max seems to enjoy climbing into the bathtub; i guess it is cooler and there is a little water to play in. the funny thing is he can get in but he can't get out by himself very easily. so we hear him start barking when he wants out. we thought it was funny to leave him in there for awhile; he finally managed to get out.
here is a video of him after a walk outside (not even a particularly strenuous walk):
Shen Rong and Matthew doing some bonding tonight. They are both much better than me at Chinese chess.
-Elias
the weather has been pretty great in shanghai the last week or so. i am guessing it is mostly due to some tropical storms in the area. temperatures were nice, but mostly it just gave us a week of great skies and sunsets. too bad in could only see them from my office window. this was from our balcony last night. we don't get these kind of skies very often.
LOW-FLYING, QUICK-MOVING CLOUDS: I haven't long to live.
TREETOPS, ROUNDED AND ROUGH: That's probably true.
LOW-FLYING, QUICK-MOVING CLOUDS: I won't even make it to the sea. I can already see where I'll end.
TREETOPS, ROUNDED AND ROUGH: I don't know what to tell you.
LOW-FLYING, QUICK-MOVING CLOUDS: But the thing is, I really love moving like this, though I know I won't even make it.
TREETOPS, ROUNDED AND ROUGH: There are advantages to flight.
LOW-FLYING, QUICK-MOVING CLOUDS: But thought is its unfitting companion.
"The Only Meaning of the Oil-Wet Water", Dave Eggers, How We Are Hungry
We turned on our air conditioner on June 22 this year. June 22 is technically the first day of summer, I guess. There is no going back now. Once you have a taste of it, you can't turn it off until some time in September. Technology is a wonderful thing. I am know obsessively making sure all doors are closed so as to ensure none of the cool air escapes. And there is just something about walking from the sweaty kitchen or bathroom into a nice chilled living room - it makes you really appreciate the A/C, and i guess it is cheaper to just cool the room you are hanging out it.
we bought a hot pad-type thing at the Best Buy in Shanghai (it just opened a few weeks, the first in China) so that we could do homemade hot pot. it has worked great. we had some great hot pot the last two nights. i was never a huge hot pot fan, but it is pretty good when you can choose some really good stuff to cook in it (and that soup is so good).
i am trying out this new media-player type thing. i guess its not fully launched yet.
Just wanted to thank everyone that we got to see and hang out with while we were in the States. Thank all you guys for coming to the party, even though we didn't get to talk to anyone for very long. Shen Rong enjoyed the trip, and we both had a lot of fun in New York City. I think both of our favorite time was watching the sunset from the top of the Rockefeller Center. 
Hope to get the chance to see all of our US friends/family more in the future. 
we haven't posted in a while, partly because we have been very busy, partly because i am lazy and partly because until a few weeks ago the blog was inaccessible thanks to the Great Firewall of China.
So, Shen Rong and I got married on October 7 in Shanghai. We had a lot of fun and got lucky with some great weather, which let us to spend most of the reception on the restaurant's lawn.
We had a great time with my family in Shanghai. I will need to post some pics later.
We then spent about a week in Malaysia, which was also great. We went to an island called Perhentian Besar. There were some beautiful beaches and not a lot of people. We had a lot of time to chill out and recover from several months of being extremely busy.
We are now getting settled into marriage life. A usual day looks like this: we get up about 7:30, eat toast or cereal for breakfast; leave for work at about 8:30, me carrying Shen Rong on the back of my bike to her bus stop; the on to work. SR gets home a little after 7, Elias sometime before 8. SR is awesome enough to cook a lot of the days, or we order out or eat out. i do the dishes, then we hang out, watch a DVD, mess with the computer or whatever till about ten, then we get ready for bed. usually trying to sleepy by 11. the days are pretty tiring, but we are enjoying our life.
things aren't getting too settled, because we are planning for our big trip to the US from dec 22-jan 6. we are having a party/reception on December 27. we are really looking forward to seeing everyone.
anyway, i just wanted to post a little something since the site is accessible again in china; i will try to do more later. there is much to discuss.
-elias
i know in my last entry i was ranting about shanghai summers. well, it is now 80 degrees. one good thing about shanghai (compared to dallas at least), is that it will cool off some before october. so keep your fingers crossed that this lasts for awhile.
