So, the Red Rocket is no more.

We owned it for about a week. The first few days we had no problems. Then it had an issue with the “cruise control” slipping on and off at will. Cruise control is not true cruise control but 3 set levels of speed- 10km/h, 20km/h, 30km/h. You’d be going fast and try to slow down and instead the cruise control would kick in and make you go faster (!!). Or you’d brake and then let off the brakes a bit and it would shoot you to 20km/h immediately.

Sometimes I would turn the handle down to make it go faster and it would go slower- or vice versa. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason.

Keith had it die on him yesterday when he started it up to return home from an errand. Today, I headed out the orphanage, and I was driving on a fully charged battery, I had been out about 5 minutes, was on a busy street, and then it just died. In the middle of traffic. Yikes. After 5 minutes, it restarted.

So I went to the store to return it or ask for help. This is a 2 story store with the top floor being “stuff” and the bottom floor being groceries. The top floor has bikes, electronics, clothes, etc… It’s a Walmart type store. So I have to wheel the thing into the store, up the escalator and to the bike department. The guy there said it had no problems. He took it out for a test drive.

He says “Oh, yes, the speed is not a problem, you can control the speed by pressing the hand brakes”. I just don’t think that’s the safest way to control speed- to have a revving engine but apply your hand brakes?? This would be like revving your gas all the time while applying the brakes to control your speed on a car. Not a good long-term driving plan! I had lots of “friends” (i.e. strangers who wanted to be involved in the foreigner debacle) gathering around me and it was getting to be quite the scene.

Finally, he asked me if I wanted to pick out a new one and he would trade me. I about cried I was so relieved and happy! YES YES YES!

So, now we have the Pink Princess, which is a true scooter with no pedals.

It seems to have no problems, but it has only been an hour so far ;).

No fears about emasculating Keith by having him ride the Pink Princess. Last week, after buying the Red Rocket, we also picked up the Teal Tornado. This is Keith’s new ride. It does make zipping around town so much faster!

Note the snowflakes on the Teal Tornado- Keith’s so cool he snows.

All photos taken in the bike parking garage- it’s under our building and we recharge our bikes there. We pay a $2 monthly parking fee to use the electricity and store them in guarded parking. Completely worth it to me!

Oh, if you’re curious on the cost of one of these- they run about $250 US. Not bad, considering those of you who live in the US are paying like $80 to fill your gas tanks now? So we purchased two new vehicles for $500, we’re pretty happy with that!

While waiting in the store for my new bike to be outfitted, I took some photos I will share tomorrow (they deserve their own post, trust me!) of children’s clothing and the “English” words on them.

If you’re curious what happened to the Red Rocket after we exchanged it- well, before we left the store, it was already back in the display area to be sold again as a new bike. Um, buyer beware?

So, it’s been 5 hours since I left for the orphanage the first time. Now that I’ve traded bikes and eaten lunch, I think I’ll try again. Second time is a charm?

We made it! Today marks a full 365 days spent here in China. It has been a full year since we have breathed American air, shopped in Target, driven a car, flown in an airplane, or had a coke at Sonic!

At first I was thinking “Wow, we have come so far!” and then I realized- No, He has brought us so far. Through our own power, we’d be wilted, exhausted, overwhelmed, and unsuccessful. By His grace, we are empowered to keep going.

There’s something cool about reaching a milestone like that. It solidifies our purpose and reinforces our commitment. Our kids are true TCKs (third culture kids- i.e. kids raised in a culture outside their own) now and there’s no going back on that. Their experiences today, for better or worse, will shape who they become.

Keith and I are changed as well (of course). I don’t know how you can live in another country and not grow/change/develop in that time! We’ve been reading over the last year of our blog and smiling, laughing, reminiscing at how our attitudes and thoughts have changed.

Our first week here, I confused the words for little sister and big sister. I asked a fruit vendor for an elephant instead of a banana. Language mishaps were not just occasional things, they were minute-to-minute painful errors that crippled our ability to communicate. Now I can occasionally go a few minutes without having to interject “Shen me?” (Shen me is the dreaded “huh? what? come again?” response). I can only hope that in a few years we’ll be able to go a full day with no “shen me” interruptions in conversation.

The first time I walked out of a store and a shopkeeper told me to “man zou” (walk slowly), I translated the words and started giggling. The stupid humor in me wanted to go back and do a super-slow exaggerated walk out of the store. Now, I’ve heard it so many times (it is a common phrase meaning “take care” and the vast majority of people here use it regularly), it doesn’t make me blink. A friend who has been here for 5 years said the true test is when you start telling *other* people to “man zou” when they leave your house.

