Written by Nathan
It's been a long time since we posted anything here.  It's my tradition to start a blog with a fiery passion and then abandon it for long periods of time, so this was me being traditional.  I couldn't stay away forever though, because I love this site and I love being able to share with all of you.  I hope I can break tradition and stick with blogging.

This summer we stayed in Georgia the whole time except for a short trip to the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina.  It was refreshing to have a break from work, but we also had clear goals in mind for the summer: 1) Enjoy time with family and friends, 2) Get wholesome food as directly as possible from organic farmers, 3) Cook this food in new and exciting ways, 4) Learn as many Chinese characters as possible, and 5) Explore new physical training methods and skills.

To start with, our first activity was to see some of my best friends, Andrew and Suji get married.  It was really great to be able to make it to their wedding and share that special day with them.  Though we were on vacation, we somehow managed to feel really busy for most of the summer.  Despite this, I spent as much time as I could with my friends having meals and playing my favorite games: Project M on the Wii and Munchkin (If anyone reading this is in Hangzhou and plays Super Smash Bros. or Munchkin, let me know.  We've gotta play!).  We made a point having meals together with my family and we took a trip to the Smoky Mountains with them.

We started out doing most of our grocery shopping at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, and gradually found more opportunities to by food directly from farmers.  If you live near my family, check out the Farm Mobile in the parking lot of Peachtree Corners Presbyterian Church on Wednesdays until 2pm.  You can by veggies and meat directly from a local farm.  Also check out http://gwinnett.locallygrown.net for an awesome online farmers market.  We got great veggies and meat and the best milk ever from there.  We picked up the food at a beautiful farm called Rancho Alegre where we could also interact with goats and horses.

Leylop was the champion of cooking this summer and impressed everyone everyday with something delicious.  Roasted veggies, baked Boston butt, beef stew, pork roast, and beef short ribs were some of her specialties.  We always made eggs and bacon for a brunch that left us satisfied until the evening.  We've found it difficult to find eggs that have beautiful golden yolks in the US, but we made a breakthrough when we tried Happy Eggs brand eggs.  According to the carton, the chickens run around outside and can eat grass and bugs which sounds pretty good.  The eggs were really great too, so I recommend this brand (the Ingles near my house carries them).  We also made yogurt for the first time.  It was really easy and the result was delicious!

I was much more vigilant in my Chinese study this summer than in the past.  I learned 274 characters during my stay in the US, bringing me to a grand total of 2637.  I'm hoping to finish my books and hit 3000 soon, because I'm kind of sick of learning characters.  One of my students found a a site where I can watch Avatar: The Last Airbender dubbed in Chinese.  I'm so excited to start learning Chinese from my favorite TV show!

On the physical training and skills side, a lot happened this summer.  At first, I strictly stuck with my Convict Conditioning training, having progressed to step 7 on most exercises.  I kinda got stuck on step 7 though, as these moves really challenge my strength.  Leylop finally got me into listening to podcasts when we drove places and many podcasts planted seeds in my mind of things I want to try.  Listening to interviews of Ido Portal and Coach Sommer have made me want to explore gymnastics.  Ido and Daniel Vitalis made me want to add more hanging, brachiation (monkey bars), and functional/primal movements to my workouts.  Darryl Edwards inspired me to try changing many of my workouts into playouts by being more playful, curious, spontaneous, and varied with my movements.  I discovered how a playground with monkey bars could be a very fun and challenging place to play out.

We also have a desire to improve our posture and iron out the imbalances in our bodies.  This desire brought us to a chiropractic office.  We had x-rays of our spines to find the issues and then got adjusted every week.  It was expensive, but a great experience that has helped both of us in our quest for straight spines.

We also explored many skills this summer.  Dance was a big part of our summer.  Leylop and I took hip hop and contemporary dance lessons.  We (especially me) aren't yet as graceful as we hope to be, but we've made a lot of progress and have had a lot of fun.  We're going to continue learning more dance in China.  I taught Leylop how to swim and she made a great breakthrough in her ability that has allowed her to finally enjoy the water rather than fear it.  We went rock climbing with my friend Donald at Stone Summit climbing gym  This fit right in with our desire to hang more and move primally.  Whenever my brother was around, he taught me how to wrestle.  He was on the wrestling team in high school and he's still got the moves.  Between getting thrown on the ground and having my face rubbed in the dirt, I picked up the basics.  I'm hoping to keep learning and have opportunities to wrestle for fun.  We also tried Kayaking for the first time and found out that Leylop is a natural.  We're hoping to find an opportunity to kayak again soon.

