Supporting our troops

Yes, I do realize that our last posting was in December. I am still going through my "I really can't be bothered to write on our blog" phase. Although I'm starting to think it's not a phase. Nevertheless, I was just getting up to date on my friend Tara's blog. She is living in Turin, Italy for 6 months (or so) and I was loving all of her stories similar to ours.

http://foreignxchanges.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html

This link will take you to some familiar tales of washing machine woes.


A few weeks ago, the USS Stennis and all of its support ships were in town. They were one month in to a 6 month mission from Washington. We had three sailors over for dinner at our house one night while they were in town. Two of our friends here who are from Chicago came over as well and the 7 of us all had dinner together. It's a program called Meals in the Home that the American Women's Association I am president of participates in each time a ship is in town. This is the first time we were able to host. All three sailors were class AOS, which I don't know what that stands for other than they are the bomb builders on the ship. We had a great evening. One of the most fun nights we've had here. The guys were so happy to have a home cooked meal. Two were in their early 30s and one in his mid-20s. All three had kids and wives back home.

Chris ended up taking them out to the bar district that night. The Commanding Officer and Executive Officer of the ship were out that same night and one of our guests broke just about all protocol and went up to introduce Chris to the CO and XO to let him know that we hosted them for dinner and that they loved the food and it was their best night in Hong Kong. Anyway, that was really sweet, especially since I don't think they normally go around chatting with the officers. Chris of course was in heaven and thought it was cool that he got to meet those guys.

While the ships were in town, the Meals in the Home program hosted more than 200 sailors for dinner and I think there is going to be an article in the English newspaper here about the program and the American Women's Association in the near future. I am very happy about the publicity.

We also got to go on a brief tour of the Stennis. This was after we saw first hand how the US military may not be such a well-oiled machine. We had to wait 1.5 hours for the boat to come and pick us up because they couldn't get the right boat sailing and then didn't have someone to guide us. All very funny. Unfortunately, they limit the tours for people in China to just the hangar bay and flight deck. They say it's because of the number of people around (or at least that was the official reasoning) but the sailors we hosted were pretty sure that it was just because of the risk of the communist country that we live next door to. Funny in a not so funny sort of way. We did get to right the flight elevator that moves the planes. That was my favorite part. Very Top Gun.

We are hoping to be able to do it again the next time a ship comes in to town. It was a great way to say thank you to all of the men and women who serve in our armed forces.

Sapa

The town of Sapa is in the North West corner of Vietnam, about a 9 hour train ride from Hanoi....yikes. Anyway, once you get past the train ride, Sapa was awesome. With some 50 groups of ethnic minorities in Veitnam there is no other way to describe the experience other than somewhat like walking through an issue of National Geographic.

Erin buying a basket from one of the ladies at the local market. The lady was a member of the Red Zhou minority group.
More local people walking around the market.

All the hills are cut into terraces for rice farming. Its hard to take a picture that could do justice to the scenery. Trust me, google "Sapa terraced hills" and you will get a lot better pictures that we could post...although Erin and I probably won't be in those.

We also walked through some Black Hmong (another ethnic group) villages to see how people lived. Its best described as very basic.

All the Black Hmong kids running around...they were a fan of me. Although I'm fairly certain they just wanted me to buy something.

Hanoi Trip Pictures

Hello All,

This is Chris and I'm going to post some pictures over the holiday weekend. Erin and I went to Vietnam not to long ago, we spent a week going to Hanoi, Sapa, Tam Coc, Hoa Lu, and Ha Long Bay. We had a great time and would like to share it with you...enjoy!!

Lets just say the traffic in Hanoi is insane. This picture was taken in the French Quarter, somewhat near where we stayed.

We also went to the Hanoi Hilton where they kept the US prisoners during the Vietnam War. This is a picture of John McCain's flight suit.

A picture of the guillotine in the Hanoi Hilton the French used on the Vietnamese political prisoners before the French left the country.

This is a picture of a huge Catholic church in the middle of Hanoi.....very old, very cool. We were able to walk around the inside and check it out.

