Accro-branche

I've never done a ropes course in the US. I've heard about them. Team-building, fun, up in the trees wandering around on tottery rope and beam bridges. A friend here suggested that we all go ziplining near Lyon. Ziplining near the city??? That sounds awesome! So, off we went to France Aventures. Which, it turns out, is mostly rope courses. On steroids. Possibly while taking speed. With some ziplining thrown in, yes. The friendly little squirrel guy is so happy doing it, see? (Note: all pics are links to their original pages since I was brilliant and brought my camera.... with my memory card still in my computer. At least I realized it after two attempted pics.) http://www.france-aventures.com/index.php/fr/nos-parc-fr/lyon

It's up on a hill, and does have an awesome view like that. So, once we were there, I was still a bit confused. See, I was picturing something like this: http://www.saferoller.com/medias/Pictures/outdoor-artificial-trails/Saferoller_outdoor_mast_ropes_course_belay_saferoller.jpg. Up in the air, with a solid footing, even if it would be tough for someone afraid of heights. And the little kid/beginner course is fun and welcoming, with stuff like this: http://www.loisirs.fr/photo/activite/520/france-aventures-lyon-3.jpg and this http://www.123sejours.com/gestion/indigestimg/listesej/listesej7735/Accrobranche.JPG

It turns out, though, that those things aren't super stable. And sometimes the planks or ROUND log/branches don't always look in good condition: http://www.lyonpoche.com/cg_media/lieu/2521/images/600/1270218375418.jpg But then you quickly get to things like the tightrope. When I mentioned it to my host dad, he was like, "oh, so you walk on one cable, while holding the other above your head?" No, no, I wish. In fact, you walk on one wobbly cable while holding onto another wobbly cable NEXT TO YOU. Yeah, so when you start to lose your balance (as if I had any to start with) you are either going to fall and find out how it feels for the harness to catch you, or you get to fight leaning back and forth with the side cable, looking like a crazy. This doesn't quite capture it, but it's the one: http://tinyurl.com/mkz5f79

And there's stuff like this tunnel: http://www.encyclopedie-gratuite.fr/Definition/nature/image/accrobranche-tunnel.jpg Looks nice, right? Yeah. Kinda. But it's 30 feet in the air and wobbly, and is kinda fun at first. But... umm... how do I get to the next one. Ok, gap that gets wider as I lean out traversed. Then the second. and now.... platform, please? Get closer? I'm small enough that I just turned around and stuck my feet out first and pulled myself up holding onto the cable. I could just see a repeat of kindergarten when I tried to grab the last bar and landed on my head. Only instead of falling into the gravel, I would have smacked my head on the wooden platform and been bleeding, dangling from a cable (safely, yes) next to the tree.

In the middle of the last, hardest course we lost one of our group. Here: http://www.le-lyonnais.org/_uploads/tourismeweb-img/sitraACT422793_accrobranche-parc-yzeron-aventure.JPG They don't show that there is a trapeze that you have to hold onto and then you zip like a human fly for 50 feet and smack into this rope wall. You know what a PAIN rope walls are? Especially when there is nothing tethering the bottom, allowing them to swing freely as you struggle up them? Too much for our runner who will now start working on push ups as well. The nice boy who works there and had a good time laughing at us a LOT jumped impressively to grab onto the rope wall thing and climbed up past her, to grab her hand and help her up to the platform. Impressive. I want to jump up there like that!

Ugh, and I can't find a picture of the smaller rope wall, the one that WAS attached on the bottom. Why? Because you basically just jump into it. Your jump is 'guided' by a rope that doesn't have enough tension on it to actually SWING you, it just leads you as you fall, SMACK, into the rope wall. Um, thanks?

I don't know if you can see this one well: http://tinyurl.com/kdmevaz The lovely young man is walking by putting his foot through the bottom of those round-topped.... handles?? that are each suspended at the bottom of a rope. About 3 feet apart. Left, right, left, right. So you either get to kick at the next one and hope your foot goes in it, or you work on your balance and leg strength by letting go of the rope keeping the back leg straight while leaning forward and grasping at the next, hoping to catch it to then move up the back foot. It was tricky, but we all made it.

I can't find the pic of the last really hard part, where we lost another of our team. Four rope walls, unsecured, on opposite sides of the safety cable, that you had to go back and forth between and use a LOT of arm strength to hold on and move yourself forward. Let's just say that he lost strength and the poor boy who rescued the girl had to spend 20 minutes or so trying different things and eventually lowered him to the ground.

After ziplining twice for the grand finale, we then got some delicious ice cream to replace all of the important calories we lost during the previous 3 hours.

