November and December Pictures

Thanksgiving dinner.  Thankful to have others we can share this meal with....

...And on to Christmas!  We love rainbow lights.

Josh's request:  All-you-can-eat Japanese for Christmas Eve.  Because this time of year is so busy for him, he just wanted to have a relaxed quiet night.

If he's not doing this (sitting at the sound board or running around making sure things are working properly)...

...or this (he's in a meeting with the other church staff and if you didn't know, this is after Christmas Day service, in the sanctuary, in the dark, with Sarah photo-bombing, LOL...)

....he's usually doing this.  So he's busy!  In a good way, though.

 

Here's the staff, by the way, a little more clearly!
(Su - Community Life Director, Mr. Xiong, Penny - Church Finance Officer, Julia - Community Outreach Director, and Pastor Dale.  Missing a few of the others.)

Today was a good day, though.  Because...

...it was Sarah's first time sharing the Word in service!  She did a great job as she taught & encouraged her congregation.

All these toys!

I think our first sisters picture.  2 months after I've been here!

This could be you!  (When you visit us.)

Year to date pictures!

For the next few posts, we'll be putting up random and some not so random pictures!  Here goes...

Chilling.  (Literally.  It's cold here.)

Turtle Shop!  As in, this restaurant serves turtle.  It was quite busy.

Our second guest this year!  He went back home to France, and he wish him the best!

Babysitting duty while her mom was at worship practice.  This girl's a darling!

Favorite vacation fun:  going to the movies.  (you have to pick your seat.)

You thought construction is bad by you?  This is our everyday: How should I cross this sidewalk...?

Fresh off the plane!

This country wins in copycat branding!

Oh hello, Library.  How awesome is it that you happened to be located RIGHT NEXT to our hostel in Hong Kong? 

How laundry is usually done here.  

Weeks flown by with friends!

Phew!  Too many weeks have gone by since we've updated!  What a flurry of a month it has been for us.  We can't believe that Christmas is upon us, too! (Namely because it's been sunny 60's here.)

Only a week has passed, but it's hard to believe that the ladies have gone home already!  We were blessed to have 3 of Sarah's friends (our friends, too, but much closer to her) visit us for the majority of November.  To summarize, the one thing we probably did the most was... WALK!  I know Sarah warned them in advance to bring a good pair of shoes, and if not prep by getting out and walking a bit more than usual, but I bet they still weren't prepared for the sheer amount that we actually did.

There will definitely a lot of eating (we don't normally eat out so much, but you don't come to Shanghai to eat either Sarah's or my home cooking, that's for sure!)  Lots of shopping, primarily for the ladies' friends and family.  And of course, exploring all the craziness China has to offers.

Highlights and lowlights include:

• Visiting Suzhou: riding a canal boat, exploring the garden, and taking LOTS of pictures
• All you can eat Japanese buffet (sashimi, sashimi, sashimi!!!)
• Messing up on purchasing the train tickets, not once, but twice!  The first time, I didn't check carefully to see where the departing station was, and subsequently the ladies missed their train.  So sad!  The second time, I didn't confirm the destination station, so we arrived in the wrong place and had to backtrack.  Lesson learned.
• Hearing the crazy Beijing trip the ladies had.  You'll have to ask them for details.  Let's just say, I would never hope for what happened to them to ever happen to you here!
• Winning Shouayee over with Beijing duck.  YUM.
• Exploring the fabric market. 
• Having reciprocated enthusiasm about KFC with rice.
• Sharing our church and worshiping with friends.
• The sticker stores.  (Sorry I bailed on the 3rd trip.  I just didn't have it in me anymore.)
• Warm sunny weather, but too much smog.
• Listening to "The Voice" in the background as Shouayee and Hills caught up
• Hearing Sarah's laughter.  Our house was much warmed with more people here.

With that said, any of you are welcome to be out next visitors!

What Scares Me…

… is anything related to medical needs in this country.  It’s moreso because it’s an unknown thing as opposed to a feeling that’s founded on actual experience.  (We have heard scary stories though.)

Sunday afternoon Josh started feeling cramps in his lower abdomen, on the left side.  By later evening, he retired to bed (half-way through Sarah’s b-day party) because he said it hurt too much.  He threw up a few times, and tossed and turned for the rest of the night.  

Monday, it was on and off all day.  The pain had moved, and he couldn’t keep any food down.  My non-medical self using the not-so-medical internet started concluding… ulcer? food poisoning? enlarged spleen?  liver problems?  gall bladder or kidney stones? 