Erin and I were a little sad we weren't able to spend Thankgiving with our family, but wouldn't you know it, we walked into a resturant for dinner and they were serving Thanksgiving Dinner. The manager/owner was from Chicago and hung out with us for a bit. Anyway, Thanksgiving dinner in downtown Hanoi

More to come......

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

The temperature dropped quite a bit today and is supposed to stay cool for the next day or so. It's not exactly below zero and there isn't a ton of snow like there is in Milwaukee & Chicago but it most certainly is turtleneck and sweater weather today and tomorrow. That is sort of nice. Hong Kong is decked out to the nines with Christmas decorations and everyone is out and about doing their Christmas shopping. Sort of funny for a mostly Taoist & Buddhist country but having so many people wish me Merry Christmas today made me very happy.

I dropped my good friend Amy off at the airport train a few hours ago. She was here for 12 days and we spent 5 days in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam together. So much fun. I will post pictures and stories this weekend. It was incredibly sad to see her go as I'm not sure when I will see her next and we always have so much fun traveling together. The good news is we're already planning our next trip together. Not totally sure where it will be but we're keeping our options open.

Amy marked our last of numerous visitors we've had over the last four months. First it was Paul Blaha, then my cousin Dani & Alex, then the Semraus followed by my mom, Jim, Aunt Kim & Uncle Tom. We took a quick jaunt to northern Vietnam only to return in time for Jay & Paula to visit and then Amy a few days later. It has been a lot of fun to have so many people come and see our lives here but it has also been exhausting.

Chris and I are looking forward to a nice quiet weekend at home. Thanks to the English, Chris has Boxing Day (a.k.a. December 26) off from work so we will have a long weekend to catch up on things, enjoy our Hong Kong Christmas together and get ready for our next big trip. Three weeks from now we head to Jamaica for Jay & Paula's wedding and then on to South Africa for a safari.

We would like to wish all of our family and friends back home a very Merry Christmas. We are incredibly sad to be missing another holiday with our families. It's the hardest part of living so far away for both of us. We do, however, have a nice Christmas Eve dinner planned at a nice restaurant and then will spend Christmas Day with our good friends, Murray & Catharine.

Lots of love to you all.

4 Lessons from Vietnam

So we realize that it's been more than forever and a day since we've written on our blog. It's mostly because we have had visitors basically non-stop since the end of September. It's been great, but just insanely busy between Chris working and me now being the President of the American Women's Association. Blaha started the trend off at the end of September/beginning of October, then Dani & Alex, then The Semraus stopped by on their 8 month trip around the world and finally my parents & aunt and uncle just left on Wednesday after 11 days.

I haven't been all that interested in posting on our blog lately. In all honesty, it's a lot of work and I'm not sure that there is a whole lot of value behind it. Nevertheless, when I mentioned to Chris that I was thinking about being done with this whole thing, he wasn't all that excited. So here we are, 12 hours in to our trip to northern Vietnam and we've had enough lessons to write about.

1. Always confirm your flight48 hours before you leave...even if you have a travel agent - this will help when the airlines fails to contact you or your travel agent to let you know that your flight is leaving 12 hours earlier. I, however, never even thought about it utnil I got an email from our Vietnam travel agent asking us when we were going to be at the airport since we weren't there when our flight arrived on Thursday morning (note, we were supposed to leave Thursday night). Complete nightmare. Let's just say that I completely freaked out but thanks to Chris being completely calm in these kind of situations and a really nice Hong Kong travel agent, we were booked on a different flight out at 6 p.m. and made it to Hanoi earlier than we originally thought.
2. Don't fly Hong Kong Airlines - they changed our flights, cancelled them and anything else you can imagine, including not telling us about the changes. The good news is, we ended up actually flying on Dragon Air/Cathay Pacific so we get frequent flier miles and get to fly on a nice airline
3. Be careful what you sit on - even if the toilet paper is covering the toilet seat in a public toilet. You might just find a small bug crawling on it after you get up.
4. When the local tells you food is spicey, it probably is. - Chris's satays that he had for dinner last night weren't exactly satays. They were more like fajita style meat with the spiciest sauce ever. Erin Bilot would have loved it but Chris hasn't sweat that much since the middle of the summer.

