Travel is sometimes overrated!

10.13.13 - Xi’an, China

Here is what has been happening in this neck of the woods:

TRAVEL

On Tuesday, October 1st, we left on a 5 day trip to NW China.  The tour was organized by a man named Marvin Wu who plans several trips a year for all the BYU Teachers in China.  This particular trip was called the “Silk Road Tour” because the area we visited was part of the long Silk Road.  The Silk Road, or Silk Route, is a series of trade and cultural transmission routes that were central to cultural interaction through regions of the Asian continent connecting the West and East by linking traders, merchants, pilgrims, monks, soldiers, nomads and urban dwellers from China to the Mediterranean Sea during various periods of time.

There were 53 BYU teachers on the trip from all over China.  We all flew from our home cities and met in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang province.  The people living in this region, Uyghurs, are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia and look completely different from the people in our city,  mostly Han Chinese.  The Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to East Asia. They constitute approximately 92% of the population of China, 98% of the population of Taiwan, 74% of the population of Singapore, 24.5% of the population of Malaysia, and about 20% of the entire global human population, making them the largest ethnic group in the world.  There are 56 different minority groups in China!  Crazy huh?   

From Urumqi we traveled by bus (an extremely unpleasant experience given it was a 100 degrees outside and the A/C was broken the entire time) to see traditional villages of the Uyghur people, ancient cities and customs, a myriad of grape vineyards and raisins galore, as well as many cave and cliff dwellings.  Very interesting, but with no relief from the heat and bus, it was hard to completely relax and enjoy.  We basically went from hot bus to hot village to hot hotel (no hotels have A/C either and the beds are like a board..seriously) to hot bus to hot village to hot hotel with one night being even worse as we boarded a sleeper train around midnight, crammed 4 adults in a 6x6 room with 4 bunks and no windows or air flow…. Well, you get the idea.  We were pretty much ready to go home after the second day!  Oh well, it was an experience and one we will keep fresh in our memory to prevent us from booking another travel trip in China without very careful consideration.  The best part of the trip was interacting with the great friends we have made through this BYU program and then finally flying back to our personal home city of Xi’an on Saturday and spending two days seeing the sites here.  The city wall, the Muslim market and the Terracotta Warriors.  Many on the trip agreed it was the best part…we should have saved our time, money and patience and just met up with everyone here for the last couple of days.  Live and learn. 

FACILITY UPDATE

Kitchen -- We have purchased several new appliances that have made life so much better.  New toaster oven, rice cooker, crock-pot and vacuum.  Funny how small things make such a difference!  We also found some “liquid nails” glue and secured some warped boards down in the kitchen a couple of weeks ago.  Dad noticed they are coming up again so will have to do some more work.  Our tiny fridge is a little troublesome in that we don’t have enough room to keep much in it.  I have resorted to cranking down the A/C in our bedroom and putting watermelon and over sized veggies on a small desk next to the bed until more room becomes available in the real fridge. I call our bedroom the 2^nd fridge! 

Bathroom -- Our bathroom is better because we found some white caulk and redid all the nasty black moldy caulk that was a hundred years old.  We put duct tape around all the exposed hoses (there is no such thing as a goose neck for plumbing here which prevents the nasty sewer smell from coming back out of the drain), and I have several air fresheners and candles in the bathroom to combat the smell.  We also no longer have a wiggly and leaky toilet thanks to the inch thick and inch high caulk the handy man squoze (not a real word but I like it!) around the bottom of said toilet. 

Bedroom -- Our bed is no better and we are still trying to decide if we want to find and invest in a good bed for while we are here.  I think someone sold China a “bill of goods” when they introduced mattresses to the country because the only part of the mattress they have is the BOX SPRINGS!  They sleep on the BOX SPRINGS!!!  What in the world???  I keep wondering why on earth anyone would think that is even acceptable!  I do admit that after sleeping on several BOX SPRINGS on our trip, in twin beds and no A/C, I was SO happy to get back to our bed and our cushy 2” piece of foam that felt like heaven on earth!  Perspective…it’s all perspective!

SHOPPING

Since we have such a small fridge, we do shopping on a pretty regular basis.  We have little ma & pa fruit and vegetable stands everywhere, a medium sized supermarket within a 15 min walk, a Walmart (don't get too excited..it is still China with mostly Chinese stuff) just a short 30 min quick-paced walk away, and yet one more larger Costco type store that is a pretty good hike for us to get to but we use it as exercise, generally on Saturday mornings.  That is the good thing about shopping here, because we must each carry a backpack and several other totes to and from the store, it gives us a great workout!  Sometimes the backpacks are so heavy we can barely get them home and the tote bags are quite laden as well.  Our arms are a foot longer each, but no big deal. 

TRANSPORTATION

For the first couple of weeks Jordan was pretty intent on getting a scooter.  However, after being here for almost 2 months now, we have decided it is more hassle to have a scooter than not.  There is a high risk of scooters being stolen here so if it isn't completely locked down, and even sometimes when it is, it can disappear in a heartbeat.  Plus the fact that we are loving all the exercise from walking, walking and walking.  Someone wore a pedometer on our Silk Road Trip and reported at the end that we walked over 47 miles during the week.  We put serious miles on our feet and shoes here in Xi’an, as is evidenced by my favorite pair of flip-flops that were new when we left and now look like they are a year old. 

This past week was definitely a harder one but we are still staying focused and remaining positive.  We miss you all and appreciate your support to us as we continue forward on this ever changing journey that will shape us and refine us.  

Pictures to follow....