Going East

I guess I'm a local celebrity, kind've like in Ann Arbor

relivethefire — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:16:00 GMT

http://bbs.ly.ha.cn/dispbbs.asp?boardid=29&id=2118079&page=2&star=1

Copy and paste this link into your web browser.

Apparently some dude took a photo of me when I was outside of the french grocery store.

The captions are translated as follows.

the first poster said "so you think a uncle sam and a girl that dresses way too little are beautiful?"

because the poster said you guys are a beautiful romantic couple

and the 3rd one was bashing the 2nd one (first replier)

and then 4th "enjoy the sun"

5th "i don't think i have that kind of time and mood to ride in the sun"

6th "no you stupid they are not couple they are teachers from joy school"

10th is remarkable : "i also want to enjoy the sun but i'm not that white and getting too tanned is ugly"

You can't get much whiter than me baby!

Sorry I haven't updated lately. I've been kinda hung up on the hum drum of life. I'll try to get my posts going again soon.

Okay, It needs to be said...

relivethefire — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:46:00 GMT

...that taxi drivers here are definitely not hired to be knowledgeable about the city and to take you to a destination. I would equate taxi drivers here with people who are hired because they can drive. Not because they know where they're going, or even that they can drive well - neither of those are true. I've had taxi drivers take me down dark alleys, turn directions I tell them not to, miss streets I tell them to stop at. Is my chinese bad? No - because the first two weeks I was here, I used one set of chinese grammar that I continue to use today, and only the past week am I starting to have problems.

I guess for the maximum fare being around $2 [sometimes round trip], I can't really complain. That's cheaper than a bus fare in most places in the states.

I'm actually not complaining - to be honest its a lot of fun. =D

I've been kinda busy the past few weeks. My Tuesday through Friday day-to-day schedule has been typically...

8:55 - Wake Up

9:00-11:15 - Chinese class

11:30-1:30 - Call people back home/figure out why my banks aren't letting me withdraw money occasionally/stay in touch with home base.

1:30 - possibly run quick errands or buy groceries

3:00-8:20 - Work at Joy

8:30 Come home and study chinese so I'm ready for class the next day.

10:30 Go to bed early.

Weekends are absurdly busy. I usually end up teaching 6 hours and doing prep work and other things at joy from 8am - 7:30pm.

Mondays are my only glorious day off, most of which I spend being as lazy as possible or seeing local historical attractions.

For some reason, my body gets much more tired much more quickly in China. I can't really attribute it to the extra walking, because I probably do the same amount here that I did when I was in Ann Arbor. However, the air is much much much more polluted. I generally feel like I need to go to bed earlier or else I won't get adequate rest for the following day.

Apparently pollution also makes you sick. One of my friends, Melissa, was telling me that she when she goes jogging around Mudan Square, just about every time she comes home she wakes up sick the following morning. I believe I fell victim to the same fate. A couple days ago I jogged around Mudan square and woke up the following morning with a terrible cold.

Outside of working a lot and being a little sick, everything in China is great! I've really enjoyed being here the past month, working on my chinese, and learning about the culture and the people here. My chinese is apparently improving, because I'm getting to the point where I'm conversational with my Chinese instructor. I really think all I need to do is build my vocabulary and I should be on my way to testing out of third year chinese at UofM when I return. Everyone tells me my pronunciation is excellent.

I've got vacation coming up soon. October 1st to October 8th. Me and my friend Brian have been trying to figure out what to do. We've narrowed it down to a few cities or countries: Laos, Mongolia, Tibet, Taiwan, Vietnam, or Nepal. Nepal is both of our first choices, but it looks like all the flights are booked for those dates. This is odd, because I don't know who would be going to Nepal and for what reason traveling there would be so important. I've heard that most chinese can't afford flying, so this kind've suprises me.

I'm getting the teaching part of my job down, and I'll have more details on what I specifically do in a later journal entry.

Back to Work Again

relivethefire — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:19:00 GMT

Back to work again.

Break was relatively boring. I don't really know too many people around here other than Ming's girlfriend and her friends, and most my coworkers were busy all of vacation touring their families around China. This basically left me to fend for myself for a week and have some walking tours around luoyang... which were fun and interesting, but nothing to write home about.

A couple things that did keep me relatively busy were were spending money and going on strolls. Spending money was not only easy to do, but equally as easy to justify. I just moved into an apartment that isn't mine but also doesn't feel like mine. I still feel like I'm just going to be chillin' in this apartment temporarily, rather than for a year. So I decided to go to some of the local markets to try to find stuff to decorate my apartment with to make it more me. My journey was fruitless. It doesn't seem like anybody around here carries things to personalize you life with. I even went to the supermarkets but they didn't carry anything either. There are tons of markets around here, so I'm sure I'll be able to find one that carries something. I'm just tired of trying to use my very basic chinese to haggle prices - I usually get offered the white guy discount [4x the chinese price].

The other thing that kept be busy was going on strolls. I would say Luoyang is probably a cross between downtown Ann Arbor and inner city Detroit. It feels like Ann Arbor because I don't feel like I'm going to get shot when I walk around downtown - guns are illegal here and the police force is very well developed. I can hardly walk a block without seeing a cop. The nicer areas of Luoyang - Peony Square [mu dan guang chang 牡丹广场], the Wal-Mart area, and Xin Du Hui [新都汇] are all very developed cosmopolitan areas where middle and upper classes can enjoy shopping and dining at expensive restaurants [KFC and Pizza Hut. Suprised? So am I].

However, there's also the detroit side of Luoyang. Areas around Luoyang, and stretches between the areas, can get pretty run down. There's no graffiti, but there are plenty of boarded up areas, broken windows, and people who look like life has put them through the ringer. Out of respect of those people, I haven't taken any photos of those areas - however I probably will eventually. Unlike Detroit, when I'm walking around these areas, I don't feel threatened and there are no signs of gang activity or violence. People here appear to generally be very peaceful, regardless of their socioeconomic situation. If I find myself in a more run down neighborhood, I usually just feel sympathetic and out of place. Being white, I probably make up .00001% of the population in Luoyang and many of the people here have probably never seen or spoken to a white person before. You should see the look of shock on their faces when I speak to people in Chinese.

I'm looking forward to working again [I thought I'd never say that]. I enjoy having some sort of structure in my life, and it will be way easier to meet people at the work place than at random areas in Luoyang. I've heard that there are places where you can get great massages for $3-$5 around here, bathhouses where you can lay around in hot saunas all day for $8 or play pool and other games with friends, and a couple restaurants opened by Swiss expats that feature cheap imported beer, pizza, and live music. Hopefully I can make it through a year of this - its going to be a struggle ;-)

Longmen Grottos

relivethefire — Thu, 6 Aug 2009 23:11:00 GMT

Okay, so this video was prepared because I didn't want to make this video a year long project. Its not super good quality, but you'll get to see where I went.

Aya!

relivethefire — Thu, 6 Aug 2009 12:32:00 GMT

I'm never recording in 24p again.

I'm working on the video it will be up hopefully today.

Final Cut is a pain, and iMovie sucks.

Longmen Grottos

relivethefire — Wed, 5 Aug 2009 17:50:00 GMT

"An invaluable Unesco World Heritage site, the ravaged grottoes at Longmen constitute one of China’s few surviving masterpieces of Buddhist rock carving. A sutra in stone, the epic achievement of the Longmen Caves was first undertaken by chisellers from the Northern Wei dynasty, after the capital was relocated here from Dàtóng in AD 494. Over the next 200 years or so, more than 100, 000 images and statues of Buddha and his disciples emerged from over a kilometre of limestone cliff wall along either bank of the Yi River (Yī Hé), 16km south of the city.

In the early 20th century, many statues were beheaded by unscrupulous collectors or simply extracted whole, many ending up abroad. Also removed were two murals that today hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Atkinson Museum in Kansas City. Some effigies are slowly returning and heads are being slowly restored to their severed necks, but other statues have had their faces crudely smashed off, deliberate defacement that dates to the dark days of the Cultural Revolution (the Ten Thousand Buddha Cave was particularly damaged during this period)."

