Australia

I made a video for our time in Australia, finally.  We spent 3 days in Australia on our way to New Zealand, and made it just in time to catch the New Years Eve fireworks at the Sydney Harbor.

August in Review

I threw together some of the videos I took from this past month to let you see what August looked like for us.  It includes footage from the biggest religious festival in our city, the picnic, traveling around the province, and baking class.

Enjoy :)

The Climb Up Mt. Fuji

Aaron had never even thought about climbing Mt. Fuji until I surprised him saying that on our way back to China, we were going to stop in Japan to climb it.

Most tourists start the climb up Mt. Fuji more than half way to the top.  There are 10 stations on Mt. Fuji (each station has resting areas and hostels to stay in), and most people start from station 5.

I should have known what I was getting into when I told Aaron we were hiking Fuji....Aaron doesn't consider starting halfway up actually climbing Mt. Fuji. So we started from before station 1, in the town closest to Mt. Fuji.

A non-snow capped Mt. Fuji from the nearest town

The start of the trail for us began at a Buddhist temple

He's ready to go.

We left the town around 10:15, and made it to station 8 where we spent the night (just a few hours) by 7:30pm.  Then we got up at 2:30 to make the last little hike up to the very top to watch the sunrise.

We got to the top around 3:30am and the sun was starting to rise.  We still had about an hour left from this picture.

The line of people hiking up Fuji
all of those lights are the head lamps of the people climbing the volcano

They play the Japanese National Anthem when the sunrises

trying to get a picture with the sunrise in the background

the crater of the volcano behind us

It was a hard hike for me.  We climbed from around 2,000ft to 12,388ft at the summit.  But it was worth it in the end.  And now I completely understand the popular saying about Mt. Fuji: 

"He who climbs Mout Fuji once is a wise man; he who climbs it twice is a fool."

Whoever said that must have started from where we started.

Nihom - Tokyo City and the Tokyo Dome

We spent two days in Tokyo, and two days getting to Mt. Fuji, hiking it, then coming back to Tokyo.  It was a lot of fun to be in Japan, but Aaron left pretty much convinced he never wanted to go back to Tokyo.  So I'm glad we went at least this one time :)

the city from a viewing tower

The world's busiest fish market was closed the day we went....so we took a picture and called it a day.

Yakitori under the train tracks.

Lonely Planet Tokyo told us that there were a lot of yakitori (meat grilled on a stick, like a kabob) stalls under this one train station - so we went there hoping to find a lot of places to choose from....after an hour or so of walking, we finally stumbled upon one.  Lonely Planet also told us that yakitori was cheap.  Double lies.  It was delicious when we finally ate it, a few hours after normal lunch.

Ask this guy what he thinks of Tokyo and he'll tell you hot.
And confusing.  And that we're never going again.

A must see in Tokyo:  Baseball in the Tokyo Dome

In our seats ready for the game.  

In Japan, they love baseball.  When you go to a baseball game, it's like going to a college sporting event in the states.  Each baseball team has it's own cheering section, complete with a band.  When their team is up to bat, the band plays, and the crowd cheers the whole time.  It went crazy in the dome when someone hit a home run for the home team.  This was definitely one of my favorite things we did and the tickets were only $10!  Cheap date.

Take me out the ball game, take me out the crowd,
Buy me some peanuts and sushi?

Iced Coffee from Krispy Kreme before we head back to China.  Yes, please.

Crazy Doughnut Eyes picture in another Asian City.  Yes, please.

Some More Catch up: The Hot Springs

We went to some hot springs about 2 hours out of town in May with some of our foreign friends.

the drive there

the inside pool

underwater picture....it was super hot.  i wouldn't have done that.
in fact aaron didn't even get underwater when he took this picture, he just put the camera below the water.
smart man.

the wind blew the steam off of the outside pool 

another picture of the outside pool.

spend my days in the sweet sunshine

I've wandered this world far and wide
I've been all around and to the other side, but there's nothing like coming home

We're coming home for the summer and to celebrate coming home, I'm posting the top 5 simple things that I am looking forward to:

1) TAP WATER.

go to the sink, fill up your glass, take a sip.  delicious.  can't wait.

2) DRY HANDS AFTER USING A PUBLIC RESTROOM.

there's a sink.  but there's no soap and no way to dry your hands.  looking forward to walking away from bathrooms without wet pants.

3) STARS!

I think I can count the times on my hands that I have seen stars in the last year and a half...and none of those times were in our city.  this is the city where sometimes it's a challenge to figure out if you're staring directly at the sun or if the moon came out early.

lately i've seen too many city lights,

i want to go somewhere where i can see the stars at night

4)  ICE.

in drinks.  at restaurants.  and you don't have to ask for it.  or really trust the establishment you're at to give you clean ice.  one of American friends here had to tell his visiting dad every time they went to a restaurant that he couldn't get ice water.  and every time they went, his dad still asked for ice water.  it's hard to get used to.

a local friend of mine went to america last summer, and thought it was so strange that she couldn't get hot water at restaurants, but it always came with ice.  i feel your pain.  (only the other way around).

