’d have to look over three people and an aisle to see the window, and then even if I do that, I’m over the wing, so all I can see is white metal.  And then, it’s apparently really bright out there because everyone has kept the windows firmly shut nearly the whole flight.  

I did have some good window experiences in my first two flights, though.  We took off from Nashville at 5:30 am flying south east; as we flew, the sky turned pink and then orange and then we watched a brilliant sunrise.  I slept the first part of the flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles, but when I woke up we were over the deserts of Arizona.  I saw canyons (not sure if I saw the Grand Canyon, but possibly), mountains, and what looked like salt flats displayed beneath me; I took quite a few pictures then as I had a window seat for once.  

It still doesn’t seem quite real that I’m passing the Bendeleben Mountains on the Alaskan coast (especially since I’d never heard of them before), and that in just a few hours I’ll finally be back in China. 

Volare! Flying Out!

And I'm off!  I'm leaving in about an hour for my brothers' house in Nashville, and I'll go to the airport (in the middle of the night) from there.  I can't believe the day I've waited on for so many months is here!  And everything I even thought of taking fit into my suitcases with no problem--but, I am the Packing Queen. :) 

Darn, I wish I'd loaded Volare (classic Italian song; Volare means 'to fly') onto my mp3 player!  Maybe I'll remember to do that while I'm at my brothers' tonight. 

A Day in the Air

The most common question I get about moving to China is "How many hours is the flight?" Well, in fact, it takes four flights, but the total in-air time is looking like it'll be about twenty-one hours this time. 

I leave Nashville at 5:30 am Thursday morning--so of course I have the be at the airport a couple of hours before that.  Right now we're planning to go to my brothers' place in Nashville Wednesday evening, and then go from there, instead of going from here at two in the morning. 

My first flight is to Atlanta--yes, going the wrong direction.  I find it quite entertaining to search for flights sometimes; sometimes the routes seem so nonsensical.  The flight to Atlanta takes just over an hour, and then from Atlanta I fly to L.A. (about five hours), then from L.A. to Beijing (thirteen hours), then from Beijing to Wuhan (two and ten minutes, if I remember correctly).  None of my layovers are too long, so really we're making pretty good time.  I'll be meeting up with some of the other American teachers who I met in June in Nashville and L.A. 

When I arrive in Wuhan, it will be 9:00 pm Friday night.  This schedule may seem a bit crazy, but really it's pretty well designed--I won't get much if any sleep Wednesday night, so I should be able to sleep on the flight to L.A.  Therefore, I'll be awake flying into China, but tired and ready to sleep when I finally get to my apartment sometime Friday night.  I have to flip-flop my day and night due to the time zones anyhow, and it's easiest to do it in route like this. 

When I do tell people the flight plan, I get a lot of grimaces.  Twenty-one hours in the air?  You poor thing!  Why do people hate flying so much?  I love traveling and every part of it--I don't think I've eer been bored in an airport.  There's shops, restaurants, and of course endless people watching.  Besides, you have books, magazines, other travelers to talk to, and the view out the window of planes taking off and landing. On the long flight, there's usually so many movies I haven't seen yet that I can't fit them all in.  Even after all the flying I've done, air travel has not lost its magic.  I just love being on the move.   Now, if only airlines had a better record of getting luggage to the same place at the same time, flying would be perfect.  Please pray for my luggage. 

Flying over the lakes of Wuhan, February 2010

The Great Hot Pot Experiment

When I lived in Jingzhou, we got very attached to our local Hot Pot restaurant.  I’d never heard of hot pot before Janice, one of our waiban (Foreign Affairs Office employee whose job it is to deal with foreign teachers), took us there, but after that we hardly went a week without going back.  I’ve talked about hot pot in this post.  

