Cast Your Vote! (To all the Kongs...)

Chips here are not what they are like at home. At all. Take your classic yellow bag of Lay's. I bought a bag so excited, and when we ate them, we were like, "What's this...??!?"

We figured out the problem immediately. What are the ingredients?
From the bag: Potato, Vegetable Oil, Salt, Monosoduim Glutamate, Disodium 5'-Ribonucleotide.

MSG chips. Ah yes. If traffic doesn't kill us, it could be the MSG.

The flip side of this is, as you can see from our slideshow, Josh and I went on a chip frenzy. (Go to the Flickr site for a closeup of the pixes.) You won't believe the flavors they have here. We finally went to the store last night and bought as much as we could without looking ridiculous.

And so, feel free to cast your vote for the "Shockingly-best-tasting-chip-despite-its-name Award." Josh & my results will be posted soon!

Not so sad Saturday.

I can't quite remember what we did last Saturday. But yesterday, we did have a very productive day. The highlight being, we went and bought new bikes. It feels so liberating to be able to ride a bike, I even contemplated awarding the person who teaches Pang how to ride a bike $500. (That was just a thought.)

I don't feel like going down stairs to take a picture of it, since Josh is sleeping and it'd be funner to see him on it. So here is generally what Josh's bike looks like:



It's a small, fold-in-half, city bike. Josh was like, in love with it at first sight. I battled and we got it for just under $75. I was such a chicken because the bike guy was so mad that I showed them our empty wallet (Game plan: I would only spend 1000 yuan on 2 bikes, no more no less. So show them that I cannot pay anymore cause that's all the $ we've got!)

But in the end, we left with both parties smiling. I hope I got some of his respect for fighting for the prices. Good deal, huh? We got bike locks, a basket, and a bungee cord for books as well thrown in. I am contemplating buying these as gifts for some of the the close brothers, because of the ridiculous price. Josh tried to get me to buy a similar one, but I just wanted a regular bike with a basket and one that wouldn't get stolen. I think I'll buy one for myself before we leave China, and bring it back home new.

It's very scary for me to ride a bike on Chinese streets. I'm paranoid regularly, fearing for my life. It gets easier though. Now that we've got bikes, there's no going back. It is a lot of fun to cruise our campus on bikes.

After bike shopping, we went to lunch.

A very funny thing happened.

We walked in the restaurant and we were like, "hello?" Out comes the cook, who had just washed her face in the bathroom/closet. Water was dripping EVERYWHERE. She directs us to our table, still wet, then proceeds to wipe her face with the table cloth right next to our table. And walks back to the kitchen. Me and Josh looked at each other and were like, "What the..?!? Did she just do that? Geu would flip!"

Have a good weekend.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM!

I have it written on my calendar. We haven't figured out the mail yet. Like, where to pick it up... or even where the post office is.

So as soon as we do know, you all will start getting our special China Air Mails. :0)

Tonight, we have another banquet dinner. These things are fun because it allows you the chance to eat weird things that you normally wouldn't know how to order, much less eat.

Have a good weekend. And also, keep up the Xangas. It's sad when we get home and nobody's posted and we feel so far from you all! (Well, we are far from you, I guess.)

first calls today.

we made some calls out to people today. it was good hearing some familiar voices. my mom and judy's reaction was the funniest.

there is this wonton store outside of the school that sells some huge and very delicious wontons. my favorite part of Shanghai thus far has been the dumplings.

all this walking coupled with the heat has me shedding the pounds like crazy. its not like i'm not eating. the eating is good and i'm being fed well enough. for some reason, its easy to lose weight in another country. maybe its the water, or the air.

i miss playing magic.

need to get a bike. the first couple of days mai kao and i walked sooo much we had leg cramps and blisters. our feet is finally starting to get used to all the walking, but if we want to get anywhere we have to walk. it makes for a pain in the butt. when we were in the states we totally took it for granted that we could jump in the car and drive to 711 or some store. here, even though its close, you still got to walk there and it takes a lot longer.

did you guys see the pictures of the skyline? mai kao and i went out with the rest of the new teachers for dinner and a cruise along the Huangpu river and got to see some seriously cool skylines. i love chicago, but it's super small compared to Shanghai. in chicago, the sky scrapers stop pretty much downtown. in shanghai, they're almost endless. crazy.

josh out.

Hello Morning.

