Arizona

Back in Arizona for the month. It's great, but as a result of the traveling, Sunday lasted over 36 hours, and we didn't get back to Tempe until midnight. That's partly because we had an 11-hour layover in San Francisco, so we left the airport to see the city for a few hours. That was great, except for two things: (a) we were unbelievably tired, and (b) none of us remembered that San Francisco is cold, so none of us had any sweaters to wear over our short-sleeve shirts. Also, we flew into Tucson, so we had to drive back up to Tempe. It might of been nicer to fly into Phoenix, but we weren't sure of our schedules yet when we bought our tickets, and then we could easily get a car to borrow from my grandparents who live closer to Tucson, since rental cars are expensive.

I wish we could be spending more time in Tempe, but there are so many things we want to do and people we want to see that it's hard to stuff it all into one month. We also have a friend of ours from church/school from Korea (yes, she's Korean, not Chinese), so we want to take her to some nice places in Arizona and Utah. We're driving up to Salt Lake City... someday. Next Monday or Tuesday, I think. Anyway, John and I are going to fly back early after about four days because we want to spend a bit more time in Arizona. The rest of them are staying for about a week.

It's so weird to us how now whenever we're in public, people say "excuse me" and "sorry" to us. I think the Chinese are just used to shoving past crowds of people. One woman on a public bus just walked right over the top of my feet without saying a word, when I had plenty of room to step backwards. For contrast, when my mom accidentally bumped into a man in a store here, he said sorry to her.

We've basically been going on a shopping spree here. I can't believe how much I missed Target. We try to reassure ourselves that all our purchases are basically a year's worth of supplies condensed into a few weeks. The thing is, there's all this stuff that's made in China, but only for export, so we have to go to the US to buy it just so we can bring it back to China. Strange. But I'm just glad that I don't have to look through three different stores to find shoes my size, when it's only 8 1/2! I wonder what people who actually do have big feet do.

We've also been eating from all of our favorite restaurants. In-N-Out Burger = heaven on earth. Quite literally. There's also real Mexican food, not the weird stuff they serve at the "Mexican" restaurants in Suzhou. For example, their version of enchiladas is a small chicken wrap with a bit of lettuce and a spoonful of refried beans on the side. It's actually not bad food, so long as you don't think of it as Mexican food.

I just go to see the little Chinese waitresses wearing "Viva Mexico" t-shirts.

I'm sure we're all gaining a ton of weight from all the heavy food we're eating here. Don't worry, we'll shed it all off once we get back to China, either from walking a lot or the excruciating humidity. Sad thing is we'll be missing Phoenix weather when we go back to China, because at least that's not humid.

(Next stop on the food list: Mt. Pleasant, Utah for patty melts and milkshakes.)

We've been working as hard as we can to see all of the people we want to see, try as we might. There's just so many of them. Some of our friends, particularly the boys, look significantly older, while others seem like they haven't aged a day. The same thing is happening with my perception of time; sometimes it feels like I haven't been here in forever, and other times it feels like I never left. China is screwing with my brain, I swear.

We saw our cats and dog again. The dog ran right up to us, but the cats acted as if they didn't know who we were. I think that the dog remembers us better because they care more than the cats do. So inconsiderate of them.

Not much else to say. I think I had more, but I've forgotten. If I remember, I'll write it down in another post.