Just before I left China, Jordan, one of my Chinese friends, helped me find some packages mix to make the boiling spicy soup to do hot pot at home; I intended to have a party once I got back to the states for my family and friends to try it.  However, I couldn’t find lotus root, bean sprouts, mahua, rice cakes, or the right kind of mushrooms in my home town (not exactly a world-culture sort of place); I’d have to go to one of the international stores in Nashville.  Every time I was in Nashville, it was too late at night, or I was too busy, and I didn’t want to spend the gas just for that, and you know how it goes…a year and a half later, the mix is still in a bag in my closet, and I’m a week away from going back to China.  It was now or never.  

Mom and I made a trip up to Nashville to a place on Charlotte Pike after work one day; we picked Hayden up on the way.  I figured I might find one or two of the things I wanted, but to my surprise I found all of them quickly.  Saturday night, Doug and Sue came over, and I tried my best to recreate the hot pot restaurant experience.  

 

We used a fry cooker and an electric skillet to get the soup boiling on the table; Mom and I spent half the morning chopping things to go in it.  We fixed everything I could remember liking in it, just to try it all: potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, cauliflower, lotus root, bean sprouts, mushrooms, rice cakes (not the crunchy kind health nuts like; these are more like little round rubbery pasta), chicken, beef, shrimp, and mahua (twisted crackers).  We completely covered the table, even though it was extended with a leaf.  

I was so afraid that it wouldn’t taste the same, and that we would waste all that food, and that no one would like it even if it did taste right.  I’d waited a year and a half for this, and talked it up for so long—I didn’t want to be disappointed.  Fortunately, the Chinese seem to be quite adept as packaging food in plastic—it was just as I’d remembered it.  Hot enough that I drank two cans of Pepsi during the meal, and with that unique flavor I’ve never found anywhere else.  Mom and Dad and Doug and Sue got into it, and learned quickly to just keep dumping things in.  While I don’t believe it will become their new favorite meal out as it was for me, as Sue said, it was “a meal I won’t forget.” I’m glad I got to share a little bit of my China experience with them.  

For a full slideshow of the pictures, go to my photo blog, Foreverfreebird Fotografia.  

Another Chapter Closes

Today was my last day with the bank!  The thought of this day has got me through the irritable Mondays, the boring Thursday afternoons, and the chaotic Saturdays, but now that it's here, it doesn't seem quite real.  It just feels like I'm on vacation so far.

My coworkers organized a pizza party for lunch for my farewell party, and were generally crazy all day.  We entertained ourselves by hiding one of the security chips from the meat department in Jo's things, so that she'd set off the alarms every time she went out the door.  Unfortunately, it only worked about every other time, so she didn't notice the pattern until India gave up and told her.  Jo's been threatening to duct tape me to my chair so I can't leave, but she decided not to as it might look a bit incriminating on the security cameras.

I got several emails and phone calls from other branches as well, and Judy stopped by.  It was nice to know that I was appreciated.  There were a lot of things I liked about working for the bank; one of the best parts was that it was the sort of job that, once you've clocked out, is over.  There's nothing to take home, even if I wanted to.  Teaching is never over.  There's always something you could be doing: lessons to plan, papers to grade, students to assess. 

As we were leaving for the day, we got Dylan, one of the Kroger employees, to take some pictures of us in front of the branch.  We were joking and laughing so loudly that most of the Kroger employees were looking at us anyhow.  

Home Decorating for the New Expat (or anyone, really)

Edited with Pixlr-o-matic

 One of the few downsides of moving internationally (unless, of course, your company moves you and provides a moving stipend and a shipping container, which has never happened to me) is that you don’t have room in the suitcase for a lot of knick-knacks, curtains, or framed art.  Now, some people don’t mind stark white walls decorated with fingerprints of unknown past tenants, but I need color.  What’s the fun of a new apartment if you aren’t going to decorate?  