That's all for now. Probably won't post anything until we get back and after Jay & Paula leave. Our hotel happens to have a computer in our room so I'm writing now. We would have preferred hot water but I guess that wasn't at this place.

Shoot 'em up

For those of you who didn't know, I was back in the U.S. for my very good friend's wedding. Robyn and Erich Parker tied the knot on August 31 in Oak Park, IL. It was an awesome weekend - their guests were in from all over the country and so friendly. I was flying solo for this trip because unfortunately, Chris still has his Johnson Controls - U.S. vacation time (i.e. not very many days in today's market). Here are some pix from the wedding.
All the gals: Me, Renee, Robyn, Heather, Tara & Becky. We're just missing Amy Fassbender.
Renee & Bob's nephew, Dan, got to join us at the wedding. We all adore Dan so it was great to have him there, although I'm not so sure that he thinks weddings with a bunch of 30-somethings is all that much fun.
The happy couple at their rehearsal dinner. For some reason I didn't get a picture of them together on their actual wedding day.

I got to spend some good q.t. with family and friends while back in town. I also went to a Brewers game (and watched them lose a 4 run lead in the top of the 9th) and a Badgers game with my other group of UW girls - these ones from MBA school. I'll post a picture later. I just have to find it.

Unfortunately, I flew back and forth on frequent flier miles and had to fly coach - or economy as the rest of the world calls it. Actually, it was fine but flying business class is MUCH nicer. But a little melatonin goes a long way so I did actually get some sleep on the flights there and back.

Now, what's with my blog title? Aah, never a dull moment. I flew Japan Airlines back which obviously has a lot of Japanese on it (duh!). There were almost no economy seats on the plane compared to other international flights but I did get lucky enough to be sitting kitty-corner to a not so nice looking Japanese guy who busted out his syringe just after the first meal, pulled up his shirt and shot himself with whatever medication he had. I mean, o.k., fine. Diabetic or whatever. But couldn't you just walk in to the bathroom so the rest of the plane doesn't have to watch you shoot yourself up. Gross.

Our second wedding anniversary was two days before I left for the U.S. so we didn't go anywhere for the long weekend. Instead, we went to a new, very posh, stupidly expensive restaurant on the 25th floor of a building in central Hong Kong. The views of the city and harbor were incredible. Here's a picture of the two of us on our anniversary with the new camera that Chris bought me!

The building on the left is the Bank of China building (which the HK people hate because it has bad feng shui) and the building on the right with the red & white is the HSBC building.

Chris left for Singapore the morning after I got back for a work trip so I went to meet him for the weekend. I'll post pictures and a message soon.

Our first in a long line of visitors comes on Wednesday so I'm sure we'll have some good stories from our guests as well.

Kudos to MChange

Here's the email I just received from the Marquette Interchange Project. Kudos to them for doing such a great job. I lived downtown for a year and on the south side (or Bay View as Chris calls it even though we didn't really live in Bay View) for another year during the heart of the project and I have to say I was utterly impressed with how well the project went and how well they communicated all of the changes.

Yes, I know I haven't been there for a year+ but I still get all the emails about any closures and news. While it may have been confusing for people who didn't really travel through downtown all that much, Chris and I both drove through it every day and were repeatedly impressed with how smoothly it actually went. For those of you who thought it was rough, think of the people in Boston. I, myself, am looking forward to driving through it in a few weeks.

O.k. So now here's the email.

"The Marquette Interchange is Open We are excited to announce that the largest road construction project in the history of the state, the Marquette Interchange, has been completed ahead of schedule and under budget. The new and attractive Marquette Interchange is safer with wider ramps, greater distance between ramps, longer merge lanes and exit ramps on the right side. We want to thank the community for their cooperation and patience, and everyone who changed their approach but not their destination.

The new interchange has many new ramps and changes to existing ramps. To acclimate yourself and learn how to make it work best for you, click here to view the Owner's Manual for your new Marquette Interchange. If you would like a copy of the Owner's Manual mailed to you, please e-mail your name and mailing address to: MIPownersmanual@gmail.comThe Marquette Interchange is open - enjoy the ride.