Our Adventure between the Adventures:)

Some of you may know that this blog used to be called the "Lars & Spring Chinese Adventure". It was originally created to document our "adventures" in China. Duh.

After we came back to the States in September 2011 we made the rounds of family and friends.

We flew into Utah to watch Lars graduate from Brigham Young University with a Bachelors degree in Chinese and a minor in Political Science. The amazing Steve & Liz Merkley let us stay with them in Provo for a couple of days. Thank you!

My parents, Richard and Verdella Grout came down from Driggs, Idaho to celebrate with us! Also, to help us re-acclimate to American FOOD!!! Yummy:D

Side Note: Go EASY on dairy when you get back:( Or else...

Ma and Pa took us home with them! IDAHO:D Where I was born, by the way. And while there we did, OH so much, besides eat a ton of meat and potatoes:)

We (big breath) :

Visited Shoshone Falls  or "The Niagara Falls of the West"

VERY BEAUTIFUL!!!

Visited Lake Cleveland, where my family would vacation and go fishing when we were little:)

Hiked pretty high to get this shot.

Visited my brother, Alan, who was killed in a car accident while I was in China

Drove by the school where I attended first grade in Declo, ID.

Watched a double feature at The Spud Drive-In Theatre

Captain America and Harry Potter 7 part 2

More hiking on the South Teton Trail

I love NATURE :D

Next, was ELK CAMP!!! An annual ritual where my Dad, Mom and brother, Ryan take their camper into this very remote mountain (seriously, no cell phone reception) for a week-ish to hunt elk.

They got one!
Did you know that elk have two ivory teeth?

While there we also went four wheeling and picked huckleberries

On the way home we stopped for some square ice cream

My nephew, Jonas:)

Fun times in the car:P

So, once we wore out our welcome at my parents we drove back down to Provo, Utah to spend time with the best of friends ...

Awesome girls (Maddy & Emily)
 I used to have in Achievement Days.
All growed up;'( 

Band of Brothers (& Sisters)
We survived Monogram Systems together!

...and run the DIRTY DASH!!!

We were the SPA-TANS! Get it?
We are fierce like the Spartans but ready for our mud baths at the SPA...

Me with my sister in law, Chelsea and my big sister, Kristina - Clean :)

Dirty :D with Lars, Chelsea, Spring, Tami & Kristina

Our robes were not such a bright idea.
Once wet they weighed seriously 50 pounds:(
But we carried them the whole 10 kilometers! 

After we completely exerted ourselves in Utah we thought it time to head to my sister, Kristina's house  in Parker, Colorado...

But on the way we drove through Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. So cool!

You should see this pic on Lars' 3DS.  Amazing!

Double Arches

Balance Rock

Beautiful scenery I'm obsessed with:) 

FINALLY the last leg of our journey:)

Spending a few weeks with the TOLMANS!!!

I'm always amazed at this family. Kris and Rob have been married, what? 16 years? They have a beautiful marriage and a beautiful family of 9 children! You'd think that it would be a mad house but surprisingly enough it isn't...all the time:P Haha!

We had a marvelous time taking part in their lives! We really felt like a part of their family. Very loving and happy! I especially enjoyed all the volleyball and Turbo Jam workouts:D

This was also the time when Lars and I rediscovered Halloween candy...OH, how we missed American candies!!!

But the thing I was looking forward to most was chopping off my "luscious locks" and donating them!

Got rid of my sore neck and all my dyed hair. This is ALL NATURAL:)

So, between having to remember what Fast Food tastes like, the daily food group of Meat and Potatoes at the parents and all the Halloween candy we missed so much, we packed on about 20 pounds in two months after coming home from China:) And it was GOOD!

Now on to the next Adventure: 

Living with the In-Laws for a year!?!

Haha...

For all those Planning on Moving to China:

Was looking over our blog today and came across a couple Drafts of blogposts. This was one of them and since it's been a year since our Chinese adventure (and we are now in Scotland:) thought why not! Though it will add more confusion as to where and what we are doing:

I recently was contacted by a friend of a friend who will be moving to China. They are very overwhelmed about what to expect and how to prepare. I'm including my reply here because I thought it was a pretty good run down for anyone else thinking about living in CHINA:) Oh and there were a couple Beijing specific questions. Enjoy!

