My Top Five

Susan asked for my top three favorite things about my trip and when I typed this out I forgot she said three and did five. Here you go.

5. The Duck Restaurant. What could be better than being given a death certificate for your food? It was really yummy and I was laughing the whole time thinking about the very end of the movie “A Christmas Story”…”Farara ra ra, ra ra ra ra.”

4. “Doing” Business. Traveling is always an amazing experience, particularly abroad. But traveling oversees to “do” business is really different than the typical vacation. I mean, if you think about it, how much interaction do you really get with everyday people when you travel on vacation? Aside from the occasional exchanging of words with a hotel worker or waitress, typically very little. But if you’re traveling for work that means you’re probably going to be in contact with bunches of people, all day long, that are really a part of the country you’re visiting. I think this gave me a much different insight about the Chinese culture and people than I would have otherwise received. You also get to see how life is really lived; it’s not just about visiting tourist traps and seeing historical sights. Pretty amazing experience if you ask me.

3. Watching a Very Important Election Going on at Home from the Eye of Another World. How much do you know about foreign politics? Quick, in your head, name 5 leaders of countries other than the one you live in. I am now convinced that everywhere in the world Obama and McCain are household names. The only channels I was able to watch in English while here were the BBC and CNN. And I can tell you, the world outside of the US is talking about very little other than our election. It’s amazing to me how much the US influences the world when we make up so little of the world’s population in comparison. Amazing and humbling.

I would also like to point out that if the rest of the world would have been able to vote in our election, the margin of Obama’s win over McCain would have been even greater. The rest of the world is in love with this man. I heard the phrase “this is the end of the reign of conservative dogmatic oppression in the US,” so many times I could puke. I really didn’t know that we were being oppressed in the US, did you? Now I’m going to opinion share, for what it’s worth. I believe this man has vexed the magnitudes with words and promises of change he has yet to explain the merit of. I heard over and over again in interviews with Europeans that they were so happy that the US has finally overcome its racism and elected a black president. And undoubtedly this is monumental; but I’m more interested in an answer to the question, “Can this man run this country?” than I am with the color of his skin. I don’t think either man was a good fit for the job, so I guess all I can do is pray that Obama with his dreams of bringing us the audacity of hope will unify our nation and protect the families of the world as much as he has the power to do as we head further into financial “crisis.” But he’s just a man; and at the end of the day I have to remember that I am a citizen of the Kingdom of God; no matter what happens to this country and to me nothing can dissolve my citizenship in that Kingdom except my own free will. I can be homeless living on the street and I always will have the audacity of hope that is found while living in Christ. Soapbox dismounted.

2. The Great Wall of China. There are a few places in the world that I am finding it is just good for the soul to visit. Le Cathedral de Notre Dame in Paris is one of them. I know this might sound counterintuitive to something that would generally come out of my mouth in regards to being inside of a Catholic church, but there was just something about the place that reminded me of the power and reverence of God. It’s hard to explain if you haven’t been there and I know it shouldn’t work this way because it’s just a big old building when it comes down to it, but that Cathedral just has a unique way of striking people to the heart for some reason.

The Wall was that way too. It is such an amazing feat of engineering and served as a reminder to me of the love God has for His creation. A God that allows us to have a hand in creating the world around us; that gives us the ingenuity and intelligence to figure out how to make marvels like The Wall. That’s the God I love to worship and it was overwhelming to see such an amazing piece of architecture sitting in the midst of God’s beautiful mountains and sky. As if the mountains and sky weren’t exquisite enough, it’s as though God said, “Here; create something beautiful in inclusion to what I have already provided you.”

1. Home Again Home Again, Jiggity Jig. I believe that there is some sort of intrinsic, universal truth to the statement made by Dorothy Gale, “There’s no place like home.” I love to travel. It’s why I’ve chosen the career path I’ve chosen. I want to see the world and the more I can see of it on another person’s dime I think the better. But the sad thing about traveling for work is that “home” really wasn’t with me this time. With everything new I saw and experienced in the back of my head I was thinking, “I wish Craig was here to see this with me. I wonder how he’s doing at home.” But the fun thing is, absence really does make the heart grow fonder and I can’t wait to step off that plane tomorrow night, onto American soil, and know that I’m just a small three hour drive from Chicago away from “home.” Seeing your friends and family for the first time after a couple of weeks is always a joyful experience. To know that you’re loved, that you were missed, and that now you can go back to being together to enjoy one another’s presence is wonderful. Not to mention how thankful I will be to be back in the presence of our family at Elmwood once again, to teach my kiddos that I haven’t seen in a month, and to worship and commune together. I am excited!

So, those are my favorite five things. We’re leaving tomorrow from the airport in Shanghai at 2:50 PM China time, that’s 1:50 AM Lafayette/Louisville time. Please be praying for a swift, safe return. I will try to email and update you when I arrive in LA for our layover.

My Chinese Entourage.

Entourage is one of my favorite words. Ever. I'm talking to Craig right now and he's telling me there's a show on TV called Entourage. Maybe I should watch it.

Today I travelled to a customer to give my third service school of the trip. It went really well. In fact, it was probably my favorite one I've done so far. The company was comprised of both Chinese and Indians (from India, not Indiana) and most of the Indian workers spoke english. They guys were engaged in what I was doing, they asked a lot of questions, and my jokes and teasing even translated. I had a big group following as I walked through the shop...I counted around 50 workers there for the school and afterwards they were a little hard to shake. But all in all, I would say it was a great day.

I'm sorry the blog is not very interesting these days...mostly I'm just at work and nothing too exciting has been going on. The Great Wall and Forbidden City are hard acts to follow.

Does anyone know if they sell Dove Chocolate bars with Hazelnut in the US? I don't think I've ever seen them, but they again I typically am not searching for that sort of thing either. I have had so little sugar since I've been here that I started craving something sweet and that's what I ended up with. They're pretty good.

Also, when I get back, does anyone want to go see Changeling with me? It looks really good.

My Blog Title

When I was in the 1st grade my teacher's name was Mrs. Webb. I loooooved Mrs. Webb. She was the best. I think her only failing in life might have been that she was a University of Kentucky fan. That aside, Mrs. Webb loved Courtney too. I was undoubtedly the teacher's pet in that class. And she called me her little China doll because of my fair skin.

In high school when I played softball I developed a nick name. My dad noticed that my skin wasn't too far off from the color of the chalk lining the base path. So, everyone started calling me "chalk."

Ever since Craig and I met, he's told me I look Asian. My almond shaped, squinty eyes and my pale skin, evidently make me look Asian to him.

My whole life I've gotten teased over how white I am. When I was in middle school my best friend TJ told me he was going blind from the reflection of the lights off my forehead.

Today walking to lunch one of the Chinese girls from our office grabbed my arm and held it up in comparison to her white blouse. Then all of the girls started giggling. I asked Anne what was going on and she said, "We are all very envious of your white skin. Chinese girls walk around with umbrellas and long sleeves all the time to keep their skin white. We wish we had skin as white as yours."

So, evidently I'm really not as Asian as I look. And I only had to travel halfway around the world to find a place that appreciates my concerns over melanoma. The end.

(It was a slow news day...give me a break :) )

Guess What I Had For Dinner Tonight!?!?!?

Rouladen!!

Anne and Joy took us to the local German restaurant and I could not have been more excited. For those of you who did not grow up with a German grandmother and don't know what the wonderful thing that is rouladen is...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouladen.

It was delicious. Get a little cabbage on your fork, some potatoes, and a little beef and pickle...delightful.

In other news I finally got to do my first service school today. My stuff finally got cleared by customs this past weekend while we were in Beijing. So, I thought my trip to Qingdao was going to be postponed indefinitely, but tonight we were discussing the possibility of me going there the last couple of days of the trip. Sonya, I will keep you posted. The minute I find out a flight has been booked for sure, I will give you a call. I also want you to know that I've been pushing hard for us to stay at the Shangri-La!

