From the other side of the world

Wow. This is weird. Normally it is the better half that writes these blog entries. Unfortunately, that beautiful lady is at home with the three younger ones while I am here in China with the two oldest and, shortly, the soon to be youngest. I write this after our second morning here. We're all tired from time change and the added fact that the beds, well the beds… Let's see what the boys have used to describe them, G- "Why did they take so much time to put rocks in these beds?" D- "Concrete" G- "Solid steel with a sheet over it." So what has happened so far? Flight- pretty uneventful, but did meet some neat people. We met one guy on his way to North Korea to do work on water systems so as to reduce waterborne diseases. He's part of one of the few openly Christian groups allowed into the country. And he's retired from Anchorage FD so you can imagine we enjoyed talking. Yesterday, after a meeting going over all we were to do this trip and then getting rid of most of the money I carried with me, we headed off to New Day Foster Home to deliver goods we'd gathered together (thanks CG!) and enjoy a brief visit. We finally made it there at nap time, but at least got to see a few of the kids awake. It's a great thing they are doing there. Got back from there to have a few moments of rest before heading off to the acrobatic show. There I got rest once again, though I tried not to! It really is very impressive, kind of reminiscent of a Cirque du Soliel show. After that a group of us headed off to the Chinese restaurant just down from my wife's favorite place, the hypermart. I thoroughly enjoyed all of it, but some of our meat and potato friends weren't as thrilled.  As is often the case in other countries, the English translation may not always be spot on.  My favorite from yesterday, "Determined to pot all love." I saw it on a building as we drove past." I was guessing it was maybe a restaurant or a "collective", but then I remembered, I'm not in California any more.