I find myself more patient in some areas of life, and undeniably short-tempered in others. It is strange, actually, because the tiniest culture things sometimes make me go ballistic inside (usually those relating to family or my children) whereas things that drove me nuts the first few weeks don’t even phase me anymore. The areas where my short temper flares are a constant reminder to me of how far we have to go (thank you Dad for grace!).

Cultural stress failure example: When we checked into the hotel in Beijing in June with Dad and Cindy, and the receptionist said the girls couldn’t check in (we didn’t have their passports with us because we were only going to be in BJ for a few days and we’ve never needed them to check in to a hotel before). The reasoning: The Olympics. It apparently was a new (unpublicized) law that all foreigners had to have passports of all people, including children, to stay in hotels. Of course. I completely understood the reasoning (tighter security), except that we’d stayed at a hotel just a few weeks before and only needed one passport. This would be akin to checking in a hotel in America and needing to show your kids’ birth certificates or something. Maybe you carry those with you, but I don’t. Anyway, they told me I needed to go back to Tianjin and get them. Riiiight. I very sarcastically responded that my girls should just sleep outside and I could tell people that walked by that this hotel doesn’t like children and makes them sleep outside. (Wow, that was necessary, wasn’t it?)  All bitter barbs aside, we finally did check in.  The end solution to this situation was that after maybe 15 minutes, I had success with one manager who agreed to let us in if my sister faxed copies of our kids’ passports the next day.

The problem at that point was that we have heard the Olympics as an excuse for so many things that we are blue in the face at the mere mention of them! Culture stress? You betcha!

So we definitely have areas to work on in year 2 and beyond!

While we have absorbed many Chinese habits- not the least of which is a fond affinity for saying “yes-yes-yes” in quick succession.  The Chinese say “dui-dui-dui” very fast, and I have picked this up in both English and Chinese.

But I still don’t drink hot water in the summer. I still love my ice cubes (even in winter- gasp!). I haven’t succumbed to wearing cut-off ankle-high pantyhose with my tennis shoes.

Did you know that the Chinese don’t traditionally eat their rice at the same time as their main dishes? Like in a US-based Chinese restaurant, we take our rice and plop our sweet & sour chicken right on top of it. But here, the rice is usually served at the end of the meal, as a “filler” to fill you up. At first, we had a hard time (mentally) with eating Chinese food with no rice under it. Like fajita meat and tortillas, kung pao chicken and rice, they’re just friends that should stick together! In order to get the rice served earlier in the meal, you usually need to ask the wait staff a half dozen times to “please bring the rice now”. We’re finally at the point that we’re letting go and just eating the rice when it comes. It sounds silly, but trust me, we think about these things. If you went to Panda Delight or whatever your favorite Chinese place is and your rice didn’t come, you’d be going “Dude, where’s the rice?” I promise!

My Chinese teacher loves sweating. She said they don’t turn the air on at her house unless it is “very very hot” (and it hasn’t been hot here yet- according to her- although I consider the 90’s to be plenty hot!!). Anyway, she says they like to sit and feel the sweat drip from their bodies, because sweat is so healthy. I think I’ll need a few more years before I say anything remotely like that!

We’re so thankful for the true privilege to be here. We shake our heads at the craziness of just packing up and leaving our comfortable, suburban US lives. But you know what? If given the opportunity to turn back time, neither of us would choose to stay in the US. We love many things there, and of course, many people there (family!!), but we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is where our Dad wants us to be in this world.

We will never be Chinese. The word for foreigner “outside-nation-person” is a constant reminder to us that no matter how deep we dig into the culture, how much language we learn, how much we feel at home here- we are not, and can not be, Chinese. But we consider it a gift to be able to soak it up as much as we can.

365 days… and hopefully they’re just a dent into our lives in this amazing place we call home.

Keith’s brother Eric and his girlfriend Brittany sent Katie a “Hello Katie” doll for her birthday- they made it at Build a Bear and it has Hello Kitty Hawaii (I love that she has a tan, hilarious!).  They named her Hello Katie.  Hehe.

It arrived yesterday and Katie is loving it- here she is sleeping with her doll:

Oh, yes, she’s sleeping in a hospital gown.  She loves that thing.  And the red/black spotted glove is because a few weeks ago she stopped sucking her fingers (huge milestone for this little gaptoothed girl!).

Here’s two little guys from the orphanage that we took to McD’s yesterday.   I was debating how much to post online, but I think with no details I can post a photo of the kids.  Please lift all of these little ones up!  Could they be any cuter?

And the two sweet girls from last week.