Today I got to see what a Chinese supermaket is like. You know how the supermarket gets really busy and frantic right before it's supposed to snow because people are stocking up on milk and eggs? Take that, multiply the number of people by 10, inflate the intensity, and add a language that you don't speak into the mix, and you have my experience today. That was probably the most overwhelmed I've been so far on the trip. But I'd go back tomorrow in a heartbeat given the chance :)

I also got told today rumor has it my "husband" (I don't think they have a name for fiance) is very handsom. I quite agree. Two of our Chinese workers were in Lafayette a couple of months back and Craig and I took them down to Nine Irish for dinner, so he met them there. The guy that was here evidently thought Craig to be very handsom, because he told other workers here that I have a handsom "husband." That was fun for me today.

I hope you're all doing well! Just four more days of Courtneyless USA. Enjoy them while they last!

Misson Accomplished!

WARNING: Partial Nudity Follows. Parental Guidance is Advised.


SPLIT PANTS!!!!!!!!

I can't believe I saw these today at Tian'anmen Square! In case you're wondering why I'm so excited (because I recognize the fact that blogger has distorted the image enough that you can't see the little Asian bottom coming out of the middle of these pants) Katie asked me to be on the lookout for split pants while I am in China, and I have finally found a decent image of them! They are pants for children that have a split right down the center so that the children can do their thing anyplace, anytime. All they have to do it squat whereever they are. They evidently are more popular in other parts of China that where I am, so that's why I was so excited to actually get a picture of some! (Don't worry; they were not in use.)

There weren't any tanks there today, thank goodness. It's really neat though, to be someplace that you know has hosted the event of a huge political/social movement. Like the Bastille, but maybe a little more recent feeling.

The outside of the Forbidden City. It's kinda like going to Disney World. Except no trams, 1/10 the size, and 10 times the people. You will notice only one picture of me today and you will be disappointed by that one picture. This is because there is no room to take a picture of yourself. So I didn't bother trying. I spent the day with my arm raised above everyone's head clicking the button on my camera, hoping something came out. That's pretty well all you could do today. Maybe if we had gone during the week it would have been better. I bet there was at least 1 million people there today. Unbelievable. The emperer's throne. I really thought I had seen the most extravagant waste of money ever known to man when I saw Versailles. Nope. This takes the cake. I can't believe the people didn't rebel and burn it down. This place is unbelievable. It's enormous and everything is so ornate...I'm assuming all hand carved, painted, etc. as well. Please appreciate this picture; I had to compromise my typically passive, non agressiveness to push my way up close enough to hold my camera up to the window and hope I was getting it in the picture.
All of the people. There's so many of them. I don't know where they all come from! It was like hearding cattle, but probably more dangerous.

My "artsy" shot of the fountains. I wish I hadn't gotten John's sleeve in the photo. These were plastered on the sides of every building, layers upon layers of them. They had running water going through them back in the day, and the piping system acually reused the same water over and over and over again. This is quite the engineering feat for this time.

The lone picture I took of myself today. Completely overwhelmed. I walked around with this look on my face for the majority of the trip this morning. There were just SO. MANY. PEOPLE. But still, let me reiterate the idea that is was absolutely amazing to see.


Alright, I have a mystery for you to solve. (Actually, I know the answer because I googled it...but I want you to guess without looking at any references.)

Name this fruit:

I had no idea what it was, and Anne didn't know the english name for it, so I ended up googling it tonight to find out. I kinda kicked myself when I found out, but I had never seen or eaten one before...only heard of them.

Oh, and when in doubt, there's always room service. YUM-O.

I could only eat half of the burger though, because I'm just not used to eating that much food anymore. I have weighed myself on two separate scales in two separate hotels now, and unless they are both incorrect, I have lost 10 lbs since I've been here. It's not that I'm not eating, I think it's mostly just what I'm eating. There is no grease in anything here. It's all just rice and vegetables, and the veggies are always cooked in water. I gorge on breads for breakfast every morning, but it still just doesn't seem to make a difference. The first thing I will eat when I get back home will be a steak at Texas Roadhouse, cooked medium rare with a side of mashed potatoes and greenbeans. I can think of nothing better than that right now.

