Reunions

The past couple of weeks since graduation have been filled with so many wonderful reunions that I about want to bust from sheer joy and thankfulness. And with each reunion, I have slowly traveled west, until I somehow made it to the Far East and am back in China!

Florida:

I spent a week with my grownup baby sister, Andrea, in Daytona Beach. I used my frequent flyer miles to get a ticket down there to see her and sort of as a reward for my past 2 years of working somewhat diligently in grad school. Although I only went to the beach once and had a cold the whole time, it was still worthwhile visiting Andrea, laughing, and realizing that we can still be close even though we are growing up, live far away from each other, and have different lives now.

California:

After saying goodbye to Andrea, I got on a plane for Los Angeles, where I stayed for a very brief night and a day. I got to stay with my old team leader and friend in China, Joelle, whom I hadn't seen in almost 2 years. It was like we had never been apart, although I knew that we had, because we seemed like we both had changed and grown and learned so much since the summer of 2010. We also got to chat, laugh, and reminisce about China, mostly while experiencing The Huntington, which contains gorgeous gardens in Pasadena that cover hundreds of acres.

Korea:

After then saying goodbye to Joelle, I got on yet another plane, which stopped in Seoul. The nearly 13 hour flight was filled with Koreans, who all seem extremely polite and orderly. The Seoul airport is also similar--everything was super clean, modern, and orderly. Although I can't judge all of Korea based on the airport, it seems like Korea and China are two very different places.

China:

I hopped on my next plane in Seoul, which was bound for Beijing. You could tell everyone on the plane was Chinese, because everyone was very boisterous, didn't really pay any attention to the flight attendants, and basically had the grandest time ever. We finally arrived in Beijing after zig-zagging all over the map to get there. I also knew that we were in China, because the sky was extremely yellow with pollution, and you could see miles upon miles of high-rise buildings.

Upon arriving in Beijing late in the afternoon on about 4 hours of sleep over the past 48 hours, I had a lot of errands to accomplish. I quickly remembered how surviving in China = complete dependence on God. I probably prayed more that afternoon than I had in the whole past month. People who speak English even in Beijing are virtually non-existent, so a lot of my Chinese language skills came back out of necessity. I was able to exchange money, buy a new phone card for my old Chinese cell phone that still works, take a taxi to pick up a train ticket, take the subway all over the little city of 20 million inhabitants, find and order some dinner, and find my hotel. The hotel was the most challenging part. It was a Chinese hotel in the thick of a residential area filled with hutongs, which are old traditional neighborhoods consisting mainly of a complex maze of narrow, winding alleys. The alleyways are then filled with tons of children, bicycles, animals, trash, laundry, food, and everything else you can imagine. So I quickly lost my way, and had to rely on the kindness of multiple strangers to get me to my destination. It takes a village to get Laura to her inn for the night! It was fun, but tiring being so over-stimulated by all the noise, chaos, smells, sand and pollution blowing in my eyes, the stares, and suddenly feeling like I was in a place that was so foreign and familiar all at the same time.

The next morning I woke up at 5 a.m. to head to the subway and then the train station. A guard at the hotel was impressed with my willingness to speak to him in my butchered Chinese, so he offered to take me all the way to the subway station on his bicycle rickshaw, which saved me a 20 minute walk. Thank goodness I had really limited luggage with me! So I managed to also get to the Beijing train station, find the train in a crush of people, and hang out on the train heading far north east to Harbin.

My teammate of two years in Nanchang, Jodi, lives in Harbin now. She picked me up at the train station, and it was such a wonderful sight to see her! And she had just gotten engaged the day before, so she was beaming. Congratulations to Jodi and Samson!! So the past few days we've been going to her classes, hanging out with her fellow teammates, exploring parts of the city, and eating lots of good food. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to be here!