little trouble in big china.

After 24 hours of travel, Taylor made it to China in one piece.

We have been able to Skype and email a little whenever he wakes up and I'm getting ready for bed and vice versa (on account of the 13 hour time diff), which has been nice. It's like we have traveled back in time to the early days of our blossoming love affair.

ANYWAY, I asked him to update the blog with his various adventures in China, BUT he is unable to access google (which includes blogger) and also Facebook. I've found some of his email updates humorous so I thought I would copy and paste them in lieu of him blogging.

Sunday Night :

"I got here just fine. 

The flight from Seattle to Beijing was tough. It wasn't long into the flight that I started burping collard greens that I got from Paschal's in Atlanta airport and I knew everything wasn't ok. I sat in my seat with my belt undone for a while. Then got a coke and walked around in the back of the plane a little. Then I started to feel like I really might barf up those collard greens along with the chopsteak, so I stood in the airplane bathroom. For about an hour. Finally I just pooped. I hoped that would be the end, so I finally asked for my dinner. The chicken and stuffing smelled delicious, but when it hit my tongue my body was clearly rejecting it. So I went and stood in the other bathroom. While in there both times I preemptively cleaned the seats off and practiced squeezing my legs around the toilet in the tiny little room to get ready for when I lost it. But I just couldn't puke. So after another hour or so in there I sat back down and was fortunate enough to be able to sleep it off after eating a slice of cucumber. I finally was able to get my cold dinner down after the first hour or so nap. All in all I ended up sleeping quite a bit after that.

But I knew when it didn't come out the top end that it would later meet me at the back alley. And it did. As soon as I stood up to get off the plane it hit me that I needed to clear my bowels. And I had to wait for everyone to clear out. I followed the crowd out of the tunnel, up the escalator, noting that everything was in Chinese and thinking that I had pictured my first steps in China to be less frantic, and finally around the corner found the bathroom. It was very relieving, but by the time it had subsided I was left all alone. 

I followed the signs for baggage claim and eventually caught up with everyone at the customs desk. I made it through without a problem and found my driver that was arranged. It was Sindy's husband, Yang Yong He. It was an hour and a half drive or so to the hotel and we chatted the whole way. Until we stopped so I could pee on the side of the road. That was really the first I saw of China, when I stepped over the siderail of the highway to pee in the middle of the night. It was nice finally putting my Chinese to the test for the first time in so long. It was a struggle to remember some very basic words. When I went to tell him how we had locked ourselves out of the house on the way to the airport and had to reach my arm up in the doggy door to break back into the house to get the car keys I had to ask him how to say the words wallet and arm. Pretty weak. Along the way I told him how much I was looking forward to some good chinese food and mentioned a few of my favorites, so when we got close to the hotel he treated me to one of the things I mentioned, niu rou mian or beef noodle soup. It was excellent"

I probably should have warned you about all the toilet talk in that one, but whatever. It is what is, and it made ME laugh.

Monday he had the day off to adjust and rest. He sent me pictures of his breakfast. That is one thing I am happy about, that he gets to enjoy the Chinese food he loves so dearly. But this breakfast looks weird. 

Just as a side note, this breakfast cost 34 american dollars!

He got a haircut (which was crazy to me that they allow haircuts in China that aren't bowl cuts) and he sent me this email Monday evening:

"Dear Kynslie,
I didn't go sightseeing. I met up with Mark instead and he went over what all is going on here. Then we went over to Motorola. We walked by where they make all these phones. I was surprised when he said they don't even wear gloves when they're making them. It was cool to see how normal and crappy looking it is looking inside one of these huge corporations. Also, it's snowing a little. Also, people drive like maniacs here. There seem to be very loose interpretations of traffic laws. People don't care about lanes. It's crazy. Also, I love you. 

Your husband in love,
Taylor"

Later we skyped when it was a about two in the morning his time. He told me he was hungry so we parted ways. Later I got this email:

"Dear Kynslie,

I went to get some dumplings just now cuz i forgot to eat dinner. The first place the taxi driver tried to take me to was closed, so he kindly offered to take me to get some beers and have some pretty girls accompany me. I said no and he found me a 24 hour dumpling shop. Me likely. He gave me his number and wants to be my friend. Now I will try to sleep.

Love you long time,
Taylor"

It makes me feel so special to know that he turned down an offer so enticing as some beers and pretty Asian girls. 

"i'm in a glass case of emotion!"

um, so this week was super crazy.