I'm feeling a little blue right now. I was supposed to call my mom this morning, but then Skype was acting really funny. It could be my computer. It could be the Great Firewall of China. Or it could be me and something I did. I kind of missed my window of opportunity, so I'll just have to try again tomorrow.

All my life, I've never been really close to my mom. I resented her and even cursed her in my heart through out my teenage years. I'm so sorry about it now. I was pretty dumb back then.
As I get older, I realize how much I love her and I want to be just like her.

I love my mom-in-law too, but I don't think I could be like her. I sometimes think He will make me like Ruth, in caring for my mom-in-law. If that's so, I can only imagine how awesome my life will be in my growth and knowledge and faith.

Mornings are the hardest for me. It hasn't even been a week. But I still wake up before the sunrises. And in all this quietness, I take time to talk to God now. Or at least I try. And I think about home and the things I love. And I hope that this teaching thing is not like... an end in itself. That it'll only be a means to get His work done. Thinkin' about you all. :0)

the house is beginning to feel homey.

we're finally starting to settle a little. not much but a little. each day that passes we pick something up from the street or TrustMart (the Chinese Walmart - which is Super packed sardines style ALL THE TIME) to furnish the house. a couple rugs here, a pillow or two there, a shoe rack, etc.

i've recently begun purchasing pirated DVD's on the market. the quality of some are pretty bad, unwatchable, but the low risk, high reward of it is just too good. you can get a copy of the newest movies out for 5 rmb...thats around 75 cents. to ridiculously cheap.

Mai Kao wrote about the anxieties of eating out. she's right. however, when you get it right....boy is it good. lastnight we had my favorite food so far in Shanghai. they are kind of like potstickers, but not wontonish...more like fried kalapaus. its got four elements to it that make it super delicious. first, the top is nice soft and bready. second, the bottom of the dumpling is pan fried til its browned and its crunchy. Thirdly, when you bite into it, you get a pleasant surprise of a little quas (broth) that tastes off the hook. and lastly, the pork inside the dumpling is amazing. four elements combined to make one culinary beauty.

We also went to eat at a HOT POT place. its kind of like chinese fond due. pretty good stuff man. the first few days the food we ate here was pretty average, but lately, wows mans.

josh out.

A great source of anxiety is...

eating out.

I mean, how can you eat if you can't read Chinese? Unfortunately, my Chinese is so basic, it could only get us fried rice or noodles or kalapaus or dumplings. It might sound like a lot, but trust me, it's really nothing.

We find ourselves walking and walking and walking, trying to figure out where we would like to eat because some places look scary, someplaces look too complex, some places we just plain don't know how to order!

The thing is, if they had a menu handed to you, we could just pine over it, but many places close to us have menus behind the register. So being brave and pointing to the beef vegetable dish is just too hard! You just stand there at the register looking kind of blank and confused.

We get our official teaching assignments today. Well, I already know I'm going to be a 3rd grade classroom teacher. I have a Chinese co-teacher-- her name is Grace. She seems very nice, so I'm excited to work with her. I'm in the Primary school, and will be pretty much involved with only this group of 20 kids. I'll be teaching English (+reading & writing), Social Studies, Science, and Personal Growth (health). I think I can do this. Well, I hope I can.

We had lots of lectures yesterday. Most of our students will be Korean & Japanese kids. So they taught about Korean-Japanese-Chinese culture and the differences between them. Old teachers warned us that some of the outfits students come to school in will blow our minds (i.e. girl in french maid outfit.) Also, don't be weirded out, i.e. boys giving group hand massages during class (which you have every right to stop because it's really distracting!)

My bruise has awesomely evolved, but it doesn't look like a Pokemon, so I can't really name it. We look forward to today b/c we have a banquet and get to do some sightseeing tonight. Yay!

Chinese Physicals...

are nothing like American ones!

You heard it here first... in this country, men have sonograms.

We are pleased to let you know that Josh is NOT pregnant. But it sure was a weird experience, jelly-lubed belly and all.

The other ordeal we unfortunately encountered was during the blood tests. You can see our battle scars to the left in our slideshow. This big bump appeared after Mai Kao got her blood drawn. And now the bruise is beginning to grow. Her arm is pretty sore. This never happens when her blood is drawn.

Josh got stuck twice. Once in the.... WRIST! (slit) The nurse said it wouldn't hurt, but after several excruciating minutes of gouging, she quit and tried the next logical place. The top of his right hand.

