That is how many emails I have. I am Beijing, and I know how to write Beijing in Chinese. Ah… Fun!

Took some pictures at the Summer palace. I could have a lot of fun there. Since it is the end of the trip we are on a tour, and for the first time in my life I am a tourist in a foreign country. So strange.

‘Kay, dinner time!

October 25^th, 2006

Listening to Ku’u Home ‘o Kahalu’u and reading emails from home. Such a pretty song. “Last night I dreamt that I was returning, and my heart called out to you.” You should listen to it. It is about returning to a place/person after a long time, after you/they/it may/probably/inevitably has changed. That it is just not the same. “And I will greet you as I find you, with a sharing of a new song.”

And emails that make me wish I could talk to the people face to face. To give them a hug, slap them playfully, or just watch their faces while they talk. Don’t get me wrong, email is great. It gives you time to think of how you want to say something. It gives you the chance to pick the right word, the one that gets your meaning across the best.

Anyway, today was normal. In fact, there was a time while I was sitting down, inside a bright, clean, new restaurant, listening to Hawaiian music and hearing English spoken, that I had to remind myself that I was halfway around the world in China. But I am and I should be getting to bed. It is rather late and I am tired. 

-Andrew!

PS. But I am so small, I can barely see, how can this great love be inside of me? Look in your eyes, they are so small but they see incredible things.

October 24, 2006

At night and the only foreigner there. I got off the bus and pretty much jogged across a six lane boulevard. That’s three lanes in each direction. Then I chilled at the diner for a few minutes, just long enough for it to start to rain. Packed up and biked back to the hotel. China is awesome.

Not much new news today, Kind of a slow day, talked to a few chinese and got asked “What is your major?” more times that years Julie is old. 

Anyway it is late and I should go to bed.

Night,
-Andrew!

October 23^nd, 2006

Now I long for yesterday. Not all that much, I haven’t said anything wrong either. That song just keeps coming up. Love was such an easy game to play.

Anyway, I didn’t get to send out this email yesterday so I am going over it to combine it with the stuff that happened today. But I am not sure how well this will work out, since today was the match to yesterday. 

Yesterday I did my laundry; it got done about 10:30. I was wondering if my socks would be dry in time for me to wear. They weren’t. I just put them on wet and waited for them to dry on my feet before putting on my shoes. It all worked out. I didn’t have to mircowave them to dryness(my original plan). I am still wondering if that would work though.

Yesterday, I was wondering what food I was going to eat first thing back in the states. On most trips, you know what you want to eat first thing back in the states. Last night I came to the conclusion that I wanted Hawaiian pizza. I have been eating Chinese food every breakfast and I was getting tired of it. For lunch and dinner I have been eating western diner food, greasy and french fries. Now, both of those types of food are good (Both favorite), but I am getting tired of them. I thought long and hard and Hawaiian pizza was my choice to eat once home. But I just had Hawaiian pizza tonight for dinner. So maybe some home made potato soup… or something… 

Today, we went shopping. Lots of walking, and not a lot of cool stuff. I did find some jackets that were nice and I would have like to buy, but it is really sad when you don’t fit into an extra large. Now, I am not huge, but I am some what on the large size with broad shoulders. It is just kind of depressing going to a store where you want to buy something and nothing fits. Anyway, on to happier subjects.

Yesterday, I saw myself ride a bike. How many of you can say that? Luke and I were rather bored so we went on a bike ride. We decided to go left at the end of the street (actually we asked some nice old Chinese man who didn’t understand us, and ended up pointing is some direction), and we came to where the sidewalk ends. It doesn’t end in some scary precipice made of crumbly concrete some children’s book wants you to believe. It ends in mud and a truck. Then a cement road. Which kind of looks like a sidewalk, but isn’t. It leads to some place that looks like a village and reminded me of Mexico. Not the fun, cute kids side of Mexico, but the lets not go there, cause will get shot kind of Mexico. Luke wanted to go. I said no. Luke said, come on. I said lets see where the other end of the sidewalk is. So we turned back around and rode. 

We rode all the way to Jum-bai, or JK mall. There we checked our bikes, which is really hard when the only things on the sign that you can read are “20.00”, “50.00”, “0.10”, and “0.50”. It ended up being the last one, or which is something like six and quarter cents. For two bikes. Got to love things like that.

After drinking our drinks and stowing our gear, we rode around outside Jum-bai, while I filmed Luke doing things like wheelies and stoppies. After getting enough weird looks we rode on. (This is where I get to see myself ride a bike. See after we left Jum-bai, Luke rode pretty much the whole way filming. See, I did get to see myself.) We took the long way home, stopped at a dock and I saw a huge fish jump. This thing could have eaten a duck. In three whole bites. Yeah, big. Got back to the diner and bused. And kept track of whose table was whose, and helped seat people. Rather fun. 

So that was yesterday and today. More of how today was the second half of yesterday, and yesterday in general.

So here is a shout out to all my work homies. Miss you guys and send me emails. 

Well, tonight wasn’t that funny in an outside kind of way. But long run on sentences that you think are funny when you write them ‘cause you are tired when you are typing are somewhat funny in a sad sort of way.

Night peeps. 

-Andrew!

PS. The light in the attic is just a light with a string attached to it.