Okay, that was copied right out of a Lonely Planet book. The Longment Grottoes are huge and impressive. Much of the Longmen Grottoes were destroyed in China's Cultural Revolution which focused on the Chinese destroying pretty much everything that made them Chinese. In those days the Chinese believed that religion and things of the past were holding them back, so many of the sacred places had been around for thousands of years were destroyed or seriously maimed. The only reason that this place was saved was because Zhou Enlai, Mao Tse Dong's buddy at the time, protected it. Still, if you check out my pictures in my gallery on the blog - hands, heads, and entire statues are missing.

The walk around longmen grottos was long, and was indeed a workout. I went to Longmen with my former roommate's gf Li Nai, her friend Wang, and her older sister. We left at about 10am and I got back home at around 5:30pm. We took the public bus up to the grottoes which took about an hour, but only cost us ¥1.5 [about 23 cents]. A taxi would have been probably 30x more expensive [which wouldn't... I guess still have been that expensive]. Wang told me that the buses around here can pretty much take you anywhere you want to go, you just need to figure out which buses go where, and sometimes that can be a challenge. If that's the case, there's no way I'm taking a taxi anywhere else in the city. I'm going to start learning bus routes. Taxi's are nice, but it seems like half the time the taxi driver doesn't really know where you're going, and just knows the vicinity. I guess it still isn't much seeing that if you're going someplace relatively local, its only about .75 cents for a taxi flag.

The temple at longmen grottoes reminded me of stereotypical Chinese architecture. Beautifully painted and carved buildings with tile covered roofs that stretched out and wound into knots on the corners of the buildings. There was incense burning outside a couple of the buildings where people could go in and pray and talk about things that they hoped that sometime would cross them in the future.

The temple area was sloped up the mountain, with some of the buildings at the top being the biggest and most important. Wang told me that this was because in ancient [and sometimes modern] times, most things escalated in lesser importance to greater importance through elevation. It's pretty easy to see this in modern buildings with penthouses and executive suites.

A couple other cool areas were the medicine cave and the statue with ten thousand arms and eyes. The medicine cave supposedly had 150 prescriptions to cure 75 different types of headaches and ailments. I don't really understand the math here, maybe they only worked half the time? Or maybe my tour guide was confused. I guess it would make more sense if the numbers were swapped. The statue with 10,000 arms/eyes supposedly represented a being that saw and knew everything. If you knew you'd done something wrong, you could go up there and ask for forgiveness. If the being allowed you passage, you were forgiven.

All in all, it was a great experience. I didn't end up talking to Ming's gf as much as I'd wanted. I'd heard she was a great person, but we'll probably end up seeing each other again, seeing as how she lives right around here. Wang took my MSN S/N so maybe we can hang out or something sometime soon.

Yesterday I didn't do a whole lot. I walked around for 5 hours. Considering I'd walked like 8 the day before, this might sound like suicide. I've been kinda concerned about wasting my time here. Granted, I'm going to be here for a year, but that kind of thinking is exactly how people waste their time living abroad. So I just walked around Luoyang for a few hours, and then went to a grocery store to pick up some essentials. I've just been setting my silverwear/chopsticks on top of my microwave for the past few days, and I'm starting to feel like a slob. So I found something that I can at least get them hung up on the wall like a proper human being. I also bought some bananas and apples. FRESH FRUIT IS SO CHEAP. I got 12 bananas for .35 cents and 4 apples for .10 cents. It'll be way easier to eat healthier here.

Gallery: Longmen Grottos

relivethefire — Wed, 5 Aug 2009 17:36:00 GMT

龙门石窟

Video: Foods and Currency

relivethefire — Mon, 3 Aug 2009 19:57:00 GMT

Video #2 of my apartment w/ foods and currency.