Oh, and just as an fyi- if you are interested in adopting one of these kids- that’s wonderful, but I truly can’t help with that.  I have no affiliation with any adoption agency and all requests need to go through proper channels.  I don’t know the status on all of these kids, but there are TONS of waiting children in China who need homes- so if you want to go that route, please do contact an adoption agency!    Many have special needs, but the special needs vary from just being an older child, a missing finger, hearing loss, cleft lip, etc…

My hope for each and every one of those kids is that they will know our Father, and that they will have a forever family.  Doesn’t every child deserve a family?

Okay, sorry, have to SQUEAL!

When we bought Olympic tickets, we just randomly picked a day to attend.

Imagine our surprise when we found out we are seeing team USA men’s soccer on August 10th!  DUDE!!!!

This is part of the 16 qualifying teams’ “preliminary” games.  Then we’ll see a quarterfinal ladies match on the 15th.

For the guys, will see Japan v. Nigeria (if anyone wants us to scream/cheer in one direction we will, just let us know!) and then USA v. Netherlands.   We have some staff here from the Netherlands, so this is gonna be fun!

I’m so excited!!  I’m going to have to dig up all the Americana gear I can find!  Look for the crazy American couple (plus ayi’s husband, who is attending with us- maybe he can be our chaperone to keep us in line?) in the stands, ok??

I think I need a bullhorn and a cowbell.  Plotting.

Today, we celebrated Katie’s birthday. After the amazing Cinderella-themed party she went to a month ago, we had to work hard to come up with good stuff! I have never had a “kiddie” party for my kids’ birthdays with lots of non-family kids. So, this was a “first” for us!

Emily & my mom had each mailed us some Disney princess plates & napkins, so we ran with the theme. The invites:

Each girl got a little print-out of her “princess friends” (a total of 12 girls came)

The girls were sooooo excited they could hardly stand it this morning!

After the girls arrived, we played 3 princess games. (Sorry for the self-indulgent photos of only my children!! The other girls were truly there, just crayola them in using your imagination!)

The Frog Kissing game (you pass a frog in a circle and kiss it and when the music stops, the person kissing the frog gets to wear “princess” clothes for the next round- a flower wreath and butterfly wings)

Pin the Tiara on the Princess

And “Walking Like a Princess” where each girl tiptoed across the balance beam.

We finished the party with cupcakes, and lunch.

Happy birthday sweet Katie!! I’ll never forget the first time I saw her- this photo. Keith brought me the digital camera as I woke up from my c/section. I’d had general anesthesia so I couldn’t see her right away in person, so digital form had to suffice. I remember asking “Is she still a girl? Does she have red hair? Is she healthy?” (Yes- in that order- sorry, blame it on the anesthesia, ok??).

Awww, sisterly love starts young…. haha. Eliza was 19 months when Katie was born. And they were equally bald.

And my 2 fave photos of her as a wee one… sleeping at a few weeks old:

And gentian-violet-mouthed to treat thrush at a few months old. Ahhh, purple face! That stuff stained *everything*. This is also before her eyes turned hazel! She was “colorless greyish” for a few months…

Thanks for the walk down memory lane!  I can’t believe she’s getting so old!  Sniff sniff!

One final story from Qingdao (from Keith):
When entering Qingdao’s Polar Ocean World (the place with the penguins and dolphin show) with your ticket, there are several lines for people with general admission tickets. Then to the far left, there was a sign indicating an entrance for “the old, the lonely, and the single” people.

Maybe Polar Ocean World was designed by an old guy who was lonely after his girlfriend dumped him???

If you ever visit China (Emily, Bill, Cindy, Patty, and Jim can vouch for this) be sure to read the English signs. You just never know what it’s going to say!! Bill and Cindy saw a sign in a make-up store that said something like “Love design to die.”

But one thing I’ve noticed is that hardly any Chinese people wear shirts with Chinese on it! While I was getting my bike fixed a few weeks ago at a busy intersection, I looked at the shirts to see if anyone had a shirt with Chinese writing on it…out of hundreds of people, I only saw one person with Chinese on his shirt. At least 30% of the people I saw had “English” on their shirts. Once, we asked a good friend of ours what her shirt said. She read the words aloud to us. We then asked her “what does that mean?” She said “Who cares what it means! It’s English!”

Oh, and your Chinese lesson for the day:

Qingdao is pronounced CHING-DOW. (CHING rhymes with ring, DOW rhymes with COW)

*~~

From Kimberly:

We got a sweet new ride last night. After calculating out how much money I was spending a week on taxis (gulp!) to the orphanage and such, I realized I needed a new plan! I truly love my bike, but biking 45+ minutes each way to the orphanage takes way too much time out of my day. So, enter Red Rocket (Hong Huo Jian). Keith and I plan to use her for date nights too- we can zip around and feel very sporty!  Our 3-wheeled bike cart (minivan) is not quite as sporty to drive!  Red Rocket goes up to 3 times as fast as our minivan too!  Whoohoo!  Hence the need for the helmets!