"EXCITING!!! Take a deep breath. Does the program coordinate living arrangements for you and help you get setup? Cause that can get a bit overwhelming. Along with not being able to communicate effectively. Do either of you guys speak mandarin? If not I would recommend a little practice on pinyin. I was very surprised by how much English/pinyin there is (instead of characters) but they do pronounce things a bit differently. Which will be helpful to learn when telling cab drivers where to take you.

We lived in Nanjing for 5 months before we came to Beijing and we love it! I think Lars sent Ian a list of things we've done or hope to do here. My recommendations would be The Forbidden City/Tiananmen Square, The Great Wall, Summer Palace/Zhongshan Park, Nanluoguxiang Hutong, Pearl/Silk/Yashou Shopping Markets (depends on what kind of experience you want:) As for places to eat...Are you guys up to date on all your shots? Even if you are you might want to take it easy the first few weeks, meaning not a lot, if any, street food and be picky about restaurants. You may want to try and eat 50% American, 50% Chinese to get your system used to the food. I guess laduzi (diarrhea) is part of the experience but still not fun so take it slow. 

As of right now Lars and I are very available. Lars' internship ended a week ago and our apartment lease is through July so until Lars finds a job we're both just chillin':) 

As for 'any other advice' in general you need to be prepared for ATTENTION. Unless you are living in a big enough city that has their own expat community and you plan to never leave said community you will attract lots of attention in the form of stares. Everyone and their grandmother will stare at you as you pass them on the sidewalks. Some even stop dead in their tracks to watch you walk by. It is definitely a little unnerving at first but you learn to ignore it. I do want to make you aware that even though EVERYONE stares *nobody will get physical with you. Before I came I heard all kinds of stories of foreigners (especially blondes) getting harassed. I've never had anyone grab my hair and I have a lot of hair. Yes, people may yell things at you like, "HELLO" or "PRETTY LADY".

*Okay, honestly I have had two instances of chinese males touching me. One was a handicapped boy on the subway who gave me a hug and the other was an old man who grabbed my hand when I wouldn't stop to talk to him. In each instance I found the phrase, Bu hao (pronounced "boo how") to be of use. It means "not good." The old guy left me alone directly when I yelled it in his face. (I was already in a "not gonna take anyone's crap" kind of mood:) I think the kid thought I was flirting but other people on the subway started yelling at him for me. That's the thing, weird things can happen but I've never felt in danger. There are just so many people around at all times that nobody is gonna try anything really dangerous. Of course you shouldn't go out for a stroll all alone at night through dark alleys either. That's just common sense:)

Other advice would be to bring sturdy clothing. Apparently you are going to want to bring light clothes because it's gonna get HOT outside (and you are outside a lot more than usual) and air conditioning is rare but what I mean is that you will most likely have a washer but dryers are extremely rare. You will be hanging your clothes to dry and wrinkles are easy to come by. You of course can purchase most conveniences like an iron but I've really tried to live simply. The apartments don't usually have much extra space. And what are you gonna do with all the stuff you've purchased when you leave? 

Anywho, if you can't live without things like tampons, deodorant, floss and any other name brand specific products, you need to bring as much as you think you'll need for your stay with you. Yes, you can have family ship things to you but you may run into heavy taxes on health and beauty products. But it you NEED to have something questionable shipped, if your family writes "GIFT" on the label customs may let it alone...MAYBE.

I have really loved my time here in China and I think it's because I've tried to live simply and just go with the flow. It's going to be different and there will be good differences (like how cheap food is: $15 bucks for a weeks worth of groceries which is about 100 RMB) and bad differences (the overall lack of cleanliness: pollution, dirty streets, children going to the bathroom on the sidewalk). 

One of the main reasons why I wanted to come to China was to really understand how blessed I am to be an American citizen. I will never complain about America again!

Well, I hope I've helped. If you think of anything else let me know.

Spring Shurilla"

The "I LOVE (but sometimes hate) CHINA" Blogpost!

