In the event of an emergency...

Make sure the little guy can breath. Pollution is such a killer...

let's get physical, physical

People like to keep fit here.


And they keep fit by putting in what appears to be child playground equipment in every neighborhood.  Only this is for adults.


Grown women in skirts.  Guys in suits.  People who want to multi-task, such as spinning a prayer wheel while feeling a deep burn in their quads. 


Though these are grown men and women, as my husband put it when talking about the equipment,"It brings out the kid in every adult."


Besides the playground equipment available in every neighborhood, here in China you will find people gathering every morning to do tai chi (a martial art) and morning aerobics, and every evening to do couples or line dances at night, as well as roller skating for the kids.

Check out the video to see them dance 'til they can't dance 'til they can't dance no more, as the music factory of C&C tells them to.


Oh, and I included a little footage of a performance we stumbled upon back in February.

I'll let you guess how it smelled...

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.

thumbs up

Let me start this post by saying I am okay.  I got up without getting dizzy, was able to remember all details of the accident, and minutes later I ran into a friend on the street and told her all the details of our upcoming trip and she had no idea of what I had gone through just 5 minutes before.


A couple of days ago Aaron and I were meeting some friends for dinner who live 3 miles away.  Aaron's dad and sister have been training for a half marathon, so I jumped on their training plan, although there's no formal half marathon event that I'll be running.  So when Aaron and I were going to meet friends and I was scheduled to run 5 miles that day I decided to run to our friends' house and tack on the extra two miles at the beginning of the run.


The run was feeling really good, although I did notice that running this path had a lot more foot and car traffic than my normal routes.  Then......I got hit by a car.


I was running across a large intersection, and I think everything just aligned perfectly so that I ran ahead of the rest of the pedestrians, other stopped traffic blocked my view, and a car decided it was either going to try to turn left or at least get as far over the white line as possible.  And that is when I was struck.  The car clipped me at a slow speed (thank you, Lord) as I was mid-stride, and I landed on my right hand, shooting my cell phone across the pavement and scraping my elbows and  back a little.  I saw the car from the corner of my eye when it was too late and I heard the crowd exclaim OOOOHHHHH!  when I got hit.  I immediately sat up after falling, got up, walked over to my cellphone and glared as hard as I could at the driver.  One thing I have not learned in Chinese yet is appropriate reactions and exclamations for getting hit by a car (note to self: learn how to verbally glare).


Thankfully the lady who hit me was up to date on her blame-shift, get angry at the victim, traffic altercation vocabulary so she immediately got out of her car and started yelling at me.  I left.  I  know, I know - I should've stayed and demanded recompense, but I've seen accidents in China before.  Hours later we would still be be standing in the same intersection with no one budging.  It just would have been too much mafan (Chinese lesson here: mafan 麻烦 = trouble/troublesome).

My thumb's up for a couple of weeks

So my wrist has been hurting from landing on the hard pavement (note to self: if you should ever get hit again throw yourself onto the car so maximum damage is done to the car and I enjoy a soft landing), and after describing my symptoms to my husband we decided I should go to the doctor, since a break in the same area of his wrist led to surgery due to not treating it early.  The x-ray came back normal, but the doctor wrapped me up still to hold my thumb in a good place in case the fracture just hasn't showed up yet.....apparently that's common when this bone is injured.  So I'll be in this makeshift cast for two weeks, get a follow up x ray, and hopefully at that point be cast-less and cleared to run again.


The whole accident has given me a new love and appreciation for Dane Cook's "Struck by a Vehicle."

Has anyone seen my shoes?  I kicked them off in a fit of joy.

New traffic lanes, Part 2

New traffic lanes, Part 1

Like my friend Dave Matthews said so many years ago, "All these cars and up on the sidewalk, people in every direction"...

the dreaded health exam.....

Every foreigner who is applying for a residence visa longer than 11 months has to have a medical exam before they are granted the visa.  This means going to the one building in your city during the 3 hour span that they are open and standing in line for a long time.  You move from room to room to get your vitals checked, an ultrasound (to check your kidneys, liver, spleen), an ekg, an x-ray, your ears, nose, throat, and vision checked, blood and urine tests.  It's pretty thorough.


Aaron really enjoyed the health exam.  Standing in line, he thought of all the funny things he could do or say while going from room to room.  After he had the ultrasound done, he asked the nurse if he was pregnant.  She did not laugh.

Here are pictures from the health exam - and ask Aaron about it sometime.  He tells about it in a much more interesting and elaborate way.

price check.

ticket booth....oh wait. this is where they take your blood.  behind a glass counter.

aaron about to give his urine sample in what he called "the smallest cup ever"

blood test

blood pressure check

Aaron, sad that he has to take an ultrasound
or maybe it was because the lady didn't get his joke.

vision test.  that's right, I'm looking through a "mirror "on
the other wall to tell him about the sign right next to me.

he's wearing the old timey doctor's headband

Nose check

ear check

strike a pose, there's nothing to it.

This week our catalogue came out.  This is a catalogue that is given to people who sell outdoor clothing, not to consumers.  So, we only have two copies for our own personal collection.  Sorry to anyone (our neighbors) who were hoping for their own personal copy to show other people and say that you know us.


Here it is.  The catalogue.  There are pictures in here that I pretty much hate, but I'm still choosing to share this with y'all anyway.  Maybe we'll be able to share a few laughs.

And, remember, you can be anything you want to be in China.

Carava Medium

A land of warriors

Every day, I weave my way through a forest of ever-vigilant warriors with skills honed as fine as a knife's edge. Just the other day, I watched a man waiting for the bus perform the "paint the fence" move from Karate Kid for a good 5 minutes straight, presumably to keep himself in prime fighting condition. See for yourself: