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Update from Shanghai

Hello all!
After a brief outage, I think the site should be up and running again. Our host was having some issues yesterday. We’re in the middle of our spring trip home and are currently in Shanghai, China. Right now we’re working on an organic farm outside of Shanghai for about 10 days. We work for 6 hours a day doing farm work or administrative help (with their website and art projects) and in exchange we get a place to stay and 3 meals a day! It’s amazing! We’ll post more about that when we have more time but just wanted to update quickly with some pictures from the first 2 weeks of our trip! We’re going to put a hold on posting the rest of our Philippines trip pictures, sorry but we didn’t have a chance to get them uploaded before we sent our computers home. But don’t worry we’ll upload them soon enough.

A quick update of what we’ve been up to…
We frantically left our apartment on the 26th of February after being told we had to leave a day earlier because the new teachers were coming! We stayed with some friends in Samcheok then left for Daegu for a Temple Stay. We stayed at Haeinsa Temple for one night and had a great experience with the monks there. Next we headed to Busan (southern Korea City) to visit two friends from IU who just moved there to start teaching English! After a few days there we headed up to Seoul for a day on the high-speed train then flew to Beijing!

I developed a nasty cold while in Korea so we took it pretty slow the first few days in Beijing and stayed in a great hostel just north of the forbidden City. We visited the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, A few parks in Beijing, The Great Wall, and saw a Peking Opera. The last two nights we stayed with some lovely Couch Surfers named Prometheus and Lucy and went out for a great Hot Pot! Beijing was really a lot of fun and we definitely will go back at some point. (Kate found a number of galleries that have great residency programs!)

Next we took the high-speed train to Shanghai where we are now. As I said above, we’re working at the Biofarm in shanghai and having a great time. This morning we transplanted seedlings and now we’re designing some icons for their new website. (What a vacation!) We’re enjoying getting to know the farmers and staff and having a more intimate Chinese experience – and we’re learning a thing or two about organic farming too!

I’ve uploaded a few photos to flickr so take a look at this gallery for a sample of what we’ve been up to! Check back here as we upload more photos.

[flickrset id="72157623491005249" thumbnail="square" overlay="true" size="large"]

4 comments

1 Bill and Willa { 03.15.10 at 9:13 am }

Great pictures and thanks for the update from China. We had been wondering how you were.
All’s well in Galesburg and the grass is getting green and most all of the snow is gone.
Love Grandpa and Grandma

2 Chad { 03.15.10 at 4:04 pm }

@Bill and Willa – We’re doing fine! Just cold here now… mid 40s and 50s with no heat anywhere! Tea and scarves help though and moving around working on the farm. Glad to hear spring is on the way to you. Can’t wait for the warm weather in Hong Kong and Vietnam.

On another note, we just found out two days ago that Kate was accepted into her top two choices for Graduate schools!! Chicago and San Francisco. today we heard she got into another program in Chicago! She’s 3 for 3 so far with 3 more programs to reply. Prety exciting!! We’ll see where we end up but either way we’ll be close to you or close to aunt Kathi – both of which would be good!

Love, Chad

3 Chrury { 03.30.10 at 1:17 pm }

-Random good wishes from a Georgia cousin-

From teaching to agriculture. That’s quite a change. But whatever works/is fun right? d(^_^)

Cheers,
Chris J.

4 Bill and Willa { 03.30.10 at 9:53 pm }

Just one week and we leave for Denver to stay in Kathi and Rand’s new townhouse. They have it furnished and curtains up and a refrig so we can eat in on their new dishes. Just like starting housekeeping all over again for them. They will be going back there from Davis in late June. Hope all is well with you two and time is getting close to your arrival home.
Love, Grandma and Grandpa J.