Another post I found that I never officially posted. Probably because I say some very irritated personal opinions that do not see the whole picture. I only see my small foreign point of view. So please don't judge me. Thanks:

Today is the first day I have been able to view my own blog, let alone all of my friends' blogs, in more than a month. (And Facebook and Youtube, etc.) So I might as well do a post, right?

Since this coincides with the above statement I would like to talk about "The Great Firewall of China".

When we first came to China we realized that when we were connected to the internet we could not access any blogs, Facebook, Youtube and many other 'random' webpages. When we tried we would get this message, "Safari can't open [said webpage] because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection..." It goes on to tell you a blatant lie such as, "This sometimes occurs when the server is busy. Wait a few minutes, then try again." No matter how many minutes you wait or times you try you will never connect to the desired server! Or it will try to blame the problem on the web site you wish to connect to by saying, "...the server where this page is located isn't responding."

This is a problem because these are the main ways of keeping in touch with family and friends from back home. Hence, we decided to purchase a VPN that reroutes our server outside of China so we can access said websites. So, even though China's internet is very splotchy as it is, when we had internet we had Facebook. Never thought much about WHY China would block those specific websites. As long as we could get to them I was happy.

Since moving to Beijing our problem has resurfaced. Naive me figured China would be happy having blocked the vast majority of people in China from "dangerous" websites, but they are not. More than a month ago our VPN would/could not connect to any other server. We figured it was just a glitch but have since found that China is actively seeking out and shutting down access to these VPN servers.

We contacted our VPN customer service about the problem and they opened a bunch more servers but we still cannot connect to them!?

It's amazing how much power China exacts and how desperate they are to keep control. Especially now with all the riots and unrest going on in the Middle East. I've been hearing about some people in China, foreign or not I don't know, who are trying to start protests. That the St. Patrick's Day parade was cancelled because it would be too dangerous to gather so many people together at this time.

All I want is to communicate with my far distant family and friends. I don't want any part of a riot. I've heard about what happens to those people, especially in China. They're either beaten, thrown in jail, killed or all of the above.

How careful our church is not to offend the Chinese government. They read/remind us of our promise NOT to proselytize to Chinese Nationals every Sunday.

I personally don't see how China has 'it' so bad. They seem to have decent lives. Standard of living is going up. They do seem to have some of the most disturbing 'beggars' I've ever seen: mutations, amputations, burn victims, birth defects, etc. But for the most part they seem happy...

Beijing Wildlife Park: Zoo, Circus AND Safari! (Most memorable birthday EVER:)

Been a long time. Sorry.

So, this year my birthday conveniently fell on the Chinese Holiday, Tomb Sweeping Day (yes, they go and clean off the tombs of dead relatives). Which means that Lars, and the rest of China, didn't have to go in to work. Yay!

Lars has some AMAZING Chinese friends who invited us to go with them to the Beijing Wildlife Park in one of the southern suburbs of Beijing. Thank you Nora, Widen and Tori!

"Jurassic Park" like entrance

We really had no idea what to expect so we prepared to be underwhelmed. (We'd heard some disturbing things about the Beijing Zoo and were not looking forward to that likelihood.)

Um, okay. Pretty scenery...

So, we first come upon a pigeon feeding area. You go in, feed the pigeons, stomp on the pigeons, scare the pigeons to death. The usual.

...Or are they doves...?

Very underwhelming to say the least so onto the next adventure. Which is the Monkey cages.

Thanks for the reminder:)

This was pretty neat. There's a glass tunnel through the monkey cage and let me tell you these monkeys are way more energetic than I remember them being in American zoos. Swinging, frolicking, jumping all over! I was quite captured by all the baby monkeys. So cute hanging on to their mothers:) So I start to take a video...

VIDEO

...I had forgotten what the other thing monkeys are known for, and it wasn't flinging poo. (How embarrassing.)

This guy's just chillin'

This guy was my favorite! 

This chimp had so much spunk and character! When we first came upon him he was beating the crap out of the yellow playground equipment. I'm surprised it's still in one piece. But it's a love/hate relationship because he seemed to enjoy swinging around and around and around...