Since I have neither excessive money nor space, but want to be able to cover those white walls quickly, I have to improvise.  I usually pack colorful calendar pictures, photos, postcards, etc. laid flat in the bottom of my suitcase for some quick décor without taking up much packing space.  This time around, however, I have found some websites with ideas for more unusual, but still packable, decorations.  I’m really looking forward to adding some of these to my wall collage once I arrive at my new apartment in Wuhan.  I’ve gone ahead and had some things printed at Walgreens so that I could get them in a larger size and on photographic paper, but you could also print them on regular paper on your printer after arriving.  All of the following are free except one, and it is noted.

•   Tagxedo:  This one turned out to be a bit addictive, at least for me.  First, you enter a list of words, or a poem, or a quote, or something of the sort.  I used the lyrics to my favorite songs. Then, tagxedo creates a word collage; you can choose from a variety of shapes for the collage, or even upload a new shape yourself.  Finally, there are dozens of color schemes to choose from—this is where I spend a lot of time, choosing from among thousands of possible combinations.  The end result is a unique personalized collage; you can share it, print it, or save it as a jpeg of various resolutions. (See example at the end of the blog).
•  Pixlr-o-matic: An easy-to-use photo-editing program lets you add filters, special effects, and borders to your photos.  
•  Block Posters: This is a tool to take your photo, blow it up to any size you want (the default is about two feet by three feet, but you could make it anywhere from a sheet of paper to the size of the whole wall), and then print it in sections on a regular printer.  This is the cheapest way I’ve ever seen to make some really big wall art.  Check out the gallery for some great ideas of things you can do with it. 
• Craft Jr.'s Paper Chains:  Especially useful if you have kids or like a bit of whimsy, these paper chain patterns are fun, and there’s a lot more than just the traditional children holding hands.  I especially like to owls and the rockets. 
• 20 Going On 80 :  This blog has some great decorating ideas, and she has a page of free printables that are really cute, for the walls, for crafts, and for various holidays.
•  Big D and Me's Kitchen Printables:   The blogger made a fun collage in her kitchen; some of the items she bought off of Etsy, but the ones she made herself she offers free to download.  
•  The Pretty Blog: This is predominantly a wedding décor website, but this page of free prints would work on the wall, too, as long as you like pastels. 
• Tip Junkie: Life is to be Enjoyed: A cute print of a joyful quote, available in three colors; there are a lot of other printables for all occasions on this site, but this one is most suited for a wall decoration.
•  Taidye's Printables: Really fun and bright prints, most with Bible verses; I really like the Einstein quote one, too, and the one that says, “Rock like Fraggles!”  (Or am I showing my age by knowing what Fraggles are?)  Oh, and the nest one, and…
•  Google Books (Life Magazine): Did you know that Google Books has every issue of Life magazine from 1935 through 1972? And you can print the pages?  A lot of the covers show the major historical events of the twentieth century, and if you’re into a vintage look, the advertisements are almost addicting.  A lot of the appliance advertisements would look adorable in an I-love-Lucy style kitchen, and the car ads with their mountainous backgrounds show a rustic sense of adventure.    
• Graphics Fairy: The Fairy has a plethora of vintage postcards, clip art, backgrounds, pages from old books, and other graphics available; these could be put to a lot of uses if you’re crafty.
•  Scrap Your Trip: SYT is a scrapbook supply site, but they have some incredible 12x12 papers that are beautiful photo prints—check out Italy under International Scrapbooking for some of the best examples.  Besides that, a lot of scrapbook paper has great patterns and colors, and would look great as part of a wall collage.  The paper is of course not free, but for about a dollar you can get a 12x12 print of Venice or the Cliffs of Moher or a Saguaro cactus in the desert, just to name a few.  
• Simple Crafter's Free Wall Art:  To gain access to the printables on this site, you have to register your email address, which is a minor annoyance, but once you do, there’s quite a few word art things to print, including a collection of holiday word collages. 
• The Cheese Thief: This one takes just a bit of work on your part: she offers a template to make an eye-exam chart that you can customize with your name and details. 

I’ve found so many great things this time—I have a feeling I will run out of walls to put them on in my apartment.  I can’t wait to move in!  

Made with Tagxedo, using the words to Freebird

Suitcase Dreaming

Is it weird that I daydream about packing when I’m bored?  Do any other travelers do that?  I mean, I’ve been thinking of my clothes in terms of whether they would make the cut to be put in the suitcase for months.  I’ve been mentally packed since before I signed the contract. 

Now, I’ve got less than two weeks until departure, so all that daydreaming is becoming a reality.  Of course, some items of clothing have fallen out of favor since I first began thinking about it, and several new things have made their way to the top of the list thanks to a little shopping spree at Wal-Mart the other night.  I have to be sure to take the clothes I’ll need, because I am sure not shaped like Chinese women.  If I have to, I could have some things made to fit; there is always a street where you can find excellent tailors, but some things would be a little embarrassing to have done that way. 

 

I had a three-day weekend in early July with no plans, so I drug out the suitcases (nearly two months early).  I sorted through my winter clothes and packed jackets, turtlenecks, and my corduroy  pants.  I chose several of my favorite scarves (you can't even tell there's a dent in the pile still hung over the headboard), and I got together all of my close-toed shoes that I knew I wouldn't wear again before leaving (between May and September, I live in flip-flops).  I've kept one of the suitcases sitting on the couch in my room, so I can toss miscellaneous items in as I think of them. 

 

And now, here I am, a week and a half until time to fly...my last day of work will be Friday, and then I leave the following Wednesday night (well, my flight isn't until 5:30 Thursday morning, but by the time you figure in an hour of drive time, and checking in three hours early, etc. I might as well say Wednesday night).  I'll have five days to finish up repacking what I'm taking and what I'm leaving.

 

I'm known as the master packer in my family; I've lived out of a backpack for weeks at a time, so I've had lots of practice at putting a lot into a small space.  When flying, weight, not space, is my limit; I could fit a lot more into my suitcases, but the darn weight restrictions limit me. 

 

Once I get settled into my new apartment, I guess I'll have to mentally start packing for winter break. 

Superpowers

The conversations we get into at work…Jo started it.  If you could have a superpower, what would be a good thing to have?   Jo’s first thought was to have a new-and-improved Midas touch—the power to turn objects into cash, but only when you mean to do it, to avoid the nasty side effects King Midas suffered from.  Karen protested that Jo had got the best one, but if she had something like that to make some money, she’d like to travel, so the ability to teleport would be useful—she could see a lot of new places if it didn’t take hours to get there. 

Then they turned to me.  While I was thinking, Latasha made the observation that a lot of people think reading minds would be fun, but that it sounded like a terrible superpower to her.   We all agreed with her reasoning—hearing what people deem appropriate to say out loud is bad enough; we certainly don’t want to know the things they filter. 

I finally decided that if we had the Midas touch and could teleport, then we needed the time to do fun and meaningful things with those abilities—so I would have a bewitched-style power of putting things in order: Twitch! The table is cleared.  Twitch! The laundry is in the washing machine.  Twitch! The shower is sparkling.  More time for travel and money-spending!  Latasha one-upped Jo; she said we should just have the power to get what we needed free, and skip the objects-into-money step altogether. 

The big things taken care of, we turned to fun: I would love to fly, but Jo says she’d be terrified to try it.  Powers can fail, she reasoned.  What if somebody showed up with kryptonite?  Reflecting on Karen’s teleportation travel, I added that the ability to pick up languages instantaneously would be quite useful.  Karen agreed with me, and then told us how, as a child in the Philippines, she and her brothers and cousins would play X-Men, and she always wanted to be Storm.  Her favorite part of the game was standing on a stump, hand raised, yelling, “Storm!” to the gathering clouds.

Yup, the conversations that happen at work…so, which of our superpowers would you choose?  Do you have one to add?

