Can't Wait--Here's our apartment!!!

Hello Friends and Family,

Kealy and I decided not to wait until tomorrow to show you some pictures so here are some of apartment just to give you an idea and we will post some of the city tomorrow: We hope you enjoy looking at our pictures


Walking to our plane in Canada

Here is the outside of the main building at the middle school where we are staying

Our livng room with comfy chairs

The other half of our living room

Looking from our balcony

Bedroom

Kitchen

Bathroom-sorry it's upside down

The college

The flee market

Don't Be Shy, Just Try

Hello Friends and Family,

Well, we made it through the second day of our adventure here in China! It was quite a full day. We woke up early in the morning after sleeping for thirteen hours, still feeling the jet lag. In the morning we went for a nice walk around the college and got some good exercise! We have seen two new birds already. The equivalent of a house sparrow and a black and white beautiful bird called a white wagtail! We met up with our new American friends yesterday morning and spent time talking with them in their apartment. Then they took us and showed us around the neighborhood near the middle school. We found out that the college has only single apartments so that is why we are here at the middle school. It works out great because the Americans are here and the neighborhood has a food market, a few restaurants and a supermarket. They took us to lunch and we experienced 'Lao Yao Fen' (Old friend noodle). It was very good! We had it 'bu laa' (not so spicey). We are getting used to being stared at and being called 'Lao wei' (foreigner) but the people staring will say hello when we say 'ni hao'. It is a curious stare, not a mean one. Our American friend was so very thankful that we brought down some oatmeal, hot chocolate and M +Ms for him. he loved the REAL chocolate that they don't have here in China. After lunch we went and talked with the school administrator, Celia, and met her husband and five year old daugheter Amy. We played dice and uno with her and practiced counting in English and Chinese. Then, they took us downtown to the bird and flower market and Celia really wanted to pick out some dresses for Kealy for them to tailor make for her. At the bird and flower market, there were all kinds of things. Birds, turtles, fish, flowers, jewelry, pottery, hand-woven furniture. It was really cool. Kealy did a great job picking out fabric for her dresses. Celia said the style and color was 'very Chinese'. All of the women here wear beautiful summer dresses and so Kealy wanted to pick up a few. The total cost of the dresses is only about $20 US dollars for a handmade-fitted dress. In the evening our American friends cooked a great dinner for us with Mushrooms, spiced zucchini, duck eggs, pork and rice and it was very good. Then they took us to their favorite coffee place where I (Ryan) had a cup of Colombian coffee and Kealy had Rose Milk Tea with actual roses in it for flavor. They told us a great Chinese riddle as we were talking about food: "What is the only thing with four legs that the Chinese won't eat.......A Table!" When we arrived back at the middle school we had a power outage that was fun and only lasted about 10 minutes but apparently they occur about once a week. As we were sitting in our living room unwinding last night, we spotted a small gecko running across our living room floor. I swept him up in our broom and put him outside our door! We are having a great time. Today we are going to go downtown again and explore and hopefully we will meet back at the college. Tomorrow, we will post some pictures of our apartment, the college and the city for you to see where we are living and hanging out. We miss you all and will talk to you soon.

Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy Thorson

We're Here!!!

Hello Friends and Family,
We made it China! It was quite the plane trip, but we were able to keep ourselves busy. The longest flight was actually the one from Beijing to Nanning. We were tired and the plane seats were very small and everyone was Chinese! How about that? After we left Beijing, the flight attendants and captains didn't even speak English over the intercom, so we realized we were really into it now! We arrived and Mr. River picked us up at the airport just fine. Customs was a little too easy. Hopefully we filed and claimed all the right items, we are not sure.

Our apartment is actually at the middle school and not the college. We were a little surpirised by this and are still trying to find out why. We do not want to offend them by asking why we are not at the college, because we like the apartment here, but it is about 8 kilometers from the college and we will have to take a bus each morning. On the upside, however, right when we arrived at the apartment, a man named Chris came out to meet us. He is an American and is teaching English at the Middle School. He has offered to help us in anyway that he can and we are about to take him up on it. We are having problems getting our laptop hooked up to the internet, which is why we haven't called you yet and accessing e-mail on the computer we were given. I did however manage to make it onto the blog and make this post. Our apartment is very big. We have a living room, a room with our computer, a bedroom with a closet for clothes, a small kitchen and a bathroom with a shower. In all it is about 700 to 800 square feet. There is airconditioning in the bedroom and a fan in the living room. We are on the fourth floor.

It is very hot and humid here. Yesterday, we were taking to tour the college and sign the contract. We met a very nice woman named Kate who is Mr. River's secretary. She speaks pretty good English. It is difficult to commnunicate at times, but we just laught about it and keep trying. She showed us around the college. By the time we finished walking, we were drenched with sweat. My shirt was soaked through and they laughed at me but there was nothing I could do about it. The classrooms are open air with no air conditioning. We met the president of the college and the vice-president and they were very kind. We were taking down to eat lunch and they were interested to see how good with chopsticks we were. We did okay. The food was good. Corn, potatoes, chicken, vegetables with rice and it filled us up. After lunch, we got a bus downtown with Kate and another gentleman and went to Wal-Mart to get things we needed for our apartment (i.e. towels, soap, more dishes, cleaning supplies). We had quite the time and it was fun sharing English words for things with Chinese words for things. Both Kate and the gentleman were our age and very kind. They both work for Mr. River.