We had an excellent summer and hope you did too.  We're back in China now, preparing for the new semester to begin.  We look forward to sharing more through our blog.
 
Written by Leylop
We went to Yun Xi Zhu Jing (Bamboo-Lined Path at Yunqi 云溪竹径) yesterday. I was excited to show Nathan this cool spot as it’s one of my favorite parks in Hangzhou and he had never been there. Getting there turned out to be stressful. It was a warm and beautiful Sunday, and lots of people went out. In the past, most people would use public transportation but more and more Chinese people have cars and prefer to drive on the weekends. The roads were heavily congested and it took us a long time to wait for our buses. There is a small tea village a couple bus stops before the bamboo park. I remember it used to be a peaceful area with some tea houses and restaurants run by tea farmers. But when we passed it yesterday, the village road was packed with parked cars. It doesn’t seem to be relaxing to drink tea there anymore as all you can see and hear are cars. 

After a long trip, we finally arrived at our destination. The bamboo park is as beautiful as I remembered. We walked through the bamboo forest, hiked up to the hill inside of the park and had a nice meal at the peak of the hill. It was peaceful up in the mountains. We enjoyed the silence. Living in a Chinese city is loud. There are always some activities or construction going on. It felt good to get away from the noise for a while. 

The traffic got worse when we came back. We both felt pretty tired after we got home. I love to go out to nature and hiking is quite rejuvenating for me but traveling to destinations is usually not very pleasant and sometimes we wonder if it’s even worth of going out. I guess next time we go out we should try to avoid weekends and holidays. 

When we were looking at the hiking pictures after we got back, I received an email from my friend Claire, who lives in Massachusetts. She wrote ''After a beautiful autumn season, the trees have lost all their leaves and the weather has turned chilly. Winter is on the way.'' Interesting. When we were out, I noticed that the ginkgo trees have only just started to change color but in other parts of the world, autumn is already over. I feel grateful that fall is still here and we'll make sure to enjoy this beautiful season. 

 
Written by Leylop
We took a trip with YouXiaKe (游侠客), a local travel group last Sunday. YouXiaKe organizes budget hiking trips to places around Hangzhou every weekend. I discovered their website a while ago and I often visit the website to get travel ideas and information but since they usually travel in big groups, I was hesitant to join them. Last weekend our original travel plan didn’t work out so I suggested that we could give YouXiaKe a try. 

The nicest thing about traveling with YouXiaKe is that they’ve planned everything. The company was probably founded by some enthusiastic travelers who love outdoor activities. They take people to rural areas and remote villages. Last Sunday we went to a mountain area only a couple hours away from Hangzhou. I was surprised that there are tranquil places like this so close to the city; we were surrounded by rice terraces, no cars, no factories. The hike was super fun. We had to climb up boulders to reach to the top, and we walked on a dirt path without stairs most of the way (in China, most mountains have stairs). The view at the top was stunning. 

Traveling with a group turned out to be okay. The people were all friendly and fun. Though I prefer to hike with a much smaller group, the place we went is very hard to reach by public transportation and the trails can be confusing without a guide. The only part I didn’t like about the trip was on the way there we had to go to the front of the bus to introduce ourselves one by one, and the leader asked every newcomer to sing a song or show a talent in front of the audience. I don’t like to sing in public at all so I felt really uncomfortable before my turn. Luckily Nathan went up first and he said something funny; when it was my turn, the leader forgot to ask me to sing, and I went back to my seat quickly. 

We both enjoyed the trip and we're interested in hiking with YouXiaKe again soon. 