Oh The Places You Will Go

Today's adventure takes us to many places...some of which were built almost a thousand years ago, some which were built and used for the first time in 2008. I begin my journey with the Ming Tombs, of which I can give you very little historical information because our tour guide spoke very, very fast. Some day I plan on googling it and finding out more, but until then I will leave you these pictures. I do know that what is behind Anne and I in this picture are the mountains where 13 of the emperors of China are buried. We are standing on top of one of the palaces of said emperors.

Let me also point out this....

The summer between my junior and senior year of high school my very generous parents sent me to France with a group of my friends and a teacher from our high school. When I came home however, my mother was not pleased to find one picture of me sitting, drinking coffee in a cafe, along with 300 other pictures of random French landmarks without Courtney in front of them. Needless to say, I got a lecture before I took off for China on how I need to make sure I get plenty of pictures with me in them. So, I tried in earnest today and I feel as though I did a much more decent job that I typically would have if left unreminded.

Here's a statue of one of the guys that's buried in the mountain. This was actually built in 1999. The Chinese throw money at the feet of this guy in hopes that he will give them good fortune.

The empresses dress of 100 children playing. I liked this one a lot. The name of the dress is very literal; there are exactly 100 children embroidered on the dress and they are all playing.

These are my feet. Do you know where they are standing? That's right...they are standing happily on the Great Wall of China.

The pictures you are about to see can absolutely in no way do justice to anything I saw today. I literally was choking back tears when I caught my first glimpse of the Wall from the tour bus. It is amazing; and I can't thank God enough for the opportunity I had today to go see one of the 7 Wonders of the Medieval World and one of the only two man made constructions that can be seen from outerspace (at least from the mouth of Neil Armstrong this is true...ahem BOILER UP!).There's me! I only made it to tower #2 of 5 towers considered to make you a real warrior if you can climb them. It was very cold today and people were smoking the entire way up, so I opted out of the asthma attack and headed back down. But Pinakin took my camera and was able to get some cool shots from the top that I can show you later when I'm back home if you really want to see them. The crazy thing about it, the whole way up people really were smoking, there was one guy climbing in a business suit, and a woman carrying a baby while walking in high heels. I just don't know how these people got there. I mean, were they on their way to a wedding and decided to drop a surprise visit on the Wall today? Ok, I feel like that joke may be a little too Jerry Seinfeld.
Like I said, I have dozens of other pictures if you want to see them when I get back. Just let me know, but lets move on for now.

We decided we needed red meat for dinner tonight so we ventured off to the Hard Rock Cafe we noticed while on our tour this morning. Here's a picture of a guitare played by Huey Lewis and the News' Chris Hayes.

After dinner John and I had wanted to go see the Olympic Village, but the Chinese people with us I guess were tired or something and didn't feel like going. So, we headed back to the hotel and right when we were getting back to the room I whispered to John, "I'm going to go see the Olympic Village...I may never get a chance to come to China again. Wanna go?" So, we stopped a the reception desk and asked the lady to write "Olympic Village" in Chinese so we could give it to a taxi driver. She didn't know what I was saying, so I busted out my mad pictionary skills and drew the infamous 5 rings...."Oh, oh, ok, the Olympic Garden." And off we went into the cold night with a taxi driver that didn't even know how to say "hello" in English.

Somehow we got there without getting lost. Everywhere I go I see Chinese people taking pictures in Richard Nixon pose. So I decided that "when in Rome..."

Here's the stadium. Again, pictures don't do it justice. It's typically lit up too, a bright red color. It's pretty neat. John and I couldn't decide if all the steal beams you see are actually part of the structure of the building, or if they're just there for funsies.


Here's the aquatic center. You can't tell here, but those things that look like water droplets are actually 3-D and really do look like real water when you see them in person.

I couldn't really get a good picture of the tower to share because of all the lighting around it and on it. But it was pretty cool too.

That's all I have for tonight. I'm sorry if there are a dozen typos but I am falling asleep at the keyboard currently, so this is about as well as I can do. Tomorrow will be the Forbidden City and Tienamin (sp??) Square. I'll get my spelling on that one right by tomorrow night for you :)

I miss you guys! Although I am LOVING this trip, I also can't wait to get back home to all of you.

