Thanksgiving in China

We had a very different Thanksgiving this year in China. Sue, Stacia and friend Dawn Hall from Ohio traveled with the varsity basketball teams from Concordia to the Great Wall Tournament in Beijing over the Thanksgiving weekend. They played teams from Thailand, Hong Kong, Korea, Beijing and Shanghai. They played their hearts out and came away the victors! This is one tough team to beat! Stacia is the starting point guard. After the playing was finished the host school put on a Thanksgiving awards banquet where we had turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie and many other dishes to pig out on. While we were there, Rich and the other kids celebrated Thanksgiving with our small group from church. Rich told the Thanksgiving story to the adults and children there. Most of our group are from other countries so they really enjoyed hearing about the history of our Thanksgiving tradition. They also all enjoyed the traditional feast with turkey's closest cousin, chicken (turkey is very expensive here, hard to find and the non american women don't know how to cook one), sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, squash, pumpkin pie and more. It was a wonderful evening of celebration and fellowship for them. It was the first Thanksgiving that we have been apart in 21 years of marriage. I have bought a small turkey costing about $48 and will cook it for our family Christmas. This will also be different this year as we will be staying in Asia and vacationing in Sabah, East Malaysia on the island of Borneo. It will also be the first Christmas that we will not be with our families from home. We will miss everyone greatly. We have gotten a fresh tree purchased from the school holiday bazaar (delivered in a pot and costing $20) and decorated it the best we can with ornaments we brought from home. I don't know what type of evergreen it is, but the branches are not strong so we had to pick out the lightest of all the ornaments to hang on it. Rich bought Christmas lights (very expensive and imported from Germany) and our oversized Charlie Brown tree now stands proudly in our living room. If definately feels different this season as we are not inundated with the commercialism of Christmas in the stores here. We will share more of our family Christmas celebration after our trip to Malaysia. Look for our Christmas letter arriving by email this year (if Rich can get a few moments out of his extremely busy work schedule to put it together).

Lance in Nanbeihu

Just a quick update. Lance went on his first class trip - to Nanbeihu. It was a 3-day, 2-night trip away with his 5th grade classmates (5th grade was not like this when I went!). A blast of activity included the High Pole Climb and Flying Leap, kayaking, climbing, rappelling...you know, just your average every-day stuff for 5th grade in China!

Trip to Beijing

Rich and the kids just had the week of October 1-5 off of school and work to celebrate China's National Day. This holiday celebrates 58 years since the communist party began rule in China. It is a big week to travel for the Chinese in the country either as tourists or getting together with family. Rich's mom Carol Shields is here visiting from Michigan for three weeks and we all planned a trip to Beijing to see the sights. It was a jam packed trip which began with a 12 hour train ride from Shanghai to Beijing on the soft sleeper train. It was quite an adventure. We had packed a picnic dinner and we all ate in one of the little 4 person sleeper cars around 8pm. The cars were very nice and clean with bedding provided. We had one for the girls and one for the guys. Some of us got some sleep while others couldn't get used to the constant rocking of the car and the clacking of the rails. We arrived in Beijing around 7am and were met by our young, english speaking guide (taller than Rich if you can believe it!) who took us to the Capital hotel to get cleaned up and rest before hitting the streets of Beijing. On Tuesday we saw the Forbidden City, Tianamen Square and the Peoples Hall of Congress. It was a beautiful day for touring and we were among the masses of tourists seeing Beijing. We came with the expectation that it would be crowded, but actually it was very neat to be on Tianamen Square with thousands of people celebrating National Day. We had a notorious Peking Duck meal at the most famous Peking Duck restaurant in town for lunch. The duck is absolutely delicious. For dinner we walked from our hotel to a mall and had Mr. Pizza. After satisfying our western tastes, we walked back to Tianamen Square where it was covered in beautiful light displays. Once again Lance and Stacia (blond hair) were mobbed by locals wanting to take their picture with them. They are getting used to the celebrity status here and relishing the moments. The next day was a wonderful trip to the Mutianyu location of the Great Wall. What a beautiful day we had walking for hours and enjoying the splendor. It is a very impressive sight to behold! At the end of our walking we were rewarded with a trip down the mountain from the wall on an alpine slide. The next day was yet another beautiful day and we started it at park at the entrance to the Temple of Heaven. It was so fun being in the park in the morning where the local people are doing their exercises, playing games unfamiliar to us, singing and playing opera music on unknown instruments. They invited us to try their ball balancing games and ring tossing games. We could have spent an hour doing that but our guide ushered us along so that we could get to the day's itinerary. The Temple of Heaven was an interesting sight and we then went to the Emperor's Summer Palace which was more like a park surrounding a lake with courtyards and walkways. It was absolutely packed with people and probably the least enjoyable of all our sights. We will have to go back there on off season. That day we also went into the old neighborhoods of Beijing called the Hutongs. We got in 4 rickshaws (bikes with a covered two seated bench behind) and toured the alleyways. We also were welcomed into one of the homes by a local family so that we could see the inside of one. It was indeed a very unique experience. We finished our fun that day with VIP seats at the Beijing Opera. It was one of our highlights and we loved the acrobatic acts performed during the show. One additional stop on the tour was to see some of the new olympic buildings in the olympic village. We could view from afar the Bird's Nest, the Water Cube and some other stadiums as well. All in all we had a terrific time with perfect weather, good health and safety.