 
 Written by Leylop

     上个星期Nathan的一位学生课后问他如何能提高英语口语能力。这几天我和Nathan一直在探讨学习外语的方法。Nathan建议我可以把我学英语的体会写下来,希望我的经验可以给正在学习英语的朋友们一些帮助。

1. 增加英语的输入
      大学时候我很困惑怎么可以提高英语口语,琢磨了很多教材和方法后,我发现其实自己的英语输入量还是太少了。很多时候英语不是说不出来而是根本不知道该怎么去说去表达。我开始大量看英文原版电影。碰到喜欢的电影就会反复观看,听不懂的地方就重复听、重复说。边看也边把不懂的句子写下来好好研究。大学期间看过的电影不下几百部,这不但提高了我的英语听力,也开阔了我的眼界。现在看英文节目已成为我生活学习的一部分。最喜欢看的是纪录片和知识性讲座(比如Ted talk)。网上的英文播客节目也很多,我每天都会下载几个自己感兴趣的节目,在走路或休息时收听。

     当然我觉得单纯性的听还是不够的。我会把从电影、电视或者讲座中学到的新句型、单词或固定搭配写下来。有空的时候就经常翻翻笔记本复习复习。大多数教科书不够新颖,我更喜欢从一手资料中学习,通过上网或碟片找自己最感兴趣的东西学习,一边学英文一边也学习新知识。

2. 增加英语的输出
       增加英语的输入相对比较容易,因为很多时间都可以是在被动地学习,比如听英文播客或者看英文电影,但增加英语的输出需要更主动、更积极地去学习。刚进大学的时候我学的基本上是哑巴英语,根本说不了几句,和外教交流的机会也很少。大二的时候我喜欢上了读博客,特别是住在中国的外国人写的关于中国的博客。除了读,我也会在他们的博客上留言表达我的想法。我发现写短短的留言很能锻炼我的英语表达能力,就也开始用英文写博客。博客的内容就是关于自己的大学生活和经历。写博客的两三年中教了不少博友,大多是外国人。虽然我没有在和他们直接对话,但我觉得书写对提高口语绝对有帮助。因为说和写都是表达的一种方式。给你一个话题,如果连写都写不下来,又怎么能流利地以英文表达出来呢?反之,如果你可以把你要所要表达的思想慢慢地用正确的英文写出来,那等你熟练了之后,就可以不用多加考虑脱口而出。

      练习输入的时候要精确一点。大学的时候我会从学习的资料收集常用的句型、对话及单词。我的英语笔记本总是随身带,一有空经常就读读背背,一两个月就填满一本笔记本。记好句型最好能举一反三,多多造句,或是在书写的时候能把学过的句型或单词使用出来。一旦自己把新学的东西正确地用过了,就很容易记住。

3. 实践
  我大学时在浙大的专业是历史学。一开学浙大有一次英语分班考试。我很排斥刚入学就又要考试,就胡乱地应付了考试,结果被分到了最低的三班。英语课老师抱着一本大学英语,像对待高中学生似地教我们,还反复强调英语四级的重要性。以前在中学我的英语成绩在班上都是比较靠前的,但现在却成了老师要重点关照的慢班学生,有点受打击,下定决心一定要好好学好英语。

       除了刚才写的一些学习方法,我还去旁听快班的英语课。快班的英语老师是一位美国外教,整堂课都是英语教学,和慢班的英文课截然不同。这是我第一次上外教的英文课,觉得很新鲜。虽然直接和外教交谈的机会几乎没有,但我感悟到学了英语能听懂外国人说话、能直接和外国人交流就应该是学习最大的目的而不是通过考试。于是我开始打听还有哪里可以旁听到别的外教的英文课。我硬着头皮去了英文系上他们的口语课,期间多次被老师赶出教室,但也碰到过好老师,不但欢迎我听课,还帮我批改作业。大学期间和外教们的交流学习使我对外面的世界更加好奇。

       大学毕业后用着从小存下来的零花钱和大学时赚的打工钱开始往国外旅行。第一年就跑了欧洲及东南亚多国、印度和巴基斯坦。旅途中碰到来自世界各地的朋友,旅行给我提供了练习口语最好的机会。一开始我比较喜欢和来自非英语母语国家的人聊天,因为英文也不是他们的母语,他们说英文时不会太快,再加上听到他们也会犯语法错误,我的心里也觉得踏实点。后来自己的口语和听力渐渐提高了,我便能更有自信地和英语母语者聊天。国外旅行既让我开拓了眼界,又好像是参加了免费的外教口语班,非常值得。