My Long Day.

I'm writing this at 5:30 in the morning here because yesterday I came back to the hotel at 9 and crashed immediately. I'm getting ready to go see the Great Wall of China in 2 hours!!! I can't believe that! This is going to be so amazing! [Edit...I am now finishing the blog I started writing at 5:30 this morning because I didn't get it finished (It's now 4:45 in the pm). I have now seen the wall, but I am going to finish this one before supper and post about my day at the wall after supper, so you will just have to wait!!]

Yesterday when we arrived at the customers around 9 we immediately realized that I had, in fact, solved the mystery of the leaking torque hubs. All that had happened was that the customer did not wipe off the oil when they took off the covers to refill them and oil had collected around the outside retaining ring groove and slowly oozed to the bottom. There's not a shop rag one in this place anyway. But because they saw oil, they automatically thought "leak."

However, it wasn't that easy to convince the customer of this, and we finally left around 2 after several hours of showing pressurization tests to them and explaining and reexplaining the solution to the interpreters. Having a language gap makes things ten times harder. Finally, we left it at, "Well, the units are not leaking now, but if they end up leaking we will replace them." But I know that they're not going to leak because they held 3 times the air pressure they're supposed to (I uped the amount to 30 psi instead of 10 because I was being a smart alec trying to drive home a point). And what do we remember from middle school science children? Air will fit through cracks oil will not. But I can not convince the customer of this. Argh.

So after this insanely frustrating day out in the cold, we got back to the hotel around 4 and were leaving at 5:30 for dinner so I needed something to do. I wasn't feeling motivated to type, sleep, or watchin Chinese TV, so I decided to venture down to level B1 of the hotel and see what was going on at the spa. Bingo.

I went down with the idea that I was just going to get a pedicure and have them change my chipped nail polish, but since I couldn't communicate well enough to them, I ended up with an hour and a half long foot rub.

It was AMAZING. If ever you are in China please do this for yourself. The girl rubbed my arms for 20 minutes, then moved on to my feet for about 50. After that she put my socks and shoes on, so I thought I was finished. But she layed the chair I was in down and had me flip over and then proceeded to give me a back and calf massage for the next 20. Absolutely amazing. I was starting to get worried about the bill because of how long I had been there and the extent of things she had done to me, but when I got the bill back that said $33.00 I smiled and went on my very happy way. Wow.

For dinner last night we went to a restaurant that had "Beijing Duck." Ummm, can we say, delicious?!?! They actually give you a certificate to keep with the number duck you ate. I don't know why we don't have duck more often in the US. Although, I will say that because they Chinese are not a wasteful people, we ate every part of the duck...the feet, the heart, and the head. I strayed away from the feet and head, but did have a heart, and it wasn't anything to write home about. Mostly like a chicken liver...kinda spoungy. They also served us jellyfish last night, which I feel that I have been pretty adventurous with my eating habits so far, but I drew the line there. I don't eat anything I'm terrified of (and my dad will attest to my emotional breakdown on a beach in Hawaii while attempting to muster up the courage to snorkle, thus proving exaclty how deep this fear of jellyfish really is). Anyway, I'll leave you with pictures.

Here's the unit I used for my tests. Now my name will be forever infamous in Chinese heavy industrial equiptment history. Or, at least will be until they paint it black.

The thing that I have truly loved about my job at Fairfield is that they guys I work with have allowed me to completely maintain my femininity while working in a male dominated environment. I do get teased on occasion, but in general I have seen nothing but respect from my collegues. And they don't even mention it when I lay my Vera Bradley purse on a tire as big as I am. I think this could be used as a new VB marketing picture, what do you think!?!?!

Also, I am going to write a letter to Vera Bradley when I get home telling them that they are completely missing out on what could be an extremely lucrative Asian market. The Chinese girls have gone absolutely gaga over this bag. I am not even close to joking.

Now I do have a joke for you. How many Chinese does it take to change a lightbulb??

This many. And it still wasn't changed when we got back the next day. (I hope I haven't crossed a line here, but I found the situation hilarious.)

The certificate for our delicious duck! Poor little Quackers.