Teaching, Chinese Classes, Plans, and Break

relivethefire — Mon, 3 Aug 2009 12:14:00 GMT

Yes, I'm still updating my blog. This entry is actually rather long to make up for new experiences and information that I simply haven't gotten around to documenting. I have been pretty busy for the past few days. M-F: I have Chinese class [in which a Chinese tutor and one other student comes to my house for two hours] from 9am-11am. Following Chinese class I do have downtime for a few hours, but it isn't substantial enough to do any sort of traveling or sightseeing - so I usually just use that time to call what few people I know are still fighting the urge to go to sleep in America. I usually end up walking around a very local area or scoping out the nearby markets and supermarkets to see if there's anything I could use. From Weds-Friday, Mike picked me up and I arrived at the school at around 3:15. I don't really know why I got there that early, because I never ended up doing anything until about 5. I observed classes until 7:45, took the bus home 8, and got home at around 8:15-8:30.

Chinese classes are interesting. They're basically just tutoring sessions. We have a book that we purchased [pretty inexpensive.. ¥40/$5.85] that the teacher instructs us to read the vocabulary from from a vocab list and use grammatical patterns. She corrects our pronunciation and gives us other examples of contexts that grammar patterns can be used. Grammatical patterns are just word structures that you insert vocabulary into. I'd list some grammatical structures of the chinese language but I can't think of anyone who would actually be interested in asian linguistics - except for my Michigan chinese instructor, and she's much more informed on those than I am =D.
Classes are ¥60RMB/2 hours [$8.78]. Its kind've expensive, because it adds up quickly. It's about $175/month for a M-F schedule. I'm making $800 a month so that is a good chunk of change, but it'll be worth it in the long run if I can bring a lot of this knowledge back with me when I finish college next year.
I like how they don't just throw you into classes the day that you jump off the plane here. They have a very well developed teacher training program. For the first week you simply just watch classes to see how classes are conducted. For 3-4 days you teach bits and pieces of classes to get a feel for how class is handled and how to understand time management. Then, you get thrown into classes for awhile, but the Chinese teachers help you [basically write your] lesson plans. This way you can focus on doing the teaching when you're teaching the right material, and not have to stress out about writing lesson plans and learning how to teach at the same time. Along the way they give you some tips on writing lesson plans, and eventually you work up to creating your own. This completely surpassed my expectations, i thought that it was going to be a lot more rough [which is still will be] trying to adjust myself to teaching here.
This weekend I taught my first classes with "assistance" writing my own lesson plans. The classes are 50 minutes long, and can be difficult to fill up depending on the age group that I'm teaching. Older kids [13-15] have had much more experience. This is nice because you don't have to spend so much time using simplistic words to describe games, because they can understand just about anything you say. However, you also have to put a lot more thought into what you're going to be teaching because simple jokes bore them easily. I've only taught one older class and it was a group of just 4 girls. The easiest way to get them to smile is to ask them a series of rapid fire questions about the material and then surprise them by asking them about their boyfriends. They get really embarrassed and it lightens the atmosphere.
It I haven't taught a really young class yet [5-7] but I've heard that they're a pain to get through because you have to teach really simplistically [boring] and all of the concepts are very elementary. They also tend to cry a lot. Luckily those classes are only 40 minutes instead of 50.
The children I've had the most experience teaching with are the middle groups [most everyone else]. They know enough english to be able to understand some simple things, but you don't have to over think what you're going to be teaching them, because they still tend to find simple [stupid] things funny. If you mutter or build "poo poo" into your lesson plan, the class explodes into laughter. Especially if things are getting boring, its a good way to liven up a quiet class.
Now I'm on paid break for a week. I'm thinking of going to visit the White Horse Temple [白马寺], Shaolin Temple [少林寺], and Longmen Grottoes [龙门石窟]. White horse temple was the first buddhist temple in China, and is one of the oldest in history. Shaolin Temple was one of the first temples which studied Kung Fu. Longmen Grottoes appears to be, for lack of a better term, GIGANTIOUSLY STUPENDOUSLY HUGE! Check out the links for more information, I'll post subsequent blog entries when I reach those attractions.