i know the shanghai contingent of our family has been pretty quiet the last few months, but things have been really busy. planning a wedding takes a lot of work. so it is now a month until the wedding, and i think we are doing pretty good. plus it is summer here, which means all you really want to do is sit in front of the A/C. for those that don't know, shanghai gets really hot and humid in the summer (but not as bad as dallas), but the experience is much worse in shanghai because A/C is not as prevalent. for example, i have to turn on the a/c in my office every morning at 9am, which means it is half an hour before it cools down, and even then we have to use a fan and extra stand-along a/c unit just to make it bearable. and they cut the air off at 6pm, meaning the last hour or so of work is done sweating. i usually strip down to my boxers before i make it ten steps into my apartment after getting home. there is also no central air in apartments, so each room has its own unit. and i ride my bike to work, so you can imagine the state i am in when i get to work. soaked. chinese people don't sweat like we do, so i get some strange looks when i show up with my shirt already completely soaked. but anyway, enough complaining, it'snot so bad. i am sure some of the more senior members of our family can tell us a few things about living without a/c. it builds character right? and it makes watermelon taste so much better. the chinese eat watermelon in the summertime like i drink iced tea - all the time. and it is soooo good. it's not really summertime until you start eating watermelon after dinner every night. it is almost as good as a/c. and cheaper.
Shen rong and i have rented a place. we really like it. a major upgrade from where i was ($170/month to $550/month), but we thought, you know, you only get your first place once. rong is moved in, i will be moving in later. the video above is of the new place.
Ive realized I have the gift of Tom Sawyering people.
I agreed only to go solo with the rents as long as I had a project - which turned out to be painting the condo green. I talked it up the whole way there and got them so excited on the idea that once I got them started they never stopped. It was a sweet trick. We only planned on doing one wall but mom got so excited on finishing that we did the whole place.
I also have a new interst of handstands on the beach. We cleaned out the old furniture and wierd decorative things and replaced with pictures of us. We discovered Isabellas, a sweet breakfast place (we ate there every morning) that serves dads favorite - chile relleno - and 2$ breakfast burritos 18'' long. You can get a full meal for 3 for less than $10. Also we
discovered St. Piers, a sweet not-too-fancy place that occasionally has live music and has a big deck on the bay. In closing, cheak out mom in a bathing suit and her sun rash that she went on and on about, she worked hardest to not get any sun (100spf umbrella + 50spf sunscreen) but endedup most tan out of all of us. So Ill leave you with the Don Chaffer lyric of the day:
"now Jesus was a lover, he had fire in his eyes. . . that could burn away excuses and cremate your alabi's. . . he had a gaze that would expose to you all the subtle lies. . . that your soul permits your heart to tell, concerning all that it denies. . . " Chaffer 'Against the Window Pane'
So in e's theme of regaining that sense of wonder (SPI really helps in realizing that), I think about the subtle things in our hearts that we often feel but deny.
i got my cast off today. in case i didn't tell you, i broke the next to last little
bone on my right ring finger playing flag football. it was the first ten minutes of
the first game in a new league that was started in shanghai (the same group that
runs our basketball league). i broke it diving for this guy's flat - and in case you
were wondering, yeah, i got his flag. the incident forced me to visit a shanghai hospital,
which is never a good experience. how i got my cast: you go into emergency room, find the
bone people, they send you to the cashier, who sends you to register, then back to cashier
to pay, then in line to see the bone guy. he tells you you need an x-ray, so you romp across
the hospital campus, find the x-ray building, which is deserted, snoop around and find
someone, who tells you you need to pay first. go to cashier, who says you need to register again,
after which you pay again, then take your x-ray, then wait half an hour, get your picture, go back to
dr., who says you need a cast, then you go pay again for the cast, then you finally get
your cast. i have to say it is a pretty frustrating experience. maybe abi and david can
shed a little light on how this compares to the ER experience in the states, i guess
i haven't been in a while. but to be fair, i guess i can't say much positive about the
experience of going to the dr's office in the states either, where you wait 45 min in the
waiting room, then wait another 20 min in the examining room, then see the doc for 5 minutes.
and at least it is cheap at the chinese hospitals. i think my entire casting experience
cost about US$10.
so anyway, i have had this retarted little cast on my finger the last month, which has made
life extremely difficult. no, not extremely difficult. i know we all live priveleged lives
compared to a lot of the world, so we can not classify our lives as difficult. so the cast
added a few inconveniences to my life that i was not used to. i couldn't ride my bike and
had to take the bus. and it made typing difficult, also showering.
so the point of this post is that after seeing my finger today, i realized that it is
probably going to be a little crooked for the rest of my life (i already have crooked toes).
at first i was pretty upset about that, but then i thought, you know, who even knows how long the rest
of this life will last? i should be overjoyed if i get to spend another 50 years living with
this little crooked finger.
we should thank heaven above everyday for our health and for what we do have, because
every day is a gift. i have been blessed in so many ways that i can't believe i would consider
feeling sorry for myself for a little crooked finger. maybe this finger will be a reminder
to me to be thankful for what i do have.
this reminds me of another don chaffer quote:
"Mercy's born on every morning..."