K, I know that was a lame ending, but I got tired. And I don't even have my own pictures!

Un leçon de café

It's amazing how much you can learn when you just ask questions. Today I was in a café with some others who wanted ice cream and I noticed that they had on their menu "café colombie - 100% Arabica." It also cost $1.30 more than their usual espresso. So of course I had to ask what it was. Then he told me it was pure Arabica. Now, I'm pretty sure that this is more or less standard in the US (or I never pay attention - entirely likely) so I asked what the difference was. And got a short history of coffee. Here is my retelling of his info.

You see, coffee is like wine: there are different varieties of the bean. There is Arabica, which is all aroma, and Robusta, which is all acid. Normally, coffees are mixed - up to half Robusta [he didn't say why, but I think it's partly price.] Now, when you have a good, 100% Arabica, then it is all aroma and more likely to be good.

But that's not all that matters in a coffee. You also have to pay attention to the roasting process. Too little and you don't have enough flavor, too much and it's burned, no good. Then to the beans themselves - the best coffees will have full beans (and here he got some out to show me) where the cheap kinds that businesses give employees (his description) will be all broken up. The full beans are more evenly roasted and will have a better flavor. For his espresso, he prefers a mix.

Then you have to pay attention to how you actually make it. First, your machine has to be kept in good condition and he makes sure that he's the only one to service his machine. In this area they have hard water, so they have a water softener installed before it even reaches the machine. Then the water temperature (at least for espresso) should be 80-85º C (175-185 F) and he makes sure to test his water in his machine at least once a week. [Interesting that it's so much below boiling!] After that, be careful how you grind it. Grind it too big and the water can't extract all of the goodness. Grind it to small and it becomes burned [over-extracted, I think, is our term] and bitter. When you get an espresso, you should look at it. The top should be a nice, foamy hazelnut color and should stick a bit to the sides of the cup and not change color when it does so. That means you did it right.

Finally, many cafés and restaurants here serve coffee with a bit of chocolate. He doesn't because he would rather charge for good coffee than mediocre coffee with a bit of chocolate, which is typically bad anyway. Be sure not to eat the chocolate first if you are in one of these places. If you do, you will have the taste of the chocolate on your palate and you won't be able to taste what the coffee actually tastes like.

And it was a nice espresso, at least. I mean, it would have to be after that.

But do you know where coffee comes from? [Yes, we did.] And how it was discovered? A herder was taking his goats to pasture and knew that the sheep normally had a nap during the hottest part of the day. One day he took them to pasture near bushes with red berries and the goats went wild, eating the berries, and then all afternoon they were running everywhere and didn't take a nap. The herder didn't think too much of it, but the next day went somewhere else. The following day he went back to the place that the goats had gone wild and noticed that they were all enjoying the berry bushes. Then he tasted one himself and got to experience the caffeine first-hand. Thus coffee was discovered. [And as unlikely as that sounded, I just looked it up and found that same story repeated many other places!]

After all of the stories he said that we should come back and we could help him with English while he helped us with French. I took a gamble based on looks and said I already spoke French, but if he spoke Arabic, maybe. He was born in France, but does speak some Arabic. I doubt I'll be back for lessons, but I will certainly be back for coffee!

The best-laid plans...

Here we are, at the Hong Kong airport. At least they are kind enough to give us free wifi. Unlike our last hotel. I mean, seriously? Who doesn't include that in 2013??

Last night, we took a lot of time to carefully pack our bags so that I can head to WA for a few days before classes start, and my partner in crime can head home to return to work. We get to the airport today, and put our two bags to check onto the little weighing belt, no problem, then she saw the size of my carry-on (full of everything I'll need in WA since my ticket is actually to home, so I am bailing on the last leg of it.) "I'm sorry, this one is too heavy, you'll need to move some things to another bag or carry on a different bag." My only thought: "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!" for some reason, my tired shocked brain did not think to ask how much too heavy it was. We had absolutely zero room in our other bags, we filled every bit to make sure we could take everything. Plus, what would I do in WA with less stuff? I guess I could've stolen clothes from someone there.

Well, you can tell that our solution was not to shuffle items. When you clear customs in the US, you do it at the port of entry - San Francisco this time. Which is where I will change itineraries and continue on to WA. So I should at the very least be able to see my bag and re-pack things there. We'll see how it goes. Otherwise, I will have fun with boys' clothes and no presents for people :)

Our last day was nice. We found a post office, bought stamps, wrote and mailed postcards, bought final presents for people, and the. Went out to an area we hadn't seen at the Western end of the tram line. They don't even have the subway out there yet. The trams are cool, though. I need to make sure I have a ride from the airport... More later, maybe!