Gallery: Shopping in Luoyang

relivethefire — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 22:29:00 GMT

Tim's Birthday, Shopping, and Eating

relivethefire — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 22:21:00 GMT

Teaching doesn't start until Friday.

Photos: Around luoyang has been updated and Shopping in Luoyang has been added.

Shopping in Luoyang is a pretty familiar experience. And when I say that, I mean that I did my shopping in the friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart down our street. I've never been a fan of supporting slave labor regardless of what country I'm in, but because shopping in Wal-Mart is such a familiar experience for pretty much everyone that I know, I decided I'd give it a shot this once.

Shopping in Wal-Mart is pretty much just like shopping in Wally World in the united states with a couple key differences. There's an enormous tea section [which isn't suprising] and the majority of the meat is just place out on tables raw in the middle of the aisles. There are some familiar American goods for sale - Lays, some beers, popular toothpastes, and snacks... however in general, most things are catered toward it's majority Chinese clientele. I pretty much bought anything that I'd eaten before or could see myself eating and got two stuffed bags of groceries for about ¥127 [or slightly under $20]. I didn't want to branch out too much because I only had like, 2 bags of milk, a watermelon, and some apples at home. Buying food I didn't end up liking wasn't really an option.

I did buy 1 can of about every beer that I saw sitting in the center aisle - this amounted to about 5 beers. The orange beer, which I found most intriguing, wasn't actually beer at all. If it was, it was a joke. It was so watered down with sugar that I could barely taste orange, much less the alcohol. Now I'm enjoying a Tsingtao, which I love every bit as much here as I did back in the states. I'm planning on going to carrefour [french grocery chain like wal-mart] tomorrow to see if I can pick up some more groceries and kitchenware. I bought a whole bunch of ramen when I was at Wal-Mart and when I got home I realized I didn't have any bowls that were big enough to hold a single pouch of noodles. I also need something to organize my kitchen utensils, because right now they're just kinda sitting on the top of my microwave. I also need a cooking thermometer.

I've got a week off coming up [next week] and I'm trying to decide where I want to go. I don't really want to leave the country because if I do I risk possibly being quarantined on the way back in. I was thinking maybe going to Xi'an [西安] and checking out the terracota warriors or visiting my friend Ken in Beijing. I've also considered going to Kashgar or Tibet, but I'm trying to decide if I really want to spend that kind of money right now. I'm not going to be getting paid for another month or so, so I should probably save as much as I can until I get to that point. However, it's not often I'm going to be getting a week off, so traveling further might make more sense.

Yesterday was Tim's birthday. We went out to what I thought was going to be a pulled pork sandwich place that people had gone to a couple times before... but plans must have changed at some point along the way because where we did end up going to was this restaurant that was somewhere out in the sticks. It was really busy, so I wasn't really worried that the food wasn't going to be sanitary, but what they served there was odd. Lamb liver on a stick and hot pot was our first course. The lamb liver tasted like a cross between chicken and beef. We then ate some tendons, which were incredibly tough and had no real flavor. Then they served this grilled bread with chili powder and onions on the middle and that was AMAZING. We ended up ordering many more dishes of that. However, I drew the line when they served us Lamb eyes. I'm not one to not try new things, but I draw the line at eyes, brains, and reproductive organs. Had they not told me what it was, I probably would have eaten it. I wasn't alone in my strong stand.

We spend the rest of the night at the restaurant drinking local beer and eating amazing spiced bread. We decided to head back to Mike's apartment late for chipwiches [cookies with ice cream in the center] and to play a little Wii. I grabbed a cab back home early that night because I was tired from only getting four hours of sleep each night since I'd arrived. When I got home I fell asleep almost immediately, and slept for nearly 12 straight hours.

I'm finally starting to get rid of some of this jet lag.

Gallery: Around Luoyang

relivethefire — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:06:00 GMT

Pretty self explanatory

Video: Apartment

relivethefire — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:53:00 GMT

Low quality video of me showing you around my apt.

Gallery: Chinglish

relivethefire — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:57:00 GMT

Erm, nice try.

