Merry Christmas

Christmas is just another regular work/school in China,  but Annette managed to buy this floor sample Christmas tree from Ikea, we had the boys play hooky from school, and we found a cafe that served turkey and ham for our Christmas feast.

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Bumper cars with guns

The boys had a wonderful time discovering a local park that had a bunch of amusement rides, all with guns on them--even the bumper cars! #onlyinchina

Tourpocalypse

Annette said that they were some one of the most beautiful nature spots she had ever been to, and that would have to sum it up.  Though we did run into the crowds of the 700 million strong Chinese tourpocalypse, and almost got stampeded at times, we still had a very lovely time.  I wouldn't recommend traveling during Chinese National Holiday week ever again though!

The water was so clear in Jiuzhaigou that you could see the fish swimming along the beautiful clear blue and green waters.

This was called Pearl Shoals Falls, to describe the pearly appearance of the water tumbling down the mountain.

Joshua spent a good time admiring this waterfall, and we did so as well.  This was the last part of our hike and he said, that it was great we saved the best for last!

Nourilang waterfalls

The stream behind our house seemed so idyllic.

On the drive back to the airport, we ran into more horses than cars.  We were surprised to find that we were pretty much in Tibet.  China is so expansive.

At Zhangzhaijie, the boys really liked this stream and the rocks they could throw into it.

Hiking along the stream, we could see the moutains towering above.

Zhangjiajie's mountains were incredibly tall, beautiful, and out of this world.

We took our time trekking around, stopping here for a lunch break on top of the mountain.

In Chengdu, we stopped at the People's Park for some tea with the locals.

And saw adorable baby pandas at the vey successful breeding center.

Our cross country trip took us to 3 cities, and on 4 flights over the course of just 7 days.  It was a great introduction to the natural wonders of China!

Fall at the Old Summer Palace

One of our favorite places to go in Beijing to escape the urban jungle, is the Old Summer Palace, which is a park/garden built around the ruins of the old palace, that was twice destroyed by foreign invaders.  I actually prefer it to the regular Summer Palace--something so beautiful arising from old ruins is really charming.
And the boys love the hiking paths up and down the hills all over the park.
This weekend, was a smogfree, autumn smorgasbord of a day and we drank it in.

cruising around the lakes at sunset

Clone Trooper School

Annette mentioned this already in her blog, but I thought I would share these two photos for comparison:

Annette's blog

Annette has started her own (much better than mine) blog about her time in Beijing:
http://pekingdiary.wordpress.com/

First day of school

Joshua starts his first day of Chinese school today.

Beijing AQI

When we landed into a cloud of smog, Joshua noted, "There is a lot of carbon dioxide out there." Well, technically it's not CO2, but he's got the right idea. I was immediately grateful that Annette brought those three air purifiers with us.

We monitor the Beijing Air Quality Index (AQI), and have noticed that it seems to have a circadian rhythm varying with the wind patterns.

The air quality in Beijing has been surprisingly good and really hasn't been as bad as I was expecting. I even contemplated going on a run yesterday, except it was 91 degrees outside.

Flight to Beijing

It has been a little crazy packing and getting ready for our move the past days. Both Annette and I didn't get to sleep 2 of the last 3 nights.
But we found a really nice airport shuttle driver, Tony, who helped get us and our 13 pieces of luggage to the airport at 4 am this morning.
Unfortunately, our connecting flight in Denver was delayed, so we missed our flight out of SFO to Beijing. But then, there was a cooling issue with that aircraft, so the pilot turned the plane back while taxiing on the runway, and had everyone get off the plane.
So fortunately for us, now we are back on the flight we had missed. :-)
Now if our luggage can just make it out with us...

Visas and Packing

After all that hounding folks in China, the expense (>$1200), checking and rechecking the forms, fedexing documents to a company in NYC to expedite the visa processing, facetiming with admins to make sure the information was correct, and the long long wait, we finally got our China Visa today.  Yippeee.  And also underwhelming--it was just 1 sticker on each of our passports.  I told Annette, "All that for this?"  She said, "Get used to it.  Bureaucracy in China means taking a lot of time and trouble to do very simple things."  OK, here we go.

We are packing 4 big suitcases,  4 carryons, and 3 big air purifiers for our trip.  T minus 5 days until take off.

Samuel has just started to express a lot of hesitation about moving from Boston.  "Can we go to China for 2 days and then come back to Boston?" he asked Annette this morning.   Joshua is feeling "good and happy" about it, for now.

Another environmental scare story about Beijing

"Life in a Toxic Country" from NY Times Aug 3, 2013

Beijing apartment secured

Annette just returned from a busy week in Beijing, and succeeded in renting an apartment for us near Peking University (Beida).  It's a 2 bedroom in a high rise, close to McDonalds!

She spent one day trying to wipe off all the soot that seeps into the apartment from outside.  Her right arm hurt afterwards, and she only got through one room.

Her friend at Beida is still seeing if he can get us into an apartment on campus, but we are grateful to have a place we can move into for now.

Getting the China visa is a huge bureaucratic hurdle, and we are still waiting for an official invitation letter to apply for the visa.  Last word, is it will take at least 3 weeks for the letter.  Uh, we leave for China in 41 days!

Annette was also debating about whether to bring air purifiers to China from US or getting them there.  Apparently due to the demand, there is a huge markup there, but the thought of lugging two more 30lb appliances around the airports doesn't sound like a great idea either.

Annette also met with the school directors for Samuel's kindergarten and Joshua's elementary school and it seems like that will be set as well.  Samuel's school day will actually be longer than Joshua, and we're a little worried the 9-5 day may be too long for him, and hope we can pick him up earlier.

Things seem to be coming to a close for us here in Boston.   We are trying to see people to say goodbye and to do our favorite things one last time before we leave.  This weekend, we had a great beach day at Crane Beach and ferried over to Spectacle Island for a clambake.

More Logistics

We had a change in plans and won't be returning to California before going to Beijing so when we first tried to change our tickets, we were horrified at the change fees and additional costs involved:  something like 97,000 additional miles, + $450 for our tickets, and another $900 for Annette's tickets.  Fortunately, an angel by the name of Angela Rose from United's ticket office in Detroit finally got us squared away for just $300, but we just have to make some tight 1hr connections from Boston-->Denver-->SFO--Beijing.

Sometimes it's nice to have a wife who has "command" as one of her strengths, per Strengthfinders.  She manged to lobby MIT to pay for our entire move to LA, which comes out to just over $17k!  Thanks Annette, I'm going to make a donation to your clothing budget!

Joshua is starting up his tutoring sessions in Mandarin, transitioning to learning Simplifed Chinese characters using this book series.  I am starting to step up my Chinese studying as well.  The tools available for learning Chinese now are incredible:  Pleco OCR,  ChineseWriter

We've given up on buying a home in LA right now.  The housing market is going through the roof.
Annette called one listing and just after a few days, they had already 15 offers, made 10 counter offers, and advised her to only make an offer 100-200k above asking price, and also, to come with cash.   Right.

Annette is headed out to Beijing this week to look for an apartment and to see if she can get our boys signed up for school at the primary school.

55 days to go until Beijing.

Tickets bought

We were waffling on where we should depart from, and what date to depart for awhile, but once we made a decision, everything else came very quickly:  tickets purchased, work end dates fixed, other summer plans decided, and here we go.  August 21 2013 will be our launch date.

We have the rest of this summer to pack our stuff, decide what little we need to take to Beijing, what else to send to storage in California, find a place to stay in Beijing, get the China visas sorted, and the boys schools situation settled.

Annette has a done a lot of leg work around looking for schools for the boys.  Hopefully there will be spots of our boys to attend the primary school attached to Peking University.  It's a school for the children of university faculty, and it's not the typical Chinese school apparently.  It's not all rote memory and grueling seatwork, but they do schedule breaks for eye exercises.

We are hoping this experience will not traumatize the boys to Chinese culture and language, but hopefully will open their (as well as our) eyes to the culture(s) of the 1.3 billion people in China.

We've done a lot of looking onine, it's amazing what you can actually see on Google Maps of another city, and doing Youtube searches.  There is an apartment complex close to Peking University that a lot of students  and visiting scholars live at:  Huaqingjiayuan Apartments that we are eyeing.  When Annette goes out there in July, we hope to find a place that works out.

When I saw this article in the NYTimes, I almost freaked out and decided against taking our kids there for a year, but after doing some more research, I was more reassured that going was not going to cause real permanent lung damage to the boys.  We'll have to bring or get some good face masks and air purifiers.