We also got chest x-rays. And our EKGs are OK. We now know our weight in kilograms and height in centimeters.

Boy. What a day. Our only consolation... Josh LOVES the cafeteria food. He thinks it was DAMN good. (Lunch: a giant square of rice, zaub nstuab kib, egg drop soup, rib, tofu patty, spicy chili shrimp with their heads still on.)

Have a great day, guys. We're thinking about you!

P.S. We'll soon set up some Skype dates for calling. We'll have to be online at the same time in order for it to work.

Pictures up

These are onlya few. It took me forever to figure out how to get these up. We have a Flickr account, so you can click on the slideshow if you want to read our comments or the captions. We'll try to post up our newest pictures every few days.

Unfortunately, I'm not a huge picture taker, and neither is Josh. (TD Xay & MayLee win for being the most picture takers we know!) But we'll try to change that.

I found our camera cord after all. I had labeled it a cell phone cord. But also, the weird thing about it is that it's a white cord. Aren't they always usually black? Xu had given us an Ipod dock for our wedding, and we brought that here. Everything Ipod-related is white, so I got the cords confused. All that said, all's good.

Oh yeah. Even though the pictures are darkish and aren't exciting, everything actually looks better in real life.

MK's top 10

Well, since Josh just posted, I wanted to post, too. There's so much to say and share! So I'll try to limit it. These things will be quite ramdon, so please bear with me...!

1. We're thankful we've finally gotten on the internet. This is like... our lifeline. (Well, apart from the Word.) Xanga is blocked right now. Maybe it won't be tomorrow. We do get our subscriptions via email, so we're still keeping up on your posts, even if we can't respond. We went to Best Buy yesterday to get the plug adapters, so we'ge finally got the laptop recharged.
2. Unfortunately, I left our camera cord at home. (Can't remember where I put it...) So we've got lots of pictures, but we'll have to go to Trustmart tomorrow to try to find that cable so we can upload everything for you to see.
3. Something Josh and I are trying to adjust to is the tv. We only have like, 7 working channels. But each channel has its own volume! What comes to mind: It would drive Peter nuts. It's super lound one channel, then the next one, you have to turn it up 50% to try to make out what they're saying. Crazy, but true.
4. We were really suprised by our apartment. It's really nice! There are 3 rooms... a bedroom, a living room/ kitchen, and a laundry room/ bathroom. We are really thankful we have our own washer/dryer. And the shower is awesome. We live in the New Building. (That's what it's called.) For all we know, they could have installed our door in yesterday. All the doorknobs and appliances still had plastic covering on them, including the little fridge. There's a layer of dust EVERYWHERE though. I've seriously gone in to full cleaning mode, but have been limited because I still need to buy some cleaner spray. Pledge & Glade & Pinesol is SUPER expensive here. Even the Chinese brands. Again, Ike, be sure to let Auntie know that those blue towels saved me! For all you K-Drama peoples, I feel like the girl in Full House.
5. Our saddest point: Our first morning here, we woke up early in the morning, like 3-4 am. We were really hungry b/c our last meal was at the Seoul Airport, a little bit after lunch time. We had no money, though, and the bank did not open till 9 am. We really didn't know what to do, so we decided to walk around. The combination of being moneyless and hungry and unable to sleep was really hard on us. And then it started to rain. We were so down... We missed home desperately, and really wanted to just be back in a familiar place.
6. It's humbling not being able to communicate. This is language skills learned at Jungle Jump Off, at its best. I'm thankful for the little Chinese I know. But Josh and I survived getting breakfast (which was very yummy, btw) and shopping (which we embarassingly learned the hard way that you have to purchase plastic bags or bring your own.)
7. We've met other teachers. But we still feel alone. There was this PK we met on the plane. He gave us so many awesome tips, and really encouraged us. But none of our colleagues so far are believers. We already find ourself longing for fellowship.
8. Oh yeah. We found a restaurant with dog. And another with donkey. So... we'll eventually let you know what we think.
9. Josh mentioned the dirtyness of everything. But truth is, it's only because our neighborhood is more old school. Our campus itself is really, really nice. And it's quiet and peaceful. (Well, it'll probably be different when the kids get here, but overall, they have curfew, and we don't!) We have our own forest, and the track is right next to our building. The campus was built as a school, turned into a prison during the Japanese occupation (there are bars on windows), but now it's a fairly prestigious school again. What he failed to mention is that outside of the school, everything it LOUD. It's like, at a level most of your ears have never heard before. NONSTOP noise. Everybody honks so you move over. Everybody calls out, people are on the phone. Stuff. Is happening. Everywhere!
10. I saw my life flashing before my eyes in thetaxi yesterday. I was on the driver side, so only I noticed how DANGEROUSLY close we were to smashing this car that our driver cut off. It's better for you to close your eyes sometimes when riding. Josh thinks it's really funny that motorcycles/moped drive on the sidewalks & the streets. You gotta watch out from behind you, beside you, and in front of you at all moments. Pang Foua would not have survived; she would surely be in a hospital somewhere by now.