-O Virgina
or something like that. maybe i will start ending all of my posts with don
chaffer quotes.
well, that was my thought for the day. i need to
stop now because my crooked finger is getting sore from typing.
-elias
Every one is broken baby - everyone in sight
Everyone is groping honey.. in the middle of the night
--Don Chaefer
I've realized you cant say a word to make everything perfect -- or i just havent figured out what that word is yet.
Truly everyone is sick in someway. . . Ha, why is it always the college student comming out with all the morbid stuff? But no, Maybe Im at that age where Ive figured out Im old enough to disagree with the way things are.
I dont know if it was the way things were at the camp, or the families where these boys came from, or the, just, evil that always seemed to creep into situations and these innocent little kids lives. I mean how can really fully protect them from harms way. I guess thats a parents greatest regret in having children - that they have to feel the paings of the world upon their sholders.
But no, I say if you are going to do it, you got to do it, meaning if your going to raise a son who is going to love God and not be rebellious your going to have to teach them obedience. And if you hope for your son to realize his hopes and dreams and be able to pick himself up off the ground when he fails miserably then your going to have to invest your lives. You are a reflection of your children. If you want to be proud of your children then you better raise them right! If you want your children to fully experience the fullness of life you better teach them the essence of life! The kids you have are going to experience the same sin, guilt, shame, sufferings that you had until you make a stand and say 'NO! Im sick of this sin and bondage and Im not going to have it anymore!' Then only when you break that cycle of continuous repetative slavery through sin then you will have that freedom that truly comes from Christ. "For freedoms sake Christ set us free". We have the power to stop the sin from passing on down to our children if we choose put an end to it in our lives. Our children and our childrens children are going to continue to feel the sin, and fears until we defeat them. Just as sin entered through one man, it has been inherited through every generation, but we can stop that sin through another man. Its all connected, our fears will be our sons fears unless we stop fearing.
Needless to say it was a bit of a frusterating but leanfull last week. It was harder not having a few friends to bounce things off of. But I'll leave you with the famous quote of the week:
"(I repeat) There is never a time when you do not flush."
so this is a really old picture, taken during SR, M and my's trip down to souther Yunnan province, a place called Xishuangbanna in chinese, near Myanmar (burma). this was a great sunset (picture never do a thing justice, do they?) after a nice bike ride through a small village, after a morning rafting trip down the mekong river. (it wasnt as hardcore as it sounds). maybe someday i will write more about that trip. what a great trip. anyway, i am sure most of yall have seen this, but i don't think it ever hurts to see it again. isnt this the kind of picture that just makes you want to thank god for giving us the chance to experience the beautiful world he has given us? i think one of the most tragic things is when we lose our sense of wonder about the world. i know i lose my sense of wonder many times a day, but then something like this just hits you, and you get this feeling in your gut that makes you want to laugh and cry and hug whoever is next to you. when does this feeling hit you guys? another time i get it is when i am enjoying a good meal with good friends and the conversation is just flowing, meaning and real, or when i hear a beautiful song with lyrics that really speak to me, like when don chaffer sings:
"when jesus raises up the dead, and gives sight to the blind; now there's a man that i can get behind."
-elias
this is a follow-up to the earlier wedding plans post. This is Hengshan Church, where we will hold the wedding. it is a beautiful old church, built in 1925 by missionaries in shanghai. they hold about 5 services in there a day, some for local chinese and some for the international community. the reception will be just down the street from the church.
my roommates and me after a trip to the sunglass store, sometime in march i think. that is fredrik, the swede on the left, and orion from chicago in the middle. yeah, we know we're cool.
i need to talk about Kowloon Ice House. this restaurant is right around the corner from my office and i eat lunch there three or four times a week. it is a small Hong Kong style cafe, complete with cantonese pop music videos playing on a large TV. and i mostly eat there because of their bing nai cha, iced milk tea. it is my favorite drink in the city (though i am not sure how healthy it is). they make it by adding milk powder to black tea, along with a healthy dose of sugar. the food is ok, it is actually pretty similar to american style chinese food; what i have in this picture would be your typical sweet and sour chicken. i usually go there and read, a wonderful 45 minute respite from the office. 
i get a rice dish and a drink for about US$3, which is a little more expensive than most chinese alternatives, but i am happy to pay it because it is much cleaner than most other restaurants and they actually have decent service. i go here so much that they recently made me a VIP customer, that means i get 10% percent off each visit (except when i get a lunch meal deal, which is almost the only time i go!!).
so even though this is the restaurant i frequent the most in shanghai, i wouldnt say it is my favorite. that may have to go to Guyi, a hunanese restaurant (mao's home province and known for its great spicey food) i have only been to once, but it holds a special place in my heart because that is where i proposed to SR; well, out on the steps of the restaurant at least. plus, they have great ribs and a great fish head dish.
-elias