1st Day

relivethefire — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:21:00 GMT

I woke up at 7:40 this morning to a pounding on my door. I'd forgotten that Tim, husband of another teacher, had invited me out to breakfast this morning. I got up, showered, and was down at his place at 8. Instead of heading to breakfast, we ended up just drinking coffee with his wife and child and talking about China and the experiences that they'd had here.

At about 11:30 we headed out to the center of town. The center of town was very modern looking. There was landscaping, really nice looking signs, and mall stores that reminded me of Briarwood Mall. We went to a restaurant that served basically a fast food style of Chinese cuisine. I would say probably equivalent to a Culver's in terms of quality. It was soooo good. And it was only $2.75 for a huge bowl of beef, vegetables, and rice with a bowl of soup. Soup wasn't good. Whatever.

After that we went to a french supermarket called Carrefour [appx. equivalent to Wal-mart]. Seeing everything was amazing. The fresh food and all the other different [and at times odd] products that my mind conjured up when I thought of China. The next time that I feel like being an unwaveringly resolute tourist, I'll take some pictures or video at the Carrefour.

After the Carrefour we came back to my apartment and Mike popped in with a local Chinese guy that fixed my wall socket and my phone. He handed me over some lesson plans that I'll probably look over tomorrow because I can't be bothered to today. Later, Tim and I walked down the street and checked out some of the more local vendors that were closing up shop.

Something that still gets me is Chinglish. I'm going to be posting pictures of things that aren't quite translated perfectly or are completely wrong onto my blog and facebook. Check it out.

Gallery: My Apartment

relivethefire — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:35:00 GMT

The apartment that my job is furnishing me with.

I'm here!

relivethefire — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:28:00 GMT

The flight to China was absurd. It was about 20-22 hours of flying and layovers. Approximately 1.5-2 hours from Detroit to Toronto, 13.5-15 hrs to Beijing, and approximately 1.5 to Luoyang. There was about a 2 hour layover at every airport, so I did nearly a day of flying. I spent a little time in Toronto testing skype and getting screwed out of getting my currency converted. Luckily I didn't convert much, because it was supposed to be converted at the constant GOVERNMENT SET rate of 1 to 6.8, but was converted at 1 - 5.3, which is completely incorrect. The agent assured me that it changed, but it hasn't changed in many months. Never get currency changed at ICE [International Currency Exchange]. When I landed in Beijing, it was about like I expected. Skies were gray, air quality was poor, people were everywhere, and it was hot and humid. The air quality wasn't as bad as I had heard people make it out to be, but it wasn't great. I've heard some people go as far as to say their lungs "burned" or some ridiculousness when they got off the plane. It wasn't like that at all. It was more like, "Hmm.. that smells kinda odd." And there was a constant haze [much more noticeable at night with street lights] that just hung over everything like fog. Landing at Luoyang wasn't much different, except there were far fewer people, mainly just the 100 or so that got off the plane and some those waiting for them at the airport. Mike, the person who'd organized my trip, and Martin, someone who apparently does hiring for the Chinese instructors, met me at the airport and carried my bags to a van. They were both really friendly. Mike decided to go out and buy me groceries [various fruits, instant coffee, a bag of dumplings, milk and eggs] and some bathroom products like toothpaste, toothbrush, and some soaps. That was fantastic and I thanked him heartily for it. I totally didn't expect my employer to be buying me stuff like that and made me feel really welcome. The drive back was pretty intense. Driving here is insane. Speed limits, parking signs, and pretty much anything that you could think of that would be taken seriously here to have your car ticketed and towed away are more of... well... suggestions here. There are also tons and tons of hazards. People on mopeds, bicycles, pedestrians, crazy buses and taxis that never change lanes when there's space on the road are everywhere. In terms of the city, it looks decent. A lot of people picture the Chinese cities looking rather run down and filled with factories, but this one looks rather updated and there wasn't a factory in sight. The people also looked happy. At night everyone just sits outside. I thought this was kind've peculiar at first, being that it was 9:30 at night and hundreds of people were just laying outside in the median on the grass reading newspapers in the dark or on the sides of the road on the grass near the sidewalk, but Martin explained to me that in the rooms during night its still really hot from the day and it takes awhile for it to cool off. So people just go outside to lay down and its cooler in the grass. Yeah, I guess that makes sense.

