Bestie time: China edition!

When we graduated from high school and headed to college, Jackie and I were both sent off with support and comfort from our parents that I'm sure aligned quite closely to the words of Seuss:

You have brains in your head. 

You have feet in your shoes. 

You can steer yourself any direction you choose. 

You're on your own. 

And you know what you know. 

And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...

[Oh, The Places You'll Go]

And we sure have trekked those shoes in many different directions. We’ve experimented with clubs and classes. We’ve explored various career options. And we’ve wandered the world.

Oh, the places we’ve been, together.

Holland and a variety of other cities in Western MI.
Chicago, IL.
Hershey, PA.
Washington DC.
New York City, NY.
Rome, Italy.
South Bend, IN.
Rindge, NH.
Seville, Spain.
Madrid, Spain.
Shenyang, China.
Hong Kong, China.

Since 2008, Jackie and I have lived together in 4 different college housing units and a Holland family’s home together. We’ve painstakingly nurtured an international long distance friendship on four different occasions and kept in touch halfway across the United States when on breaks. We’ve Skyped. We’ve e-mailed. We’ve sent Whatsapp messages. We’ve sent snail mail letters. We’ve flown across time zones to see each other. We’ve made the effort, but it hasn’t always been - isn’t always - easy.

You'll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. 

You'll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. 

So be sure when you step. 

Step with care and great tact and remember that Life's a Great Balancing Act. 

Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. 

And never mix up your right foot with your left.

[Oh, The Places You'll Go]

I HAVE gotten mixed up.

Living abroad and maintaining relationships is not easy. I’ve gone through phases of excellent communication and others when I’ve pulled so far into the here and now that I forget the importance of where I’ve come from. It’s a balancing act that sometimes ends with me dropping everything on my international buffet plate and then slipping on the fallen glass noodles. I find myself lying flat on my back, in a slimy mess of carrot soup, fried rice, curry, and soy-drenched eggplant. And in that moment when I’m a complete mess and am torn between curling up and crying or laughing a deep-belly laugh of utter ridiculousness, I miss the friends and family who have known me the longest. Out of pride, I’m wary to return to them in need, when I’ve left so many conversations un-had, apologies unsaid, excitement un-shared. 

And when you're alone there's a very good chance,
you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.

[Oh, The Places You'll Go]

Living abroad and being “alone” can be scary… but more than that, it is emotionally taxing. I constantly struggle to communicate my experiences and feelings appropriately and to understand fully the experiences and feelings of my friends and family stateside.

And sometimes, I don’t want to go on.
I want to go home.

But, I stay.

And not just because I signed a two-year contract and I want my word to mean something. And not because my heart doesn’t really know where home is now that my friends and family are scattered across the United States. But because God brought me here for a purpose and he is teaching me through every blunder and triumph.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

“therefore I will hope in him.”

[Lamentations 3:22-24]

And so, I rededicate myself once again to the challenge of maintaining relationships across timezones, oceans, cultures. I bask in the love of the Lord, knowing that I must have grace and mercy for myself in my previous failures as He has had for me.

“Let’s not be strangers, okay?”
Let’s not.

Especially when we have memories such as these...

In Shenyang, Jackie, Auntie Mimi, and I explored while Jackie and Auntie Mimi calmly recovered from jet lag. We ate dinners together, got massages, explored some shopping areas, and met up with some of my friends. It was nice for Jackie and I to experience some of my "normal life" together, though I don't normally invite my masseur over to my home to eat chocolate. (There was a bit of a miscommunication when I was trying to explain that Hershey's - hǎo shí - is from my hometown, a word I didn't know so I just said "my home" in Chinese. It's quite possible that I ended up saying that I have good food - hǎo chī - at my house and then asking them if they like to eat chocolate. At least that would explain why they had the idea that we were all going to go eat dinner together... OOPS.)

In Hong Kong, the adventures continued...

We did not delay in seeing the sights. Our first evening, we headed out to the Temple Market, conveniently located just a few blocks from our apartment in Kowloon.

The entrance to the night market

Our first full day, we headed to Macau, China's other Special Administrative Region (the first being Hong Kong). Interestingly, Macau was the last European colony in Asia, "administered by Portugal from the mid-16th century until late 1999," which meant I had some flashbacks ahead of me (Wikipedia). We took a 90 minute high-speed ferry ride to the island (after I ran back to the apartment to get my forgotten passport... OOPS, again) and spent the better part of the day wandering Macau.