FIFA Women's World Cup Excitement!

On Friday evening, September 14th, Rich, Lucas, Lance, Stacia and I and two of the kids' friends attended a double header soccer game at the Hong Kou Stadium in Shanghai. We also surprised our Driver Mr. Xu with a ticket since we knew he was a soccer fan. He was shocked that we would include him. He had never done anything like that before. I think he had a very nice time. He bought popcorn for all as a gesture of thanks. We watched Japan vs. Argentina and Germany vs. England. Japan won the first game in extra time, 1-0. The second game was attended by a larger and more rowdy crowd. There were many Germans surrounding us chanting in German LOUDLY! They get into their game! The crowd did the wave several times. I believe there were about 28,000 in attendance. The game was quite exciting but ended a tie, 0-0. The most fun of the night though was when Lance, Lucas and Lance's friend Ryan all got mobbed by many Chinese people wanting to take their picture. The boys all had England soccer jerseys on and their cuteness attracted a lot of attention. You would have thought they had just walked off the set of Middle School Musical! There were Chinese school girls and adults taking pictures with their camera phones. They all wanted to take turns getting into the picture with the boys. Lucas was relishing the attention of the teenage girls who were completely giddy getting into the pictures with him. He enjoyed the attention very much. Lance has been used to this attention before because his blond hair gives him instant notoriety. He has learned to accept the attention like a seasoned star and even has a special smile he uses in their pictures. Rich and I just laughed and took pictures of people taking pictures of them! The boys were even given free pop because of their "popularity". Overall, we had such a great time. Watching soccer live is a lot more fun than on TV. So far as of today, the USA is in the final four. Tonight we will watch them play Brazil live on Chinese TV. We won't be able to understand anything, but it will still be fun to watch.

A Sunday family outing

Sundays are really special for us now. It has become a very enjoyable, relaxing time that includes sleeping in, big breakfasts and family fun such as this outing in Century Park. Century Park is a huge beautiful park in the middle of the Pudong part of Shanghai, very much like Central Park in the middle of NYC. We rented this fun 6 person bike and rode all over the park. We got many stares from the locals (as we always do - big family, tall people, blond hair and a Chinese daughter). We took turns driving but a few at a time had to pedal hard to keep us going! There were some very interesting bush sculptures to gaze upon. Our church service doesn't start until 3pm so we enjoy the earlier part of the day as a family and then head to church at Abundant Grace. It ends around 4:30 so we try to join in with another family or two for dinner afterwards. We have met some wonderful friends and are already feeling connected in at church. Some of the other things we have enjoyed doing on Sundays are going to the fitness center in our complex and playing badminton, squash, swimming or working out in the gym. Shopping at the bargaining mall where you can get a Prada purse for $10 or a game boy game for $3 is always fun. You should see the kids and how their bargaining skills have developed - they drive a hard bargain!

Back to School

It is that time of year again! Here are first day of school pictures of the kids. They started on August 15th. They sure are looking grownup, don't you agree? They attend Concordia International School about 10 minutes from home. A bus comes to our little neighborhood and takes about 25 kids to the school in comfort and style! You have never seen school buses like this before. They ride with a driver and monitor who makes sure they have their seat belts on in their cushy seats with the air conditioner blowing. Stacia is in 9th, Lucas 8th, Lance 5th and Elise 3rd. They all seem to have adjusted quite well to life in China and to their new school. It is a beautiful campus with two new buildings. Elise is in the new elementary building and has to hike up to the 4th floor to her classroom. There are so many opportunities for growth outside the classroom as well. Stacia was the only freshman to make the varsity volleyball team and is busy with that 4-5 days a week. Lucas is trying out touch rugby and loves it. On Thursday he scored 3 out of 7 points for his team in two games. Both Lucas and Lance are running for the middle school cross country team as well. Elise will be taking an arts and crafts class after school and will start up her violin lessons soon. Both Lance and Elise are involved in the community soccer league playing with kids from all over the world. It has been a wonderful learning experience for all.

Thanks to Stacia for setting up the blog and entering the first posts. Sorry it has taken me so long to get this going. I had to find a way to get around the blog block here to view the posts. A new blog savvy friend from Chicago showed me "the way". More to come on life in China...

Our new church

These are some pictures of our new church, Abundant Grace International Fellowship. The first picture is the outside of the building, with some of our friends we met up with here. The second picture is of the beautiful inside of the church. Although we dearly miss LifeChurch, Abundant Grace has been really nice. We continue to meet new friends every Sunday, and the worship is great, as it is very long and is a combination of hymns and contemporary music. Lance and Elise haven't gone to kids church yet, but hopefully today will be their first time there. Stacia and Lucas have also met a couple kids their ages, but since most of the expats leave to go back home for the summer, they are not involved in any youth groups.

Welcome

Hello everyone! Welcome to the Allen China Adventures blog. Hopefully from this you can get a good idea of what life in China is like, and we can keep you updated on all the latest events. We can't wait to hear back from you all and your comments on our posts. Keep checking up on us as we adventure through China!