We’d brought these helmets from the US and realized they were quite impractical here for daily life biking, but we do plan to use them on the Red Rocket. Here is my Chinese teacher & I going out for the day.

A good vacation should be savored.   So, as we immerse ourselves again into our TJ lives, I’m posting a few more photos of Qingdao.  Happy times!

Our last day, we asked several random people to take family photos of us- here are our favorite two:

The Chinese Olympic sailing team:

The bathing beach we swam at- this first shot shows the width of the entire beach- this is one of Qingdao’s 6 main “bathing” beaches:

And this shows the massive # of people (on a weekday, no less!) on a small, zoomed-in stretch of the sand:

And one last pretty view of the beach- just because I know I won’t be taking photos of anything nearly so lovely for quite awhile ;).

A package from Grandma Jean & Grandpa Warren arrived today- Katie *loves* the clothes and the Disney princess stuff is a big hit with both girls! :)   Thank you!!   She’s very eager for her birthday on Friday and can’t wait to tell people she is no longer “san sui le” but she is now “si sui le” (3 years old & 4 years old in Chinese).

I got permission at the orphanage today to take some of the older kids to the nearby McDonald’s for lunch.  I’m excited about this!  So today I started out with 2 girls (6 & 7 years old) and we walked to McD’s and they got Happy Meals.  They were sooooo cute and excited.  I’m going to rotate through all of the older kids.

FYI: I don’t share much about the orphanage for various reasons.  But it is part of my weekly “routine” now to go up there a few days a week.   I found myself really missing my “babies” when I was in Qingdao!  And when I returned, I found out that one of the babies I’ve had a special bond with was just adopted and is now on his way to the USA!  What a blessing for that little guy!

So, we arrived back in Tianjin safe and sound Tuesday afternoon. Kimberly went shopping with Eliza to buy Katie’s birthday present, so I’m stealing the blogging duties tonight. Don’t worry….Kimberly will be back tomorrow, or maybe even tonight But I do want to share something that happens to me quite frequently.

We were in a taxi from the Tianjin train station to our apartment when our driver asked me a question. I had no idea what she said, but thankfully, she pointed at the upcoming interchange so I knew what she wanted to know. So I replied “Go straight over the bridge” (something I’ve said numerous times in taxis).

Our driver then smiled and said something really quickly that I totally did not understand. So, as always, I smiled at her, then turned to Kimberly and asked “Hey, what’d she say??” Kimberly held back her laughter long enough to inform me “Dude, she just said your Chinese was really good.” Yeah, so, if someone tells you your Chinese is really good, you should probably understand that, eh?

I wonder how many times people have complimented my Chinese, only to have me reply “Uh, I don’t understand!” Thankfully, if Kimberly is around, she can tell me what’s being said!

Our friend said earlier this year “I know enough Chinese to get me in trouble.” That’s where I’m at right now with my Chinese. I’ve learned lots of words and phrases…but I have the hardest time understanding what people say when they reply to my words and phrases. If only I had a DVR remote so I could pause live conversations, then replay each word in slow motion. I’m always asking Kimberly, “What’d he say??” It’s a good thing I married someone who can learn a language in 10 months!!!

Oh, one more funny story: Eliza was bummed about returning to the “beachlessness” that is Tianjin. As our taxi was pulling up to our apartment, she perked up and said “Hey, at least we don’t have to walk a long way to get to our house (like we had to for the last week in Qingdao)!!” Then she was happy

–Keith

I completely forgot to mention that we went to an amazing “Polar Ocean World” aquarium on Friday.  The girls loved the dolphin show, polar bears, penguins, etc…  It was super fun and they ate up every last minute of it!

Last night, instead of a “quiet” evening at home, we decided to seek out an adventure. We’d been told that there were small “cruise-style” ships in a certain harbor, and that if we took a taxi to that harbor and walked around we could get seats on one of the cruises.

So, two of our friends graciously agreed to watch our girls and Keith and I headed out to find a cruise.   Before we left, we played outside with the girls.   Eliza expresses her joy over Qingdao’s fresh air and beaches.

Katie attempts to escape to the beach…

The sun starts its slow descent…

Here is the beach we arrived at- a rocky (non-swimming) beach.

We easily found the boat “salesman” ( a guy with a cardboard sign with pictures of boats and a cash box). He said the big ships stop at 5 p.m. but we could take a speedboat for 140Y per boat (up to 7 passengers). That’s $20 for up to 7 people. So we agreed to it and he said we should wait a second.

