Pictures!

We couldn't load them on here directly but we opened a Flickr account under "tscrandall" so check out our pictures there. We don't know much about Flickr so let us know if you can't see them.

Hope you enjoy!

One week down, 200 or so to go

This week has been full of running errands, getting lost, and meeting people. We found a great little American-ish grocery store a bus ride a way were we can get most of what we need including the most scrumptious bacon, and pig feet (In case we ever need pig feet). There is also a great night market just a few minutes’ walk down the street where we can buy anything for super cheap including ipads, PSPs, and anything you can get in a department store here.

Our neighbors are getting used to seeing us every day. We’ve made friends with the egg lady, the market lady, the fruit lady, and hopefully soon the bread and candy ladies. We became friends with the head hancho of the neighborhood who got Miranda an interview with the Kindergarten right by our house. They offered her a part-time job but we are waiting to see if we can find her any full-time work before we commit. We are also thinking of teaching English right out of our house; there are hundreds of kids in our neighborhood.

We made the hour long subway ride to my school this week and looked around. It was a SUPER nice place. I’ve also decided to take my classes in Chinese instead of English like originally planned. They are offering a Chinese class this summer for foreigners to help prepare them, so that will help my Chinese big time. I’m really nervous about doing it in Chinese but in the long run I would regret it if I didn’t. My Chinese has already improved tons just being here a week. Miranda is also starting to speak Chinese, she practices about 2 hours a day, she even ordered frys and a sundae at McDonalds all by herself!

We are loving it here so far and are so excited for the next 4 years!!

Home at last

It has been an extremely LONG week for sure. There is so much to write about I don’t know where to begin so I’ll start with the super painful flight over. It sucked. We went from Phoenix at 7:30 Wednesday morning, to LAX, to Shanghai, to finally arriving in Hong Kong at 11:45 Thursday night. We only stayed in Hong Kong long enough to take a few pictures looking at the island, then it was off to our new home in Guangzhou.

Our home is extremely extremely Chinese. Like, to the max. We are in a cool neighborhood one notch better than the ghettos. Our house is about the same as our house in Mesa, the only differences are that we have to boil our drinking water,  squat to go #2, flush the toilet by pouring a bucket of water into it, sleep on a piece of plywood, hand wash our clothes, and be stared at by all our neighbors. Oh, and the eggs we bought here have chicken poop on them, that wouldn’t fly at Wal-Mart in Gilbert.

I looked up our address on Google maps before we left but the actual location is about 10 miles to the west. It’s very lame considering now we are really far from my school. We aren’t sure about whether or not we are going to move closer or tough it out here.

We’ve already seen a lot of the city from our adventure of going to church today. It took 4 buses, a taxi, 3 miles of walking and 1hour 40minutes to find it but we did. Getting home it only took 3 subways, 1 bus, 5 miles of walking and 1.5 hours. It’s super crazy how many 30 story apartment complexes there is in this city, they’re everywhere!

We couldn't add any photos in this post because of [CENSORED], but we'll try again later.

Tyler and Miranda

BTW: We’ve eaten McDonalds 3 times in 2 days.

Last Goodbyes

Now that we are down to the last couple days of our time left here in America, (we leave Wed. morning) we have been saying a lot of goodbyes and eating a lot of American food for the last time. It's still almost surreal that we are moving to China under the conditions that we are: very little money, no jobs, no belongings, and no sense of direction when we get there. We are in a sense burning our ships with no intentions of coming back (except to visit) for a long time, if ever.

With both of us being as crazy as we are, this isn't the first time, and probably wont be the last time we do something like this. Anywho, if we didn't get the chance to say goodbye to you, goodbye. Below is our contact info:

VOIP phone: 602-903-6153
Email: tscrandall@gmail.com
       captinboatshoes@gmail.com
Skype: tyler.crandall

BTW: We got our wedding pictures back. here is a sample of how they turned out