       毕业两年后,我开始教对外汉语。工作中我会接触到来自各国的外国学生,差不多每天也都会使用到英语。作为一位汉语老师,我最主要的任务是帮助学生提高汉语水平,所以我会尽量只和学生说汉语。但我也常会碰到一些热心学生纠正我的英语错误,另外碰到零起点的学生时,也得使用英语教学。工作之余,我也会找语伴练习口语,至少每周两次。学习的内容一是和他们聊天,请他们纠正我的发音和语法,也会提一些口语问题,学习最纯正地道的表达方法。二是每次我会选一篇来自国外报纸的文章(一般都是从Economist或New York Times选的),提前自己先读懂,交流时我会让语伴根据该文章问我问题,我会试着用文章中的词语回答,之后我们会讨论一下文章的中心思想。我觉得这样的练习很有挑战性,对提高表达能力非常有帮助。

4. 学无止境
        现在每天的生活都离不开英语。虽然在口语上已很流利,但我觉得学习英语是一辈子的事,永远都学不完,总是有进一步提高的可能性。我每天都会抽出一定的时间学习英语或者其它科目的新知识。学习让我快乐。

5. 分享
   除了教对外汉语,我也非常喜欢教英语口语。有兴趣的朋友可以和我联系([email protected]),我会尽力帮助你。
 
Written by Nathan

This summer, Leylop and I visited the MET while we were in New York City.  It was definitely my favorite place in New York.  Initially, though, I wasn't really looking forward to it.  I knew I should go because it's one of things everyone does, but I'm generally not that excited about art museums.  This museum surprised me because it's grand halls were full of things I've wanted to see since I was a kid: Greek and Roman statues, Egyptian statues and sarcophagi, Medieval arms and armor, and samurai armor were the things that caught my attention most.  These are things I've seen pictures of in books and textbooks, things that I drew hundreds of pictures of when I was a kid, things I never thought I'd see in person.  I was thrilled to be walking among all these artifacts of ancient times.

They were displayed so beautifully, too!  The building itself is huge and gorgeous and the halls open up into huge naturally lit rooms that display all the coolest stuff.  I wish I had come here when I was studying ancient Greece, Egypt or the Middle Ages in grade school.  Seeing firsthand the stone, wood, and metal that they worked on really brought these civilizations to life in my imagination.

Statues and paintings of people were more meaningful to Leylop and I since we've been studying a lot about posture lately.  These ancient statues showed us healthy posture and the paintings reveal that ancient people stood, bent, and sat with straight backs.

The Greek and Roman statues really resonated with me.  I've been reading about and experimenting with bodyweight training and other old school, primal exercises.  The books I've read always talk about the ancient Greeks who, in pursuit of being exceptional soldiers and athletes, crafted their bodies to the peak of physical development without barbells and certainly without exercise machines.  Looking at their statues, we can see how effective their training was.  Many of the statues were labelled as "Statue of a youth."  These "youths" were way buffer than 99.9 percent of men I see.  I'm trying to learn to strip away all the unnecessary modern add-ons from my own training to see if simplifying and going back to the old way of exercise will enhance my results.  The statues at the MET inspired me intensely.  I wanted to drop to the floor and start doing push-ups right there in the museum.  I resisted this urge, but the images of these statues are still clear in my mind and they drive me to train harder, smarter, and more primal.


It also struck me that statues of men from later eras were far less muscular than Greek and Roman statues.  It seems that our standards have fallen considerably.  In the pictures, compare the modern statue of Prometheus in front of the Rockefeller Center to any of the Greek statues.  Prometheus was a titan — a father of gods, yet he looks puny even compared to Greek statues of "youths".


We loved the museum so much that we went there twice in our three day trip and I hope to go again.
 
Written by Leylop

The last few days in the US, we visit my friend Conrad in Massachusetts. I met Conrad three years ago when he lived in Hangzhou as a yoga teacher. He introduced me to yoga and the Paleo diet, and he also inspired me to cook a lot. 

It’s great to see Conrad again. The time we spent with him was super active. We stayed in his brother’s Evan house in Worthington, Massachusetts. It’s a rural area. We drove on a dirt road to get to Evan’s house, and his neighbor’s house is quite far away. A lot of people own land here. There is not much agriculture but many people have vegetable gardens. We visited Evan’s neighbor Richard. He’s living off the grid; solar panels power his house. There are several different kinds of fruit trees in his yard and he also has chickens, pigs, sheep and mules (for pulling). I’m quite drawn to this lifestyle — using clean energy sources, growing our own food, spending lots of time outside, living in a tranquil place...