There’s a pharmacy around the corner from us.  I thought, maybe I should just pick up some Tums.  But that in itself proved to be stressful.  How American am I that I only know medicine by brand name?  So here’s the process:  I had to figure out what Tums is.  Answer: calcium carbonate.  Translate it into Chinese and copy that translation onto scratch paper.  I walked to the pharmacy, which is one half an herbal medicine place.  (Picture a wall of what looks like old card catalog drawers, filled with dried roots and herbs.)  The pharmacist was wearing a face mask, weighing dried powders on a scale, and wrapping them in to little packets of white paper.  And he didn’t have any Tums.  So I walked a block down the street to the other pharmacy.  They did have anti-acids.  Just 2 kinds.  But when it looks like this: 

I do have a little trepidation in making sure I’m giving Josh the right thing.  The only English in the box is “Hydrotalcite Chewable Tablets.”  Which at that moment, was not what I was looking for.  I bought it anyway, brought it home, and looked up the info to make sure I wasn’t going to make Josh any sicker than he was already.  Next problem: translate this so I can figure how much to give him: 

Do you see I at lease got the important stuff figured out?  I also figured out that indeed, they should be chewed, not swallowed.

This could all easily have been solved by going to the doctor, right?  But Josh really didn’t think it was necessary.  We also in going, would have to think through the steps… do we go to a hospital or a clinic? Of those two, local (w/ international section) or international altogether?  Where is the closest hospital/clinic?  Do we have enough on hand cash?  (The answer is no.  We do have health insurance, but we have to pay everything upfront and then submit a claim later for reimbursement, if we submit a claim at all.  My imagination started running wild with the possibility of paying for surgery… on the spot.)

So, today is Tuesday.  And Josh’s stomach feels better.  Thank you Lord.  But from all the resting, he’s thrown his back a little.  Now he’s laying on the floor, in pain again. 

*sigh*

Definitely the next post… should be fun stories!

Yes, we're alive!

We are definitely in China!  It’s been a fast 5 weeks.  Now that we’re feeling like we’re beginning to get a grip on the reality of life here, the following are some thus far memorable snippets:

I (MK) was almost pick-pocketed the very first time I was out alone.  The day after we arrived, I went with Josh to work because it’s very close to a big supermarket—the equivalent of a Target.  I got some supplies and on the walk back to his office, I noticed out of the corner of my eye someone who was standing a bit too close to me—on the left side.  I turned towards him and as I did it, I could feel his right arm pulling from behind me.  Whenever this happens, I always get shocked—as in, What in the world?!?  You’re not really doing this are you?  The first time it happened (many years ago,) I was scared.  The second time I was mad.  But by now, I just get annoyed.  I actually wanted to whack the guy, but I know that’s not safe.  He looked nonchalantly at me and just kept walking on.  I figure “easy victim” must have been written all over me since I was a small girl, fumbling with a grocery bag in each hand, and wearing a backpack.  I stopped and checked my bag and he did manage to get one of the compartments open, but wallet still there.  Ahhhh! Since then, I’ve been very mindful of people walking to closely to me.  I’m a bit ceeb about it, but it did jolt me into the reality that life is definitely different out here.

Which leads me to our next story.

If you haven’t heard me say it before, I’ll say it again: most days feel like Black Friday here depending on where you go.  We went to Ikea, and it was definitely a mistake being there on a Saturday because of the crowdedness.  But we really needed bedding stuff.  Our reward for the trip was an odd realization that Chinese people in this city hang out at Ikea. Groups of teens sit around the kitchen dinner tables texting, people have their laptops out in the living rooms working, and little kids are knocked out taking naps on the couches.  Strange… and different?  But what got us was as we turned a corner, there was a little kid maybe 2 or 3 years old? that was peeing in a ziploc bag.  Eww.  Just so you know there are restrooms in Ikea.  To this mom’s credit, at least she was prepared?

One last story:

One of our biggest adjustments is just the language barrier.  It can be struggle each day, and at times source of anxiety.  Once Josh and I rode to a nearby shopping area.  An attendant came up to us and after 5 minutes of broken communication, I figured out that she was getting off work in 20 minutes.  But we didn’t understand why she was telling us.  Were we supposed to pay to lock our bikes on that part of the sidewalk or not?  (Yes, there are some places where you have to pay to park your bike.)  Were we even allowed to park there?  She couldn’t understand my terrible Chinese and I couldn’t understand her Shanghainese either. After another 15 minutes, we just had no clue what we were supposed to do, so we said we’ll be back and left.   But we sure were scared our bikes might not be there when we returned.  (They were.)  Every other day this happens, if not every day.  In this city, you can easily avoid this by only going to familiar places where Westerners frequent, but that’s definitely not what we want to do.  *sigh* 

We will try to post each week or two—on all sorts of topics to give you a perspective of life here!  Sometimes serious, most times fun.  Feel free to pop in from time to time to see how we’re doing.