A deserted street in Macau

 Apartment building

Drinking tea while waiting for our lunch

Inside a Buddhist temple

Incense for sale in the temple

While wandering around Macau, we put to use Jackie's recently-bought selfie stick, which she juggled with her DSLR. One of my most recent life questions stemmed from this: Why does a selfie stick seem to be so intrinsically entertaining?

Which kind of photographer are you, Jack? 

Macau was indeed a bizarre mix of the Iberian peninsula and China. Walking around seeing jamón serrano hanging from storefronts and Portuguese egg tarts made me think I had teleported myself back to Spain or Portugal. I glanced at Chinese signs before settling on the Portuguese translations, forgetting that translations were often also posted in English. This Iberian Peninsula-China fusion, experienced with my Midwestern best friend, was possibly the most bizarre experience to date of my worlds colliding.

The door of a public bus

A sign for one of the historical sites in the center of Macau

The next day in Hong Kong, we explored the area at the base of Victoria's peak, as well as "The Peak," which we traveled to by funicular railway.

St. John's cathedral

Waiting in line to get to the top

We were all surprised that "The Peak" consists mostly of two major shopping malls and that you initially seemed to be trapped inside one of the buildings. But when we finally made our way out, we enjoyed the views of the harbor.

After making it back down on the tram, we took the Star Ferry across the harbor back to Kowloon for the low price of 3 HKD... or $0.39. Not too shabby...

Making our way across the harbor

Greetings, barge!

On our last morning together, Jackie and I hiked part of Dragon's Back on Hong Kong Island. We were early to rise that morning, which was convenient for the trails which were quickly filling up when we left the mountains two hours later.

Looking over the harbor

 

"Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend."

- Albert Camus

The ants go marching one by one.
Hoorah! Hoorah!
The ants go marching one by one.
Hoorah! Hoorah!

We think this was a form of public transportation...

After our hike, I packed up my suitcase and we headed over to see the Giant Buddha near the airport. We took our time getting there, accounting for a little bit more time than was recommended by the guidebook, which was 90 minutes. After we arrived and bought our tickets for the 20 minute cable car each way, however, we realized there was a 30+ minute line and we would be cutting the time quite close. That didn't stop us, however, from getting in line (we had, after all, already bought non-refundable tickets) and preparing to race to the Buddha and up all 270 stairs before running back to get in line for the cable car. I'm pretty our side-by-side sprints, Jackie with her selfie stick and me with my duffel bag tucked under my arm like a football, was quite a sight to see.

 In the cable car on the way in

There he is!

 Surrounding the giant Buddha

 The man himself!

Well, that's a brief summary of what we did... but what about what we ate?! Don't fret! Per usual, I've included plenty of food pictures for your mouth-watering pleasure.

Shrimp and leek dumplings at the restaurant next to our apartment

Fried noodles (they were actually crunchy) in Macau

One afternoon, Jackie and I walked from the port on Kowloon back to our apartment and stopped whenever we saw masses of people eating somewhere. We ordered what seemed to be popular and then continued on our way, walking to work off the calories and to make room for whatever we would next find.

Fried dumplings and an unidentifiable yellow food that all the locals were eating

The stand where we ordered pork and cabbage baozi

The best baozi I've consumed to date. SO DELICIOUS.

A hole in the wall where we filled any holes we still had

The most unique food we ate was definitely the fish ice cream. (To clarify, it did not, in any way, TASTE like fish.) We stumbled upon a storefront not much larger than my apartment bathroom where people were gathered and eating artwork made of ice cream. Food trends are probably the only trend I jump onto wholeheartedly, so the 40 minute wait time didn't deter me from placing my order. We ordered, walked around a market for 30 minutes, and returned just in time to have our intricate ice creams presented to us.

A fish waffle with yogurt ice cream, chocolate drizzle, peanuts, chocolate covered grapes, and a custard pocket in the tail! Mmmmmmmm...

Welp, there's just a "few" pictures that give you some insight to Jackie's and my China adventures. Of course, however, the pictures fail to show the little moments that are so precious when you get to spend time face-to-face with your best friend. They do not show our contorted faces as we ate our noodles that we had made too spicy when we added too much hot pepper. They do not record the synchronized belly laughs and crying-induced chokes as we sniffled through "The Fault in Our Stars" on the plane. They do not catch our non-verbal communication as our Brazilian cable car mates and their children freaked out in Portuguese, each of us understanding bits of their conversation because of similarities to the Spanish and Italian language.

They can never show the thankfulness that I have that my best friend traveled across 12 time zones to CHINA, to spend time with me. You're the greatest, Jack.

Much love from China,

Amber