We were in New York city right before we came to Worthington. It was quite a change of pace. New York city is exciting; there are always so many things happening. We had lots of time visiting the city but I don’t really feel like living there. The city is loud — loud like China. The city is big — intimidatingly big. People walk fast— too fast. People look busy —too busy to chill. While in Worthington, people live at a slow pace and more close to nature. I love that. 

The second day we were there, Conrad took us to a farm nearby. His college friend and her husband own the farm. They both received ivy league education and three years ago they decided to move to this rural area and become farmers. It was really fun to visit their farm and how food is grown. They grow a large variety of vegetables and raise cows, chickens and pigs. We picked a bunch of veggies from the fields, and we both tried raw milk for the first time. Conrad also bought a lot of meat from the farm, and we ate farm food the rest of the days we were there. Farm food is so delicious. We had eggs, bacon (the best bacon we’ve ever had), salad, pork chops, hamburgers, grilled beef, peaches that we picked from the neighbor’s house... We ate to our heart content, and I was very happy that we spent lots of time in the kitchen with Conrad and shared every meal with him. 

Besides food activities, we also worked out with Conrad a couple times. One morning Conrad suggested that we could do hill runs together before breakfast. We went to a hill nearby and sprinted up as fast as we could. I’d never done hill runs, and it turned out to be a lot more difficult than I’d thought. I felt totally exhausted after I ran up to the hill (not that high) and I had to push myself really hard to run to the finish line that Conrad drew. After two runs, my legs and butt already felt sore, so Nathan and I decided to call it a day. We took a walk in the woods while Conrad continued to finish his five sets. I felt very energized after some rest. Conrad talked about the benefits of exercising in a fasted state and it’s quite interesting. I often worry about being hungry when I workout so I try to schedule my workout time with meal times and it can get complicated sometimes. It’s a refreshing idea to do short intense workouts in the morning on an empty stomach. I’ve already done it two times after we came back to China and I love it. It feels liberating that I don’t have to worry about when I can workout during the day. 

The last day in Massachusetts we visited Amherst. I taught Chinese to a group of Amherst college students who visited Hangzhou a couple years ago. It was cool to be in Amherst college and walk around the campus that I’d heard so much about. We also met up with my old student Claire, who lives outside of Amherst. She invited us over to her beautiful house and made us a tasty salad.

We enjoyed our time in rural Massachusetts. It was a perfect place to wind up our trip in the US. 
 
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Written by Leylop

We’re back in China. It felt a bit weird the day that we arrived. At Shanghai airport, almost everyone was Chinese. People are much smaller, and there are very few people who are overweight. A lot of people have good posture. 

The last weekend in Atlanta I took a posture workshop. The teacher, Esther Gokhale, used to have severe back pain and even surgery didn’t help. She traveled around the world to search for a cure. She looked for places where people don't have back pain. This led her to less developed countries where she observed how people move. She tried to imitate how these people sit, stand, walk and sleep and eventually her back pain cleared up.  She called this primal posture — the way humans are designed to use their bodies. Humans moved this way for thousands of years but, in the past century, we people of developed countries have lost this important body wisdom.  Primal posture has been preserved in less developed countries because life there hasn't changed as dramatically as in developed countries.

I enjoyed Esther’s course a lot and I’ve been observing people’s posture constantly. I noticed that most people in America have bad posture, and not surprisingly, a lot of Americans have back pain. Back in China, I immediately noticed the difference at the airport — people stand up and sit a lot straighter. The next day at home, I noticed my grandpa was taking a nap strechlying (the sleeping posture taught in the workshop) on his side . And later I saw my grandma bending over from her hips with a straight back (also what I learned in the workshop) and she sat at the dinner table straight without using the back rest. I was amazed how well my grandparents move. I paid several hundred dollars to learn about primal posture from an American teacher, and here at my house, my grandparents move almost perfectly. My grandpa is 81 and my grandma is 79 and they’re both very active: they walk to the vegetable market or grocery store to buy fresh food every morning, they carry bags of groceries home and walk up to the fourth floor, they do all kinds housework like cooking, mopping the floor, moving furniture... 

