Day 1 - Freeze Dried

It's 5:48 am.  Our friendly host told us last night that we'd wake up at 4:00 am due to jet lag. Obviously he doesn't know what he is taking about, 4:00 am was almost two hours ago. I'll correct him in the morning.
Oops, that's sarcasm. Sarcasm is one of those things that usually doesn't translate.  I need to learn how communicate here so I better choose my words carefully. Either that or I can use this blog as an outlet for any of my sarcasm.
Obviously Becky and I have arrived safe and sound.  Right now, as I slowly swipe this blog entry into my cell phone with my thumb, Becky is tucked into bed probably not sleeping either. I'm in the living room sitting on the leather couch wearing only jeans.  ...Just now I was curious if my back would stick to the couch, it's so dry here that I thought it might not, but it did.  Also, don't worry Mom, I'm drinking plenty of liquids.
It's hard to articulate my first impressions of China. It's cold, dry, flat, brown, smells like smoke, and is covered in a thin layer of useless dry powdery snow.  (Snow that cannot be built into igloos or snow men is useless. Also it's flat here, so no snow boarding) There are about ten million people in this area so there are plenty of tallish buildings.  The road near where we are staying is 14 lanes wide, 7 lanes going one way, and seven going the other way, these lanes are completely ignored but traffic flows. Drivers in China like honking their horns outside our bedroom window while ignoring these lanes.
The locals here are very friendly and I haven't seen any other foreigners yet.
Oh, and a fun detail, from Becky, is that fruit here is sold frozen on the streets using the great outdoors as the freezer. Ice cream bars are also sold as street food from cardboard boxes out on the open.
Well the city is starting to wake up and honk at each other, maybe I'll try to sleep some more.

Day Zero Leg 2

Ok, now we're on the plane again, somewhere over China, about two hours left. Becky is playing her favorite word search game on her tablet. "Ricky and the Flash" is playing silently with Chinese subtitles on the little screen hanging down from the ceiling 3 rows up, it looks like Meryl Streep's character has just gotten to know her grown daughter, which she apparently abandonned and left with the father, but is hitting the road again. We lucked out on this flight, we have an entire row to ourselves, and the row in front of us, half the row in front of that, half a row behind us, you get the idea. It's leg room heaven! In a few hours we'll be talking to immigration officials, handing them the little yellow forms we just filled out on the plane. I'm wondering how it will go. I've had a few language-barrier frustrated conversations with immigration officials before about this box or that box on their forms... or at least that's what I thought the conversations were about. I saw something I've never seen before today. I saw a flight attendant attach an aluminum baby cot to the wall in front of the first row. The baby cot had straps and a little pillow and it was attached to the wall a little below eye level of the parents sitting in front of it. It's probably not a Chinese thing, or Tawainese, since this is an Airbus A321-200 and the wall has sockets for it built in, but I've never seen it before. There's not that much else that's interesting that I saw today. Although I was reminded of the Taiwanese custom of having women clean the men's bathrooms while the men are using it. It happened to me pretty often when I lived in Tawain in 2008. At first it was confusing, then akward, then kind of insulting for some reason, then I hardly noticed. And now, seven years later, it's just like old times. I wonder what new customs I will adapt to next. Well this blog entry is getting longish and I can't remember much else that I've noticed so far. I will say one thing, the Chinese food on EVA, a Taiwan based airline, is pretty good, whereas the American style food is about the same as it is on an American airline: not as good as the Chinese food on EVA. Also, note to future self: bring an extra shirt in the carry-on for your next long flight. My green extra largeXbox T-Shirt has EVA Chinese food stains and Taiwanese Niu rou mian (Beef noodle soup) stains all over it. Meryl Streep's character is singing with her band at her daughter's friend's wedding, and her daughter is laughing, it seems that her attempts to form a relationship with her daughter were a success. Oh now her daughter is singing with her. Now I can end this blog entry.

Day Zero

I'm sitting in an airport terminal listening to soft Chinese chatter.  This is my first exposure to what is probably, I'm assuming, the accent of the people of the city where I am going to live for the next year or more.  Of course I have not strained my ears enough yet to understand any of it...

Speaking of understanding: My wife laughed at me about an hour ago when I came back to the table, in an airport restaurant, with a full tray of food.  My second tray.  I only wanted the fried tofu, but apparently I ordered "the meal", which come with little side dishes.  I think it was #8.  

"Here we go again" I said to myself.  I almost forgot about the confusion of ordering from a Chinese menu, pointing and nodding.

But I solved this problem by eating almost the whole tray.  No problem.  My "Xbox Music" T-Shirt, which I found in a give-away pile at work is sized XL.  

We have overcome a few obstacles on the way here.  Overweight carry-ons, a missing sock.  Well that's all that I can remember.

Ok they're boarding! Better go!  I can't wait to fill out immigration forms, or tourist forms or whatever they're called