 VIDEO

But the best part was when he noticed some girl leaning on his enclosure. He ran full speed at her and jumped off the wall right where she had been leaning! And since she had gotten away safely out of distance he then picked up some dirt and threw it at her:) She wasn't laughing now with dirt in her eyes and mouth! I like him:)

More BABIES!

Lars REALLY liked what happened with this little hungry fellow:) So, we've been ignoring the signs that say, "Don't Feed Animals". Actually it was right after I had given an emu some rice puffs when I saw the first sign. Oops! But you must know that nobody in China obeys signs...any kind of sign...seriously. 

So, when our friend, Widen, saw this cutie eyeing his rice puff he thought, "Why not?" But as Widen was reaching up to place the rice puff into this guy's tiny out-stretched fingers we hear, "Bu wei dong wu!/Don't feed the animals!" from the security guard which has been watching the whole time. So here is Widen on his tippy toes, reaching as high as he can with the rice puff in his hand and the monkey's fingers just inches away from it. But in one swift motion Widen swoops the rice puff down and into his son's mouth all while saying, "Of course we would never feed the animals. This is for my son." Smooth.

We next decided to go to the "Animal Performance" exhibit. Which we come to find out means Circus. Unfortunately, I didn't happen to take any pictures because I was too busy taking videos, which won't load on here:( so I'll just have to tell you all the 'interesting' things we saw. 

Well, before the actual show began they had four or five emus running around in the inclosure. One of them had a stuffed monkey on it's back. We had no idea why. But we were very grossed out when one of the emus defecated and the other emus rushed in like they hadn't eaten all week...yuck! Anyway enough of that. Once the show actually begins  we were quite delighted. We saw bears walking on their hind legs. They'd jump hurdles, swing on swings and balance on balls. Thank goodness for those little snacks the workers used as incentive. 

Next were the monkeys. They came out riding on bicycles, donkeys and emus (hence the stuffed monkey on the emu's back from earlier). SO CUTE! The best though was when three monkeys came out riding a triple tandem bicycle. Unfortunately, there was only one monkey pedaling while the other two just jumped around the handle bars. So they came out all cool but ran into the wall! 

They then brought out a couple of lions and had them jump through hoola hoops.

The next and by far the best part had to be the safari. Take a look at this:

...I think we need a closer look.

Okay, so people get inside the mobile enclosure but what is that pink thing with it's own cage on the outside...? Yep, you guessed it. MEAT! So the idea is that we travel through live lions, tigers and bears (OH MY!) with the meat as a temptation for them to attack the cage that we are inside...!

Luckily we didn't have any ravenous carnivores hanging on the outside of our transport or I might have had an accident of my own. 

This guy snapped at us but quickly became fascinated with the DEAD meat:) 

Oh yeah, we also could buy vegetables to feed to the herbivores like these thankfully harmless zebras. 

The wallabies and kangaroos were Lars' favorite. He says if he could turn into any animal it would have to be one of those. He thinks they are just too funny.

Oh yeah. I guess you could call this the carnival section. I don't know about you but nothing says "Carnival" like riding a Yak...

Just a shout out to my buddy Kelly:P They're gonna getcha!

We saw so many raccoons in the nocturnal area...SO MANY! I guess they're rare in China...? Lars had to take a picture:)

Poor guy's hump deflated.

So, it started out like any normal zoo. (Although it has been quite some time since I have been to a normal zoo...and I mean "normal" in the sense of closely regulated safety precautions) but this place was awesome! I highly recommend it, if you ever come to Beijing, China of course:) Happy Birthday to me!

-Spring

A Quick Note on Pollution

Living in Beijing, people often ask me about the pollution.  I'd like to present you with a visual guide to Pollution in Beijing.

This is the view from the office where I work.  You can easily see the difference between a clear day and polluted day.  

In my estimation, there are definitely more clear days than polluted days, but the levels of pollution do have quite the range.  These pictures merely illustrate the extremes.  Sometimes the reality is removed from what it looks like out the window, so I like to stay updated via http://twitter.com/beijingair#

In closing, the Beijing air is like the little girl who had a little curl right on the middle of her forehead.  When she was good, she was very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid.

Beijing!