Travel Advice: Laos

From Hanoi, I took an overnight bus to Vientiane, Laos.  Red leather reclining seats and all.  You can get a visa for Laos at the border, or at the airport if you fly in to either Vientiane or Luang Prabang. Vientiane, and Laos in general, are so relaxing.  Vietnam has eighty-eight million people; Laos has six. Most of Laos is still jungle. There is no fast food in the country; a whole country without a McDonald’s is a nice change! Even though Vientiane is the capital, it feels like a small town.  There’s the Patuxai monument, and a neighborhood with sophisticated shopping--Gucci, Dolce Gabbana, and such.  There’s several wats, and along the river (forming the border with Thailand; you’d think there’d be a convenient  border crossing here, but in fact, the closest place to cross into Thailand is several miles away), open-air restaurants are set up on the sidewalk nearly every night in good weather.  I had the best barbecue ribs I think I’ve ever had  at a western  restaurant a few blocks away from the river; after you’ve been in China awhile, you really crave barbecue! There’s nothing terribly exciting to do in Vientiane other than eat and wander, but it’s a nice place to take it easy for a couple of days.  

  

The most popular place to visit in Laos is Luang Prabang.  They do have a small airport there, or you can go by land.  The easiest  way by land is a ten-hour bus trip from Vientiane.  The scenery along the way was so good, though, that it didn’t seem long at all.  You pass rice fields, villages of straw huts where naked children bathe by the village pump, and finally wind up into the mountains.  If you are prone to motion sickness, do take some dramamine to Laos.  About half way you pass Vang Vieng, a backpacker town  famous for extreme sports (mountain climbing, rafting, etc.) but I didn’t stop there. Once you arrive at the bus station in Luang Prabang, you can get a little truck that carries six people to take you to Sakkaline Road, which is the main street  off of which there are a lot of hotels and such.  Some of the guesthouses are quite expensive, but if you look online first you should be able to find a simpler place on a side street that is reasonable.  

Luang Prabang itself is surprisingly western for being in the jungle of northern Laos. A lot of its architecture is from when Laos was part of the French colony of Indochina; it’s filled with boutique hotels and western restaurants.  However, it’s a lot of fun, and it’s in a beautiful spot on a peninsula of land where the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers meet.   At night, there’s a huge street market on Sisavangvong Road where you can buy wonderful souvenirs.  If you go down to the very tip of the peninsula and fight your way through the weeds on a little path down to the river bank,  you will find a boy waiting with a boat who will take you across  the Khan for about  5000 kips (very little).   On that side is a village of wooden houses, with a few shops selling  woven  scarves and such.  Not a whole lot to do, but nice just to get into a village area for a bit.   There are several wats and temples in town; definitely spend a bit of time to explore these--they’re absolutely beautiful.  One of them, Wat Xieng Thong, has exterior walls  that are gilded gold, and it was only a block off the main road.  There are several others  that are just as nice along Sakkaline Road and Sisavangvong Road (The same road, really, but the name changes along the way).  My only regret about my time in Luang Prabang is that I didn’t plan time to spend more time in the wats, especially Wat Chom Si, which is up on a hill and has a good view.  Before you enter a temple, you must leave your shoes outside the door.  

Since there are so many wats and monasteries, there are lots of monks, mostly young boys in training.  They all wear bright orange robes and have shaved heads, so they’re easy to pick out.  At a certain time early in the morning, I think around six, the townspeople line the streets and the monks, hundreds of them, file through in a line with their bowls.  The townspeople put sticky rice and other food into their bowls as they pass.  They are used to  foreigners coming out to watch, so long as they are respectful.  The monks are not supposed to talk during the procession, and it’s considered disrespectful to touch the monks or block their path.  