It has just started raining at our apartment. It is 8:30 in the morning. Last night, we came home very tired and overwhelmed from our day and slept from 5:00 PM to 6:00 AM this morning. But we got up and went for a nice walk and have since been cleaning. We had oatmeal and ate it with our chopsticks. There is a large jug of purified water in our apartment. It is warm but safe. We fill up our bottles and put them in the fridge to cool them down.

Today, we are going to ask Chris (the other American here) to help us with our internet connection, where to throw the garbage, how to do laundry, etc. and maybe try and find out why we are here and not at the college. It is still a nice apartment, we are just curious. We also might go downtown and explore some more. For now we will just watch the rain. It is a little overwhelming, but we are together. We are getting used to being stared at and working on the language barrier. They do not speak much English. We are glad we have been brought here. Please be thinking about us as we continue to adjust. We love you and miss you. Hopefully we can call or e-mail soon.

Sincerely,

Ryan and Kealy Thorson

Leaving On A Jet Plane

Hello Friends and Family,

Well, the time has arrived. In less than 12 hours we will be in the air towards China! Today was a productive day. We were able to fit all of the clothes and items we wanted to take with us into our four suitcases. We went to Fred Meyer and stocked up on powerbars, hot chocolate and oatmeal, just in case it takes us a while to find food when we get there. We have confirmed that Mr. River, our contact at the college, will meet us at the airport when we arrive at midnight, Sunday night. For those of you on the west coast, we will be in Nanning at 9 AM sunday morning your time.

We hope to be able to contact you soon and post a blog of our apartment and an update on our first couple days. It will all depend on when we can get access to the internet. We fly to Vancouver, B.C. tomorrow, then from there to Beijing and onto Nanning. Including layovers, it will be 24 hours traveling time. Should be quite the trip. We have iPods, a computer, books and snacks so hopefully we can stay busy.

We love each of you very much and will miss you while we are gone, but we are excited to finally start this adventure and to begin to share with you the experiences we will have. Please be thinking of us as we sign our contract and get situated at the college, meeting the students and other professors we will be working with. See you soon.

Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy Thorson

Tears at Triangle Lake

Hello Friends and Family,

Wow! we leave for China in less than 48 hours. We are busy packing today and seeing some family for dinner at Izzy's tonight. A good smogesboard (I have no idea how to spell that word?) of American food at easy should be great for one of our last meals in America. This last Monday through Wednesday, we were able to spend a great time with our mid-hi kids and friends at Triangle Lake. We had so much fun laughing and spending time together with people that we have grown so close to in the last three years. We went tubing, swimming, ate a lot of hamburgers and even through some cheese on windows! We also purchased a video camera to capture our adventures in China, and we took it with us to camp So...once we have a chance I can mess around with iMovie and put a compilation of clips from Triangle Lake onto the blog. We love each of you so much and we are really going to miss the fun times we spend with the junior high kids and the amazing adults that have become some of our closest friends. More updates tomorrow...for now, its back to stuffing the suitcases!

Sincerely,

Ryan and Kealy Thorson

Wondering in One Week--7 Days

Hello Friends and Family,

Well, one week from today we'll be in the air, on the way to our adventure. I think it might finally hit us when we get on the plane that we are really doing this. Everything will be extremely new and interesting. We are still very excited! Wrapping up a lot of little details and enjoying spending time with friends and family of course. Most of our days consist of running one place to return something we don't need and get something we do, figuring out how to put a year's worth of clothes in a few suitcases, and going out to dinner or lunch or coffee with a friend or family member. Kealy and her Dad are having a big breakfast out this morning and my mom is making french toast, pretty tough living with the parents again! It has been great being in Sandy with them and getting to see them a lot. Tomorrow is our last chance to see friends in Salem and then it is on to Triangle Lake for a little relaxation with some great friends! Should be a fun time, we are trying to get packed before then. We'll see if it happens and we'll keep you posted.

Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy Thorson

Counting the days on the fingers--10 Days

Hello Friends and Family,
Well, we've got a week and a half before we are out of the country! We are busily preparing, trying to wrap up loose ends here and pack and prepare for our adventure there. As you can see, I have strategically laid out all of our luggage so that we can effectively place the items that are traveling with us in the suitcases this week. We hope to be all packed by the end of the week, so we can relax at Triangle Lake with our friends, and then do a final check and rest the last two days we're in the states.


Yesterday we had quite the day shopping. We were told by many people that it is hard to find our size shoes in China. So, after trips to Joe's, Payless Shoe store and Ross, we came away with 10 new pairs of shoes. Normally we would never ever buy that many shoes in one day, I usually have only two to three pairs of shoes ever, but since we are going to be in the land of little shoes, we decided we had best stock up. So, I think we have enough shoes...hopefully. We have two suitcases each, a carry on bag, and a personal item; a guitar for me and the laptop for Kealy. We might have to stuff our pockets with random items as well to take everything we want with us. It will be nice that we can buy a lot of items over there (i.e. hairdryers, razors, alarm clocks, etc.) but it has still been hard trying to downsize and fit everything in. Oh well, it's just stuff.

Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy Thorson