Malls and people and food

I was so busy before we left that I didn't think too much about what Hong Kong might be like. It's crazy, but really what I've noticed most so far is SO MUCH SHOPPING. Obviously Jon is not here for that, and who knows if he even notices it. His current area is pretty far north (google it if you haven't yet) so I bet it's different up there.

Today we made it up to Kowloon Tong to drop off the 5 pounds or so of stuff I had accumulated for him. And that's forgetting the postcards (noooo - I just wanted to give people a hope to be answered this century!) It's a super nice area. Their mall has an ice skating rink. That may just be for winter, who knows. I met Sister Kesler, who's been here for 17 months with her husband. I really wonder how often their kids get "whatever you say, Kesler," but I didn't ask. She said that Jon is always cheerful and brightens her day when he comes into the mission home. It's actually in the same building as the ward (or stake?) building, but has a different entrance. She gave me a guide that someone put together about things to do in Hong Kong. There is one mention of shopping - that the whole city is basically a giant mall. It's nice to have another source of other stuff to do, and we've actually already done a lot of their suggestions.

 I hope that Jon enjoys all of the things we left, especially the silly ones. They really do have loads of  Western things in the stores - Miracle whip, coke, Oreos, bread, pasta and pasta sauce, chocolates, cookies, Ferrero rocher and even...... Almond Roca. They are easier to find here than in Texas!! Expensive, but available. So when he says they can get 'everything' here, you still don't need to believe him, but it's enough that I bet he's not dying for any foods from home.

I have been amazed by the consumerism. Tonight we saw a 1 carat diamond. And a 3. And 5. And 8. And 10. Yes, 10, it was ginormous and heart-shaped. There are jewelry stores EVERYWHERE and they are proud of their diamonds. David was tall enough to read the price tag on the 8 carat one, if you guess it right you win.... Something, I don't know.

We also had dinner at a really tasty dim sum place.  We left absolutely stuffed, it was delicious. I think the hardest part about deciding what to eat here is just narrowing it down since we can't have it all. I also left Jon some money to go out to eat because sister Kesler said they can go pretty much wherever on p-day, the only limitation would be budget. And I don't even think Seattle has so many good, easy food options. But I could be wrong.

Hong Kong!!!

We finally made it! Thailand was great, once we got done being sick. I would try to recap, but honestly then I would just get behind on Hong Kong. And if you're reading this, you're probably more interested in that anyway.

Last night we had planned to arrive in Macau, a short ferry ride away, and get to our hotel in Hong Kong. The ferry boat had other plans - was all full til 2:30am, no way to know if hotel would let us check in then, whole long frustrarting story ends in staying in a fancy suite in a best western (kept the free stuff, of course) as it was the cheapest room left for the night. Yay new years?

But now, we are in our lovely beautiful room in Hong Kong! We are near Victoria Peak and the SOHO district, for those who like maps. Very trendy, very international. Looking for a lunch spot we passed everything you can imagine except anything from Africa. And honestly, that's probably everything that you would have imagined. Seriously, had lunch at a French bistro, but passed Italian, Indian, Chinese, Argentinean, Lebanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Mexican, American, Thai.... It goes on.

And now my cursor won't go to after what I typed, but time to shower and get dressed to go out for New Year!!! Happy 2013 to all! (pretend this was at the end. Thanks.)

And
Jon of course does not have time for much detail, like how monstrous the buildings are. Well, tall, but skinny. The one we're in has room for just 3 rooms per floor (and they're neatly packed in) with the elevator and stairs, and is 26 stories. Whoa

We made it!!!

Well, after over 28 hours of traveling, we landed in Phuket, Thailand. Really, I didn't know what to expect and it still seems kind of unreal. The only thing that makes me think that it IS real is that our bags were lost. Yep, both of us. So.... We got to deal with that til 3 am, and then had to find a hotel close to the airport because it was too late to go out to where we are actually staying. Which means that we spent a chunk of our first day buying flip flops and underwear and clothes. Gee, thanks air china. They said they can get them to us on the 24th and will bring them to the hotel. Um, yeah, you had better!!

I think that's it for now, I just wanted to let a large portion of people know we made it safely. Also, I can't get into my regular email for some reason, so email my school mail if you have it. If I remembered t and v's email right, I emailed them, so you could ask them. Time to look for dinner!

Token update

If you hadn't guessed, classes and teaching have eaten my life. I think I've had a max of 6 free hours a week this semester. And by 'free' I mean time other than classes, homework, and grading, or life-sustaining actions like eating, showering, cleaning my room. And I'm about to go grab lunch, and teach some more. But thought I would tell you. I don't really know why..... Enjoy!