Here is the boat type we rejected in favor of a speedboat.

An old van pulled up and the driver hopped out and said he was taking us to the dock. So we hopped in and were whisked away to a tiny old street and a staircase leading down to the dock. We teetered out onto the dock and climbed into one boat and then perilously jumped from that boat into the last boat- “our” boat. I had to shush my fears as I was boat-hopping… despite being a capable swimmer, I wasn’t really looking for a “swimming” adventure. The guy in the yellow shirt is in the boat we climbed over to.

We put on our life jackets and zipped off to see the area- we passed a beautiful lighthouse:

Various Qingdao Night Views:

(oops, dirty lens!)

The Tsingtao (that’s Qingdao’s “old school spelling” fyi) brewery.  I love the little pagoda up on the hill.  We could see that on the swimming beach and it was such a cool thing to be floating out on the sea and look up and see a pagoda… so pretty!

If you’re familiar with Tsingtao beer, the logo has the Zhan Qiao pier on it:

Here is the real Zhan Qiao pier…

We got off at the pier and admired the lovely views before heading back…

The massive # of Chinese tourists confirms our thoughts that this is a really pretty place to visit!

Then we headed back to land… taking time to enjoy the views along the way… mental note: split pants + piggy back rides = yikes.

We stopped by a seafood stand on the way out.  Qingdao is famous for its many seafood delicacies- but perhaps the most famous of all is their roasted squid on a stick.  Keith indulged in some squid tentacles.

And then we headed to Baskin Robbins to finish the evening in true style.

Today, we are all feeling the sunburn from yesterday’s beach adventures, so we are slathering ourselves in aloe, eating pizza delivery, and trying to rest up.  We’re hoping to hit either another aquarium or head to Laoshan, a pretty national park type area an hour from here.  It has waterfalls, mountains, sea views, etc…   I just don’t know if the kids will be up to a day of hiking (read: we might all be lazy sloths who prefer taking a taxi to the aquarium to hiking up mountains).

The apartment complex we are staying in is literally across the street from the Olympic village where sailing athletes will stay.  This means security is tight- no taxis are allowed anywhere near it, so we have to walk about a half-mile out to the main road to get a taxi or bus.  Even if you have a lot of groceries, you can’t bring them in- and let me tell you, hauling in groceries is no easy task!   Bikes are not allowed here, not sure why, but it is a completely different “flavor” of China than Tianjin for sure!

First, we have train tickets home- yay! It stresses me out because you can’t buy until a few days before you depart, but I should have relaxed, because it was no problem to get seats on a good train home!

We spent the day at the beach here today. The sky was blue, visibility was nearly endless, and the crowds agreed with us that today was a perfect beach day. We didn’t take our camera, so we’ll give you “Qingdao Beach Swimming: By the Numbers” instead. Thank you to Keith for his assistance with this gem.

We swam really far out into the sea- the water is  actually remarkably clean given the algae problem was so recent!  The girls loved the water and Eliza is turning into quite the fish.  We had to drag her away…

Number of hours spent at the beach: 4 1/2

Number of photos taken by strangers of our children making peace signs and smiling with them: 25+

Number of children between the ages of 1-5 swimming naked: 20+

Percent of men wearing speedo-type briefs: 99.9

Name of only man *not* wearing a speedo-type brief: Keith

Number of teenage girls wearing inappropriate swimwear: 0

Percentage of women in tankinis or bikinis: 10

Percentage of boys under the age of 14 wearing only sheer-when-wet light-colored underwear (briefs) to swim: 25

Number of sailboats out on the water (perhaps Olympic ones?? several countries are already training in QD right now): 20+

Number of amazingly beautiful kites flying high in the sky: 5

Cost of renting a giant beach umbrella with table and chairs: $3 US per hour

Number of men sleeping on the beach: countless

Number of men sleeping on the beach on stomach with back of speedo purposefully pulled into a thong: 1

Number of feet between our seats and thong-man: Not enough

Number of men doing push-ups and stretches on the beach: 200+

Number of women wearing anything remotely immodest at all: 1 (and it was just a smaller bikini- I don’t think it would even qualify as a string bikini)

Amount of time Katie slept on Keith’s lap wrapped up in a towel: 30 minutes

Number of people over the age of 20 in children’s inner tubes and/or arm floaties: 200+

Number of college-age guys in pink little girls’ inner tubes: 4

Temperature today: 86 degrees F

Water temperature: Way colder than that, way way way colder

We had a great day and now we’re hunkering down to enjoy a quiet evening of relaxation.