At the Eau Claire Airport at 5:01 on Wednesday, August 22nd on our way to live and work in China for one year.  

Saying our goodbyes to family, a few tears were shed.  The anticipation of going on this new adventure had finally arrived.  It all seemed very surreal and everyone was emotional.  

 The kids had never flown on a long trip (minus Hattie at age 3 and the boys on a 4 seater plane) so our first takeoff and landing was a success, arriving in Chicago for our first leg.  Then we boarded for the second of three legs to Vancouver.  Where we had a five hour layover, due to a delay.  Then our last leg was a 13 hour flight to Guangzhou, China.  It proved to be a successful journey, just not a very restful one.

 This is our first picture at the airport in Guangzhou, China.  We arrived about 9 pm.  An employee named Dorothy greeted us.  She would prove to be a lifeline of translation for us over the first few weeks helping us get all of our paperwork completed for work and finding our apartment.  Her english is quite good.  A school van with a driver named Peter drove us to our temporary housing.  The apartment was three bedrooms with two baths and living room and a kitchen with basically just a sink and a very old fridge.

Here are Gabe and Mason on the scooters of the real estate agents.  This is the most common mode of transportation.  Luke, Hatte and I rode in the car with another agent and our translator, Dorothy.  We looked at two apartments and two houses.  We chose an apartment on the top floor of a high rise because of the view and it less buggy up high.  

This is a view of the school courtyard where Luke has been doing much of his teaching for the time being.  These colorful floors are also classrooms in the primary school.


This is one of the meals we have been eating it consists of steamed buns filled with pork and veggies, dumplings filled with pork and veggies, cornbread, crab wrapped in seaweed and rice and pork wrapped and cooked in a banana leaf.  This whole lunch feeds us all and costs roughly $6.00 and everyone agrees it is delicious.

I am also going to try to include some pictures of things you may not see back home...this was a car transporting a tree by dragging it down the road???  I guess it works.

Here we are at a more traditional chinese store. The local neighborhoods are filled with these multi purpose shops.  They are very small but packed with an abundance of items...we purchased hangers, silverware (although we are improving our chopstick skills), and a toilet brush at this shop.  

This is a neighborhood bakery.  They sell pastries, including a pretty decent sugar donut.  They also sell cakes.  Mason is trying a cake treat that looked better than it tasted.  We later found out they make many of their treats with bean curd.  

This is the first authentic restaurant we ate at.  It is called, Shan Dang which is Mountain Pool in English.  Our wonderful cab driver, Sam, who speaks very good English took us here.  He was gracious enough to stay and show us the ropes.  He showed us how to prewash our dishes and chopsticks.  Sam also helped us order a traditional chinese lunch of meat and vegetables.  He ordered about 10 different dishes, we ate until we were full and then took home lots of leftovers.  The picture below is the restaurant and workers.  

Sam, our cab driver, who we are absolutely loving!  He is so helpful, informative and kind.  

The kids enjoying lunch.  Right behind them is the lake and mountain.