When we got back to my apartment we surveyed everything to make sure that things were working in good order. Many things weren't. The DVD player, refrigerator, a couple wall sockets, and telephone weren't working. The shower was also leaking a ton out of one of the intake pipes. However, that has all been fixed now [with the exception of the fridge & DVD player]. My apartment is bigger than I ever could have imagined. Its probably 1.5x my last apartment and I'm living alone. I've posted pictures so that you can take a look. After unpacking and chatting with the guys, I turned in.

Well - At Least Mattresses Are Soft

relivethefire — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:52:00 GMT

So this past week has been pretty stressful. Moving out of my apartment has been a pain, mainly because I have so much stuff to move out and such a long distance to travel with it. In addition, I need to make sure that I don't accidentally pack something that might be crucial to the success of my ever nearing international move. Because my mom isn't quite moved into the house she's just purchased [hooray] things are spread around to three different houses - so finding anything after it's packed would be a nightmare.
Big Story: My friend Ben is awesome. He drove down from Midland with not only a truck but also a trailer to help me move everything back to Kalamazoo from Ann Arbor. However, we ran into some problems along the way. Well, one large problem anyway... the ropes that Ben used to tie the mattresses down to the trailer snapped and my mattress took flight on I-94 mid-trip. The Jeep following behind it was able to dodge the soft missile flying in its direction - it however was not able to avoid going into a roll and landing into a ditch upside down off the side of the road. Luckily, everybody in the Jeep was safe. In addition to to being unhurt, none of the family blamed either me or Ben. They told us that they recognized that accidents happened and that they didn't really like the Jeep anyway, so they were planning to use Ben's insurance money to buy a new vehicle. The important thing, they added, was that everyone was safe.

The police that stopped us were also suprisingly easygoing given the situation. After having interrogated us as to why my mattress went airborne, he told us that he remembered his college days when stuff was flying out of his trailer, and to just be careful next time to make sure we use more reliable rope. He let us off with minor traffic citation that he said, "wouldn't jack up our insurance for years to come."

I don't really think the situation could have come out any better.

Today and tomorrow I'm polishing off my apartment so that I can get everything moved down. I should be done tonight, tomorrow I anticipate being home around 3-4'ish and spending the rest of the weekend before my next big move on Monday - to China.

我准备好了...吗？

relivethefire — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 03:52:00 GMT

So, last day at work. Flight leaves in just over a week. I think I'm pretty much as ready as I'm ever going to be. I just got a really nice HI-Def video camera for taking footage when I get there. Its incredibly small, and my mac should be sufficient to be able to edit the video footage and make some DVDs about my adventures in China. I just bought a pair of headphones so that I can have some music on the plane... maybe I won't die of boredom on my 17-20 hour flight. I've only got a few things left that I have to take care of. I still have quite a few things in my apartment that need to be moved back to my home in Kalamazoo - some bigger items: my bed, bookshelves, and student refrigerator. Also some smaller things like some baking supplies, dishware, silverware, and other essential items. Shouldn't take too long to move back, and my long time friend Ben is hopefully going to be up this weekend with his truck to help me move back the bigger stuff. The smaller stuff I'll probably be hauling with my car.

I've got a doctors appointment on Monday with my family physician, just to make sure that everything checks out and I'm up to date with everything in terms of immunizations. He apparently didn't have all of the immunization records at my office so he recommended a couple shots I'd already had. I'm going to grab those from the health department and give him those along with my other incredibly freaking expensive immunizations I've received the past month [$500 for Japanese Encephalitis, $79 for typhoid].

MUTO made a banner for me to hang when I get to China. NICE! Everyone gets flair.

I've got some photos from my last day of MUTO that I'm posting.

Gallery: The Land of Mutardia

relivethefire — Wed, 8 Jul 2009 08:00:00 GMT

Work Shots