here, there, everywhere

Things from the last 72 hours:

1. 24 hours before we were all set to leave for our summer camp job, we got an e-mail from our recruiter saying that, due to a newly imposed restriction, recent arrivals to China are *not* allowed near schools due to the swine flu risk, so, no job for us. The harried recruiters then graciously spent the next 24 hours trying to find us alternatives - including one city 16 hours away by train and another in what only seemed to be described as "one of the three hottest cities in China in the summer," and we started seriously considering fleeing back to Vietnam to look elsewhere. Finally, after advising us to buy tickets to said hottest city, they realized we'd in fact been in China long enough, and - several hours after our original train left - told us to jump on the next train and take our original jobs.

2. So, against a number of odds, we figured out the glitzy Shanghai train station and arrived in town yesterday afternoon, where we were picked up by two incredibly friendly teaching assistants who'll be working at the camp with us, and were whisked to an abandoned middle school campus which is flanked by about a million tiny world flags fluttering around a "HAPPY INTEGRITY PROGRESS" and lots of rainbows. There are a number of other teachers, some of whom, fortunately, speak fluent Mandarin, otherwise none of us would have any clue what was going on, but for the next two weeks I'll be up to my ears in very small children who speak an indeterminate amount of English, and we have absolutely nothing in the way of materials, aside from a xeroxed sheet of possible 'conversation topics' - including how to fill out a job application, and the differences between learning British and American English - burning issues for the average eight year old. So it's a bit odd, but nothing I don't think I can handle, and certainly not nearly as overwhelming as...

3. The camps "Opening Ceremony" tonight: after being told only to show up by 7 pm, we were then lined up and marched out of the school to realize we were standing underneath the HAPPY INTEGRITY PROGRESS banner in front of the entire camp (500 kids? 600?), who, in their neat lines with their neat (and fitted) uniforms, looked a fair bit more presentable than the teachers in their too-large shirts (the camp had only ordered XXXL and XXL) and who had no idea they were going to be on display. After some welcoming speeches by various camp directors, with the kids clapping and shouting "WELCOME!" at appropriate intervals, and also including an incredibly cute speech by a little girl who looked to be about eleven and who had amazing English, and an improvised speech from one of the teachers (so I guess some of us knew what was going to happen), they then set off about some massive, earsplittingly loud fireworks on either side of the school. For the next four or five minutes, the incredibly cute kids in the audience covered their ears and stood there looking back and forth and back and forth as the fireworks exploded to the left and to the right, and then, finally, we got the signal to move offstage.

4. Only, as I started to follow Iain, one of the camp directors flagged me down and asked if I didn't mind being interviewed for the news (!!), so for then next few minutes, I awkwardly smiled and tried to figure out who I was supposed to look at (the guy with the camera? the woman translating? the guy asking the questions?) and babbled about where I was from, how I'd never been to China but how I had taught in Vietnam before, how I was really excited to learn all about China from my students and tell them all about San Francisco and how I would really focus on teaching my kids how to communicate (I didn't mention the filling out job applications part.) So I might be in the news! Somewhere. Maybe.

5. So: we are here, with jobs, and - for the next two weeks, at least - internet access in our lovely hotel room! The other teachers seem nice, the town seems chilled and not unpleasantly hot, and I have no idea what to expect tomorrow, but that's all that's going on for now.

6. Except for one last thing: China has seen fit to block Facebook in addition to Blogspot lately, which has been surprisingly depressing - I miss at least knowing what people are doing while I'm so far away, and there's a lot of people I can't get in touch with otherwise! So I'm incredibly sorry in advance if I'm more out the loop than usual, but at least Gmail still works for now if you need me.

We are in Shanghai, where we haven't done much more than get ourselves to our hostel (no easy feat with four massive bags) and make a brief excursion out to the Bund, though before we were even allowed to get off the plane, we had our temperatures taken by a solemn, white-hazmatted health inspector in the plane, who took *every* single person's temperature with a strange forehead laser pointer before giving us clearance to step into China. This morning was muggy, though not as humid as Hanoi, and the tops of the Pudong skyscrapers were shrouded in mist. (I am not evolved or classy enough, by the way, to not snicker at the name "Pudong.") We haven't had the chance to explore much, but despite being massively exhausted, I'm so excited to be here; Shanghai definitely a world away from Hanoi and we have a whole week before summer camp starts, so more to follow I hope. (A side note - China blocks blogspot, the website I usually post through, so any blogs while I'm here are either posted via flickr or e-mail, so I'm sorry in advance if they look a bit funky).

We said goodbye to LA this morning and - after an amazing pancake breakfast graciously cooked by my eleven year old cousin - set off North towards Monterey along the Pacific Coast Highway, a drive I've never done before and which is even more beautiful than I'd imagined. 