That's all for now. Have a good weekend everyone. We have medical exams and start a week long of training on Monday. Hey, be sure to fill Mommy in on all our news, ok PF & TD? Thanks.

Peace!

It's 2:28 am in the morning...sleepless in shanghai

We just woke up an hour ago, after fake sleeping for a while in bed. Boy, if this is jet lag, we've got it at its best.

We've only been here 2 nights and we've already been SUPER sensory overloaded. Here are some early observations about Shanghai.

1. they werent kidding when they said there was over a billion people here. no matter where you are at there seems to be millions of people. not kidding millions everywhere.
2. i've come up with a term that describes the driving and bike riding in this part of the world..."Casually Wreckless". our driver who picked us up at the airport was driving over 120 km/hr on an 80km/hr road! i dont know the conversion is from the km to the miles/per hour is but, it was crazy. he was swerving in and out of traffic, tailing motorcycles, faces oncoming traffic fearlessly, passing people at 60 km/hr on small streets, etc. mai kao and i after about 5 minutes of this looked at each other without saying a word, nodded and then clicked out seat belts. people cut each other off all the time...and it even seems like they even try to drive into other cars.
3. our campus is beautiful. it's gated and so it makes you feel closed off from the rest of crazy Shanghai. the center of campus is absolutely gorgeous, imagine a beautiful row of fully grown trees and then you've got campus, times 3. we have (i'm not kidding) like 30 basketball courts.
4. China is super dirty. there are times when you are walking down the road and then some random super stinky smell smashes you in the face. mai kao and i were in an open market (which was pretty cool by the way) and we saw this lady chopping a raw dead chicken right next to a piece of fried chicken. we laughed and thought about how grossed out Geu would get.
5. there is an alley way market that is right by our school that is dirty as heck. we encountered some pretty hilarious and nasty stakes for poker. how about live eel for anyone? we've also got snakes, killed meats of all kinds, and some crazy looking veggies.
6. i thought about buying a bike, but after seeing how reckless peeps are out here...i'm kind of rethinking the situation out.
7. the ground here is really really nasty. at any given moment there may be chicken blood mixed with some sort of poop, fish guts and water. its so gross that tonight i had a nightmare about tripping and falling on the ground. i woke up super grossed out and opened up my packed luggage case to get my sandals out. i'm wearing them right now. in my apartment.
8. major props to auntie jovan for the small towels...they were super needed.
9. we miss our friends dearly. many of our coworkers are recent college grads that are still in the super party mode. we realized we were old when we wanted to just to back to our apartment and relax.
10. life is going to be fast paced, crazy and fun. keep praying for us. when you are away from the body of christ you start to crave fellowship. it seems that whenever you have a conversation with someone you listen more intently to see if they are a believer too. its weird, but true.

josh out.

Prayer Requests

We began packing at about 1 am last night, taking down all our paintings and signs and pictures. The room is starting to look empty...

If you are praying for us, here are a couple things that we're struggling with right now...

• Our health. I'm rarely sick. But for the past week, I definitely haven't been at 100%. I'm coughing, my voice has been on and off, and at times, I just don't feel well. Moving to a place that is different (tej fuab tej cuas txawv,) I'm already likely to become sick and have to adjust. Josh's foot is getting better. But this past week he had to take a break for about 2 days because of his recurring 'stupid foot.' (Muscle strains in foot.) Stacy (Tais Dlaab Adam) adjusted his foot yesterday, and it's a lot better. Josh also has a terrible cough. His blood pressure medicine makes it at times, painful for him. (I don't think he could live with this cough the rest of his life, if he has to keep up his meds.)
• Anxiety about leaving home. That God will infinitely increase our trust that things will be OK here. That I'll be protected from any feelings of guilt about leaving. That in the meantime, He will call us to intercede in incredible ways.

Thanks friends.