Home Sweet Home

Welcome to our Apartment in China!

When it came time to go apartment  hunting we were really excited to go out with our Realtor Yin Lee Lee. We had been looking at apartments around town without much luck until we were referred to lee lee who was really nice and had a lot of apartments to show. The first apartment we went to was up on the 47th floor and Trevor and I were at a loss. The only thing we enjoyed about that apartment were the homemade heart-bead curtains that separated the bed room for the rest of the apartment.  We moved on hoping to find something a little different. The next apartment was on the 35th floor and was much better. It had a nice view and a good layout. We were really excited. She had one more apartment that she wanted us to see so we went down to the 9th floor and found our new home! We met our new landlord, Ma, she is the cutest little lady. She was so excited to show us everything about the little apartment. I didn't understand a word but she was the nicest sounding Chinese person I've heard so far. She even told us that we looked like movie stars! Haha, that was a first for me.

 

Yin Lee Lee and Ma 

Welcome to our new crib (as Trevor would say it)

 

That couch is a pull out bed if anyone wants to visit! 

 

We have been practicing cooking in a Wok and it is getting better.....

 Our view!

 

And our bed is surprisingly very comfortable, a million times better then the board we slept on at the hotel!

The Nanjing Wall!

 

The Nanjing Wall

Today we took a bus to the Wall of Nanjing! It is a 600 year old wall that took 21 years to complete with over 200,000 workers. Its obviously not as long as the great wall of china, but it originally wrapped around the whole city of Nanjing. It was pretty incredible! Weather was perfectly overcast all the way up to the point that it dumped on us. But I'd rather be wet with rain than sweat any day!

We started walking along the outside of the wall.

The wall sits right next to Xuanwu Lake, it was beautiful!

 Once we got to the top we had to wait out a very loud, very close and slightly scary lightening storm and some rain....

 okay, a lot of rain...

 After the rain stopped we were able to explore!

 On top of the wall you can see the whole city.

 Buddhist Temple

 A kind young man took this photo for us. He was also really excited to practice his English with Trevor!

 

The Jiuhuashan Park Entrance.

 

 

We found some sweet exercise equipment and got a quick work out in.

 

This is an entrance to another Temple. While we were here there was actually a funeral going on. There were quite a few Monks singing and chanting and the family was burning money. It was very interesting.

Cold, wet and dirty feet after a great day of Adventuring!

Good Eats!

 Its been a grand adventure figuring out all the new cuisines! There has been a number of times where we've been handed a mystery bowl and we both look up at each other with a sour look and Trevor says, "my bad".  But more often than not we've found a lot of winners! We've loved the steamed breads and dumplings and they actually have some really good bakeries with yummy pastries and breads. 



Because Chinese menus can be very vague with actually telling you what your about to eat our best luck has come by roaming around the restaurants until we see someone eating something we think might be good to eat and then asking them what its called.  The Chinese people can be so kind when they realize what they're doing seems appealing to you too.  Many of them throw in other great suggestions and even offer to order it for you. Ha so nice!

  We've really only had one bad experience eating her in China and that's when we decided to try some American food and go to a Subway.  Lets just say Jared would not have approved. 

The food is extremely cheap here and we usually are only spending about 20 kuai (equal to $3.27) for both of us to cover a big meal.  It sure makes for some cheap date nights! We've been lucky enough to avoid any bad bugs and the food has been surprisingly cooperative with our tummies.

Welcome to Nanjing University

 

8/18/2013 

Exploring the Nanjing Campus

We found Nanjing University! Saturday we had the chance to survey our new stomping grounds for the next six months.  Its a really big beautiful campus and we had a lot of fun exploring all the facilities and mingling with giddy freshman three weeks early for school.  One thing we are finding out is that the Chinese look deceptively younger than their actual age making these freshman look like middle school kids.  The campus is fully equipped with a soccer field, swimming pool, and a whole litter of wild sweaty kittens (Katie likes to call them swittens).  We've decided everything in China is Sweaty due to the fact that everything either drips or leaks.  Particularly the children, but don't worry, the Chinese have found a great solution for that too.  Who knew one small slit could prove to be the cure for soggy bottoms. Pretty sure it was the same people that invented the Snuggy just because of how logically efficient it is.  We call them "the Squaty" (we should probably trademark that). If Katie and I get nothing else out of this experience you can be assured that we will be sporting these bad boys back to the home land!

We made it!!

 Saying Goodbye!

We departed at 10:30 pm on August 13th

Here is our first email home!

August 15, 2013

We made it to China! Wow I think both of us can admit that this has been one of the craziest days of our lives.  There was no transfer on the mission that even came close to this one.  Once we finally made it to our apartment here in Nanjing we both collapsed on the bed and Katies been asleep ever since.  I'm even falling asleep just trying to type this. Well the trip started out crazy when we got to LA and the Chinese stewardess told us that the flight had become too full and they had separated our seats so that we couldn't sit next to each other for the 12 hour flight to Beijing.  I reassured Katie that it was going to be alright but as we got on board and Katie realized that no one on that plane spoke English she was pretty heart broken.  I felt so bad as I had to leave her in her seat and go and try and barter with a handful of people to see if they would be willing to move for my wife. Long story short we moved four people into different seats in order to make it work but they were all kind enough to accommodate and it was a lot less painful of a flight. It had to have been Katie's puppy dog eyes because they would have never done that just for me. Anyways we arrived in Beijing at 4:50 am China time and the beijing airport is really cool and monstrous! We had to go ride on a metro line just to get out of the international airport and into domestic flights. 

 We arrived in Shanghai at about 10:30 am and ran over to the train station to buy tickets for the high speed train to Nanjing. It took us two hours to get there and than we had to fight off taxi drivers trying to all give us a ride.  I talked one driver down to a reasonable price and than the fun began.  You haven't lived until you've driven in a taxi cab in China!  The car horns here are used merely as a tool to let others know that you're coming through and not going to stop. Woman and children were diving out of the way, he cut off an ambulance with its sirens on, and no joke decided to drive backwards in mid crowded traffic because he missed a turn and didn't want to drive around to it again.  I think Katie will be very complimentary of my driving for now on. But despite all the crazy driving the man didn't have a clue where our apartment was 

located. Two hours later we still were none the wiser and so I finally grabbed the map and told him where to go. Luckily the addresses in China are set up almost exactly like Taiwan and I applied my missionary skills to locate our building. The driver first  insisted that I pay more for using so much of his time, but he didn't have much of an argument when I pointed out that I was the one that ended up finding it.  I'm not proud to say this but I think I one-upped Steves hippie ranch in Boulder Utah this time.  The building had no sign and was located on the fifth flour of an old run down building in the very ghetto of Nanjing city. We live just down the road from the Nanjing school for concubines and we're right above a panda bear taxidermy shop.... Just kidding. But we made it and just thrilled we have a bed.  Love you all and just wanted to let you know that we are still alive and kickin.  im sure Katie will want to skype you soon and tell you her side of the story. She's been such a trooper and really brave despite all the craziness.  love you guys. Talk to you soon!