The best thing about Luang Prabang, though, is where you can go from there.  There are elephant sanctuaries in the jungle near town; you can go for an elephant ride or spend the day giving an elephant a bath in the river.  There are several waterfalls; I went to Kuang Si and it was the most beautiful I’ve ever seen; water cascading down a whole series of drops through the jungle; the water was sea green, and there were calmer pools down from the falls where you could swim in the icy cold water; there is a little hut with a couple of stalls for changing in down there.  Along the path to the waterfall you pass a sanctuary for Asiatic Black Bears, better known as moon bears, that have been rescued from poachers  There are villages of ethnic minorities; one sells their own kind of whiskey--each bottle has either a scorpion or a small snake  preserved in it.  It made a good gift  for my brother.  You can buy it at the night market, too.  You can take a long boat across the  Mekong to the Buddha Cave.  There’s plenty of other things, too.  You can rent a scooter for about $25-30  a day and get yourself to some of them, or hire a tuk-tuk if you have a few people to share the fare, or you can join a small group  van trip.  There are several places along the main road that offer these group trips; I took one with only four people.  Visit several and compare what they offer.  These trips are about $40 for a day, but they pack a lot in.    

Leaving Luang Prabang depends on where you’re going next.  Bus to Vientiane if you’re going that way, flights to various places, a boat down the Mekong to Thailand, or, what I did--a twenty-four hour sleeper bus back into China, to Kunming.  Do not take this route if you’re prone to motion sickness.  The first five hours were terrible--winding through and over the mountains on a barely paved road in a large bus, while on a bunk that I couldn’t sit up in.  I just had to hang on tight to the rails to keep from being thrown out of the bunk while  repeating over and over, “I will not be sick, I will  not be sick.”  After those first few hours, though, it was quite comfortable.  But, it makes a great story now!  

Teaching is Worth the Chalk

Three more weeks of work at the bank!  I’m glad to have had a place with First Farmers for the past year and a half, but I’m looking forward to getting back to what I really enjoy doing: teaching.  I’ve tried to do other things in my life, but I keep coming back to the fact that I’m just a born teacher. 

I decided when I was four years old that I would be a teacher someday—at the time, it was because I wanted to get to write on a chalkboard.  Now, that’s the thing I like least about it; chalkboards give me the creeps.  I live in fear of accidentally touching my fingernail to a board.  That reminds me; I need to see if I can find one of those chalk holders that some of my teachers used to write with.  Maybe that would make it a little better!  When I taught in China before, the chalk we were supplied with was brittle; it would break easily if you wrote too enthusiastically.  My students would laugh when I would say, three or four times every class period, “I hate chalk!!”  I’m dreaming of having a classroom with power point capability, but I know not to get my hopes up. 

Travel Advice: Vietnam (Ha Long Bay)

If you go to Vietnam, you need to see more than just the cities.  One of the most famous areas to visit is the beautiful Ha Long Bay.  Search for it in google images and you'll see why.  The easiest way to go is to go with a group from Hanoi; they can book it for you at your hostel.  I don’t normally like group trips, but this one was really good and meant I was able to fit in a lot more activities than I would have on my own.  We spent the night on a boat in the bay, went kayaking, explored a cave, swam from the boat and from the beach on the island, got foot massages, spent a night in beach huts on Monkey Island,  saw a floating city, saw monkeys, ate a lot of prawns, rode bikes or hiked to visit a secret army hospital built in a cave, and enjoyed the scenery. The only precautions I would have are, if you are traveling by yourself, be sure and check if you will get a room to yourself or will be expected to share with someone, and when they tell you that the hike on monkey island to see the monkeys is an easy half-hour stroll, they are lying.  I don’t remember how much the tour cost exactly, but it seems like it might have been around $100 for two days (everything, including food).  The only thing to buy was if you wanted drinks other than water.  Anyhow, it was worth it.  

After Hanoi and Ha Long Bay, many travelers go on to the beaches of South Vietnam; I didn’t have time to do so. But, if you do, I hear they’re really beautiful.