5)  DRIVING.

we don't drive here.  although my husband did just get his chinese driver's license!!

roll down the windows, turn up the country music.

OH and what the heck, one more..... HOT DOGS.  an all beef hot dog. carolina style - coleslaw and chili.  I know. I know.  A lot of girls think hot dogs are gross.  But I like them.  And the chinese hot dogs around here are more like Vienna sausages instead of Hebrew Nationals or Ballparks.  

虎跳峡 Hu Tiao Xia, Tiger Leaping Gorge

Have you ever mentally thought that you could do more than your body is physically able to, but didn't realize it until your body was forced into one of three things: passing out, pooping your pants, or throwing up?


That's what happened to me last week.  Aaron and I went to Yunnan Province to Tiger Leaping Gorge (the deepest gorge in the world) to do a couple day hike through the high trail.  Aaron had been before 5 years ago and after seeing his pictures I really wanted to go.  So last week during our International Labor Day Holiday Aaron and I did the hike.  When we got to the start of the trail there were a lot of other people joining us, so of course, I wanted to pass them.  I didn't want other people on my quiet, get away from the city and other people, trail.  So I pushed hard (or at least hard for me).  And then about 30 minutes into the trail, I asked Aaron if we could stop for a break.


Then I sat down.
"I think I'm going to pass out....."
"....I may poop my pants...."
"....Can you sit down next to me?"
Lean my head on his shoulder, then immediately bounce my head back up, turn away from him and throw up down the trail.
Twice.


I had to sit there and watch as people I worked so hard to get in front of walked through my vomit.  Whoops.


I'm not sure why I threw up actually.  That part of the trail isn't that hard.  It wasn't too hot.  I was going fast for myself, but not super fast - I mean, Aaron kept up without throwing up.  We were at 7,000ft which is higher than we live at, but we had been at the elevation for a couple of days already and I felt better after I threw up.  I may have drank too much water or not enough....not sure.  But I threw up.  We sat for a minute, then we kept going.


And we still beat everyone we started with to the Halfway Guesthouse.

on the way to the gorge

not too long after the throwing up incident.  feeling better.

at halfway guesthouse
what a hottie.

Now back to good part

Aaron says that I must be getting bored with the blog because I haven't posted in a long time.  In actuality I put this pressure on myself to have something interesting to post about and most days I think, "that wasn't that interesting."  OR we travel as much as we have in the last two weeks and then it makes posting a blog the last thing on my to do list, because i play catch up on other areas of my life when we get back home (like studying for that Chinese exam we had on Wednesday this week).


The last couple of weeks have been really good - despite the busyness of travel.  Aaron and I feel like we're learning a lot in this stage of life and the trips that we've taken have helped spur on some of that growth.  A few weeks ago we went and visited some friends who live in a small city in southern Sichuan province.  We stayed up late eating shao kao one night (shao kao is grilled meat or vegetables on a stick.  it's a low cost, favorite late night snack of locals), went to some hot springs (read: natural hot springs that had been diverted to be the source of what looked like normal hotel pools), spent some time in the sunshine by a lake, and were encouraged by the conversations we had with friends over the weekend.

Pretty much straight from there we spent a week in Hong Kong and got some time of rest, refreshment, and got to hang out with our friends James and Laura!

Next stop: Kunming to say goodbye to Daniel as he heads home to get married!!  Also - I'm going to learn a bit about video editing :)

what?!

This is Thinley.  He was our tour guide while touring the Everest region.  And that is a Duke hoodie.  I don't know who he's been hanging out with, but someone is clearly leading him astray.


We'll be mailing him some Carolina gear, so he can burn that hoodie.

Our friend Graham came to visit us for a week!  It was a whirlwind of a trip.  In the week he was here he spent only two nights at our apartment, ascended to 17,000+ ft, fled a oncoming blizzard at Everest Base Camp, ate Tibetan, Indian, Nepali, Taiwanese fast food, and Chinese, rode around in a Land Cruiser, picked up a hitch hiking nun.....the list goes on.


Unfortunately I don't have pictures to cover all of the things above - but here are a few pictures to get us started. 

Meet Graham

His album drops soon.

 Locals

The Girls

 The Boys

The Boys with Locals

The Land

Everest

The boys survived a blizzard at Base Camp....only they left before the blizzard started.  They FLED a blizzard at base camp.  Not many people can say that. 

Below is an artist's rendering of what it would have looked like if Everest wasn't being bombarded by snow.  She's a beaut, Clark, a real beaut.

Artist's Rendering

Also, please note - it took me forever to do that. If we had something like photoshop or even paint, that would have taken no time.....but i had to turn the picture into a pdf, then download onto another website, then embed into the blog.  phew.

Isn't she lovely

China is beautiful.


This past week was the national holiday in China, so we got what they call "Golden Week," which means a week off of work and school.  So Aaron and I took a trip to the mountains, a trip we've been hoping to take for a while.

Here are some of the pictures from our trip.  I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves, although I know these pictures in no way capture how beautiful it all was.

We took the train on the way to the mountains, and a flight on the way out - so you'll see some pictures from the ground and the air.