For all my worries about driving out of LA (after the two hours spent inching along the 10 when we arrived), the drive was actually a lot of fun, and was accompanied by two CDs made explicitly for use along the PCH, which Iain's former boss made for him before we left Hanoi. (So if you think it's lame that I quoted the Red Hot Chili Peppers in my subject heading, you should just be relieved I didn't say anything about long strange trips or being a goddess on the highway. All hot-linking aside, the CDs are great company, so, thanks, Iain's old boss!).

(This is my favorite kind of scenery in the whole world.) 

The Continental Divide
After two days of non-stop driving along the I-80, Iain and I made it to Boulder, where we had a great time hanging out with Ryan-from-Hanoi (and also, briefly, my awesome stepsister Nika and her friend). Ryan was able to show us a lot more of Colorado then I'd ever seen before, including more snowy weather than I'd ever thought possible in June. 


Ryan and Iain climbed to the top of Mount Evans (after we drove to the observatory just underneath the top of Mount Evans). I did not, because I am a wimp. Ryan, incidentally, is about to leave on a one month long hike all alone through the mountains, so he probably didn't even notice the two minutes it took the two of them to climb to the top while I picked my way gingerly through the icy snow below and tried not to fall down.

And then we saw Marmots! Best road trip ever! 

Guess which state we're still in? 

My new favorite sign, in Winnemuca, NV.
Twelve hours and six hundred miles into the road trip, we're staying the night in Wendover, a "resort" town that straddles Nevada and Utah; we're on the Nevada side, staying alongside a stretch of shady casinos (this wireless network's password, ominously, is "mafia") and resisting the temptation to gamble away our budget at the Red Garter, though Iain succumbed to the Well's rest stop's slot machines and lost a whole 25¢. 

Iain shows off in Los Altos.
Setting off early tomorrow in my sister's car, armed with newly-minted AAA membership, language-learning CDs and some Google maps that helpfully show us exactly what the roads look like, to visit our friend Ryan, formerly of Hanoi and now of Colorado. I always have fun hanging out with Ryan (and his awesome girlfriend, Jessica) so I'm really happy we'll get to see him again, and am hoping that said happy thoughts will provide any additional nudges I need to get over my lifelong aversion to freeway driving. I'd like to think I'm over it after driving some of the scariest roads I've ever seen in much worse conditions throughout Vietnam. Nonetheless, while I've borne witness to this drive twice before, it's never been as the driver, so this will be... interesting. 
We have less than a month left in the States and many plans are afoot, though I'm going to wait till they're a little more solidified before blathering about them on the internet. I've figured out how to update this thing via text messages*, so will post more from the road! 
* Also, in the realm of newly discovered technological advances - I have a webcam now! Which would have been a slightly embarrassing admission back in 1999 (when my soon-to-be college roommate freaked me out with a similar announcement) but which, in this age of iSight and general online overexposure, is probably just sadly passe. At any rate, not much point to this except to say that even if I can't yet promise to stay in better touch than I did in Hanoi, at least I'll be able to make an actual smily face at you on iChat this time around. 

This last Sunday marks a year since the night Iain and I met; it was also, weirdly, the day I was supposed to leave Hanoi according to my original ticket, so yay for changed plans and dumb luck. To celebrate, we took a day off from the job hunt and Japanese studying to go into San Francisco, where we rented bicycles and - alongside a herd of bewildered-looking tourists on identical bikes with their identical tourists maps stuck to their handlebars and a fleet of humorless, spandexed cyclists who did not enjoy sharing the road anymore than the cars - rode along the piers, across the Golden Gate bridge, and into Sauselito. Biking in the States is a far cry from riding my bicycle in Hanoi (the bad: seriously? you have to obey the traffic signals? the good: so does everyone else, which makes the likelihood of bus-inflicted death significantly lower)  but we had lots of fun and, as ever, I still don't quite know how I was ever lucky enough to meet such an wonderful, smart, sweet and funny person with whom I can have all these adventures, but I am grateful for him every day, no matter where in the world we end up. 
 

A break from the never-ending photos of the Northern mountains to post a few of Kyoto that I never got around to posting last year, because endless photos of beautiful mountain views get monotonous, and reading and thinking endlessly about Japan has made me even more easily distracted than usual. All of these are from my massive day of shin-splint-inducing temple hopping last February, though I can't remember which temple was which anymore.

The sign (in English) says: Special Moss, like VIP! Do not touch.

I don't have any photos of being home yet, mostly because my camera and lens are both at the camera hospital, being cleaned (the camera) and massively repaired (the much-abused lens) after more than a year of being rattled all over South East Asia, and because they served put up with so much abuse at my hands, I am trying not to resent them for the horrific cost of the repairs and resign myself to being a grown-up by taking care of my nice things. At any rate, being here means mostly looking for work and studying Japanese, with varying levels of success; not many of the larger schools are willing to accommodate couples looking for work together, which has been frustrating, as we want to live if not work together - but we have a few leads and also some backup plans if those should fall through.