Well, these updates aren't the most frequent and there are plenty in the backlog but I had a few mintues and thought I'd do an update of the first few days in Beijing.  Also, I want to add that despite our bags being a cumulative 8 Kg over our limit, we were not charged extra.  Hooray!  Also, also, I want to give a shout out to the Millers, who were absolutely enchanting "roommates" for the last semester.  You guys rock, straight up 石头.  Thanks so much for putting up with us!  Come visit soon!

Anyways, the first day, we got in to our hotel, they gave us grief about trying to put three people into a 2-bed room (despite my rather convincing argument that Spring and I became one post-marriage).  Then it turned out the internet was down, so we had to go to a local internet cafe.  The rest of the evening was fun, though.  We just strolled around the block, which was all traditional Hutong architecture.  All along the way, people were lighting fireworks.  They had all shapes and sizes, and Spring might add a post dedicated to this later, but their favorites were definitely the loud ones, and the louder the better.  I thought it was a lot of fireworks, but then midnight came.  It must have been at least 30 minute cacophony of booms!  I think everyone in Beijing lit as many fireworks as the could within that half-hour.  Simply amazing.

The next day we tried, and failed, to meet with my new employer.  However, we were already near Tiananmen, so we took a brief glimpse.  Here is a pic.

It started to get really crowded, really fast, so we got out of there.

Friday, I made a goal, a determination, if you will, to find Batman: Arkham Asylum for PS3.  After some research, we found a number of shops just south of the Drum tower (which looked pretty impressive itself and will make a wonderful trip later).  We did find a Korean copy of Batman, so the whole day was a success!  But then we wandered for a bit and found a street with a Mao Live House, where bands play, a bunch of guitar shops, and a sweet CD store with lots of cool, underground Chinese music.  We bought a Hedgehog CD and a Joyside CD.  And they both rock!  Then we went to a cafe for smoothies and caught a bit of the Spring Festival television program.  There was a bit in particular that I found interesting with a girl who could "grab" and manipulate lasers.  Then we explored the NanLuoGuXiang area.  It was a cool market/old architecture area.  In fact, Beijing just has cool architecture in general.  Afterwards, we had a nice dinner (where we noticed that Beijing really likes stronger flavors) and made our way home.

Saturday, we were finally able to meet with my enthusiastic employers.  They treated us to a Chinese DimSum breakfast, then gave us a tour and "brief" history of the Center, "brief" being 3 hours.  If you want to learn about them, check out the website www.centeracp.com .  Afterwards, we tried to go to the Silk Market to look for anything Packers related for the Big Game, but it was closed for the holiday.  So, we took a trip up to see Beijing University's campus, which was quite pretty.  We walked around a frozen lake and took picture in front of an ancient tower.  Then we had pizza at Kro's pizza.  Hand's down the best pizza in China!  It was handmade pizza, and it was real!  We ordered four 9'' pizzas: an Old Beijing (duck, green onion, cucumber, etc), a Philly (green peppers, onions, steak, lotsa cheese), a Classic (pepperoni), and finally a Hawaiian (ham, pineapple, and onions).  The Old Beijing was a bit odd, but the rest were fantastic.  Definitely a place we will return to and take guests to.  Then we came home and played a bunch of Batman.

Today we went to Church.  Took us a little effort to find, but find it we did.  Seems very nice.  There were more people here than Nanjing ever had, despite the holiday.  So, a much bigger ward with a much more traditional feel.  When we got home, I was delightedly surprised to find an Aaron Rodgers jersey hanging up.  My Bro Montana, J-Ray, had taken a special trip to get it for me, such a sweet heart!  Tomorrow morning, we're going to get up bright and early and travel to either an Irish pub or a Texan bar and grill for sweet breakfast buffets and Super Bowl festivities!  Oh boy!!  Go Packers!!!

Also, because some of you might be curious, I was successful in my fish transportation endeavor!  I put my fish in a small, water-filled, air-tight Sprite bottle and carefully packed both it and my plant in my check-in luggage.  The plant was disheveled, but still alive, and the fish was extremely pale, but also still alive!  I'm somewhat proud of this accomplishment and glad that my little friends could join me in Beijing!!

Also, sorry about the lack of pictures, the external hard drive is elsewhere at the moment.

-Lars