Wednesday morning, April left. I woke up to an empty apartment. Something felt weird about that morning. A text came in on the borrowed phone that I have that was across the room, but I figured it was probably some junk message from the service provider, so I ignored it. About an hour later I got a call on the house phone from Taylor at work.

This is how the conversation went:

Tay: "Hi, did you get my text message?"

Kyns: "Uhhh no."

Tay: "Okay well, you probably won't like this but today I talked to my boss, and it looks like they will be sending me to China for a month."

Kyns: ........................

Tay: "And unfortunately they said I can't bring my wife."

Kyns: ......................

Tay: "You're crying aren't you?"

I was crying. That might sound like a stupid reason to cry, but who in the world wants to be away from their husband for a month? Let alone any time period at all. AND THAT'S NOT THE ONLY THING, we haven't even established ourselves in Savannah and now that was going to be delayed even longer.

So I spent all of Wednesday feeling sorry for myself.
Thursday accepting everything, but secretly wishing that he couldn't get his visa to go.
And then Friday rolled around and I had just written a "woe is me" blog about the further delay of my normal life when I got another phone call from the Mr. himself.
and this is how that conversation went:

Tay: "So, what would your emotional reaction be if I didn't go to China?"

Kyns: "Well, obviously I would like that."

Tay: "You would be happy?"

Kyns: "Yes! Very."

Tay: "Okay then I won't go."

It turns out that they decided it wouldn't be fair to send Taylor to China when we hadn't been given a chance to get settled in Savannah. Once again, I am extremely grateful that he has a manager who cares at least a little about his family life.

I kind of feel like I had to experience that moment of drama to be sure that I appreciate the mediocre life that is ahead of me. Because that's really, all I want is to call somewhere home and have some sense of stability.

Taylor was a little bit bummed, cause he was a kind of excited to go, (there is still a chance he could go, but not until after we get back.)

So naturally went to get Chinese food to celebrate. We found a pretty good place in Oxford that was pretty legitimate for real Chinese food. They had "Hot Pot" which is not a drug, but basically Chinese fondue. [Are you ready for another Wikipedia link? Okay aaannnd NOW.]

IT WAS DISGUSTING. But Taylor enjoyed every second of it. It made me happy to see him happy, and in general I was just happy that things might actually go my way. So nothing could get me down, not even plastic flavored meat or shrimps with their heads still on.

It's pretty crazy to think that we have LESS than 2 weeks left here, 12 days to be exact. But as you can tell by my previously mentioned dramatics, I am more than ready to get back to America and be a normal boring human being with my little puppy and my husband.

P.S.
Today is our half-anniversary! We celebrated by eating delicious salads and portobello mushroom sandwiches.
And we watched Mean Girls 2 which is the worst movie on the entire planet.
Anyway, yay for marriage!

sometimes you go to France for a sec.

Due to last minute planning and utter lack of motivation on my part, we spent a mere 1.5 hours in France. Hence, the lone photo.

We spent last weekend in Dover [which is a wonderful little gem of a town.] We later discovered that we could take a ferry out of the port of Dover into France. Well, turns out it's a 90 minute boat ride over to the port of Calais. I had never heard of the place, but I thought, we might as well go to say we went to France. So we bought the tickets to leave as early as possible [5:00pm], and return as late as possible [9:45pm]. I didn't do any research about the city of Calais other than a brief skimming of the wikipedia page. I learned there is almost nothing left pre-WWII, [as it was all destroyed with bombs.] So, the ferry got into Calais at about 6:30pm. Perfect, enough time to wander on foot and get back to the port to check in at 9:30 pm. 

WRONG.

We did not take into account the time change. It was actually 7:30pm.

Crap.

So, we book it in the direction which we hope is the direction to the town center, to find somewhere to eat. We had no map, and Taylor was trying to remember some French from high school. But his efforts were futile.

SIDE NOTE:

On the ferry ride over he tried to distract me from my sea sickness by teaching me what little french he could remember. It went a little something exactly like this:

[click me.]

So, after a 20 minute walk,  we end up finding this Cafe called "Cafe de Paris" which sounded pretty glam as most French things do, but I quickly learned that it was pretty much the French version of Denny's. Maybe a little classier. But Taylor ordered steak, and it came with bone marrow.

DISGUSTING. 

He could barely gag it down. I don't know why he felt he had to eat it, but he did. And he didn't shut up about how gross it was the whole rest of the trip. Poor thing. Poor me.

SO after dinner we had just enough time to get back to the port to check in for the ferry.  I put away my complaining skills and put my power walking skills to work. 

We made it.

So that's the story of when we went to France for a second.