The traditional lifestyle here in China is so much more active than in America. Yesterday was the first day that we got back and we already walked plenty: we walked to the bank, we walked to the food market, we walked to the fruit store, we walked to the milk shop... We walk because we need to get to places rather than for the sake of taking a walk. When we took a walk before dinner last night and I saw life happening right in front of us: children playing soccer downstairs, old people sitting on bamboo chairs and chatting with each other, students walking home from school, a mother carrying her son on her back, the bike repair man in the neighborhood busy fixing a bike, a little girl playing on the side walk and her mother calling her for dinner... China is lively and I love it. The night we got back, my mom cooked us chicken soup and pigs feet. The chicken was bought that morning alive and slaughtered in our kitchen. In China we eat whole foods and home cooked meals almost every day, and our snacks and desserts are usually fruits. There are many benefits of living in America such as cleaner air, more nature, a quieter environment, better food options... But right now I feel pretty good about getting back to our active life in China. 


 
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Written by Nathan

We're back!  We just arrived back in China after a two month stay in the US.  It was great to get away for a while, especially since it was consistently over 100ºF in Hangzhou this summer.  It still feels weird to be here, but I'm also starting to feel at home again.

We're also back on Weebly!  It's been a long time, especially for me.  I started getting more serious about studying Chinese and that kinda pushed my blogging to the side.  We're looking forward to writing about our trips to various parts of the US and the thoughts that these places provoked in us.

It's good to be back!  We'll be posting more soon.  We hope to hear from you as well!


 
Written by Leylop
I don’t have any work today. This morning I woke up at around 8:30 as usual and I started my day with my routine: a short session of yoga and meditation, cooking breakfast, taking a walk, making coffee, surfing the internet... After having read on my kindle for a while, I realized that I was not having much fun — today is my day off; I’d like to enjoy it fully, but now I’m just mechanically doing the activities that I always do when I’m free. Am I feeling passionate about reading this novel right now? Not really. Am I excited about studying new English vocabulary that I learned last night? Nope. I could go to the piano school to play piano, and it’ll be helpful to practice as much as I can, especially on the days that I’m off but I don’t really feel like going right now. I am looking forward to the yoga class at 6pm but it’s only noon, I don’t want to spend the next few hours passively waiting at home. What’s the matter with me? I have a whole day ahead of me, but the only thing that I’m excited about is an event in the evening? I was pretty busy with classes yesterday andI thought today would be a day to rest and relax. I haven’t felt that relaxed so far; instead I feel tired and sleepy already. I’d like to take a nap but I just woke up three hours ago. What do I really want to do? I know there’s one thing that I love — going to nature. But most parks are far from where I live and they’ll probably be packed because it’s Sunday. Riding my e-bike to the city would be nice but Nathan took it to his work this morning so I’ll have to take the bus. Is it worth riding on a crowded bus for forty minutes so I could arrive at a more beautiful place? I would usually say no as traffic jams can be very stressful but I don’t mind doing it today since I’ve got all day free. 

So I packed a light backpack, put some new podcasts onto my ipod and left home. I went to the closest park in the city. From that park, I hiked to some hills nearby. It was an awesome hike. I felt totally energized and my mind became very calm and relaxed. It felt so refreshing to see big green trees around me. I turned off my ipod and listened to nature sounds. I took deep breaths and enjoyed the fresh air. I was happy that I decided to go out on this beautiful day. 

I went to the piano school after I came back from the hike. I could focus a lot better than usual, and I had a really nice practice. And then I rode my bike to the yoga school and had another good class. 

Now I’m back home on my couch again. This time, I’m enjoying sitting here and writing. My body is tired but my mind is relaxed and content. I had a wonderful day. I think I’ll go out to parks more often, and I’ll try to be more physically active. It feels great to walk, hike, ride my bike, and move around.

 
Written by Leylop
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We bought our plane tickets to the US this week. We’ll be in the US from June 27 to August 30. Last year we bought the tickets only a week before we departed because my visa application got denied and I had to wait and make a new appointment. It was my first trip to the US. I thought I could surely get a visa since I traveled outside China  almost every year the past ten years and I always came back to China, but the visa officer thought both Nathan and I didn’t have strong ties to China so I could just stay in the US and never come back. We didn’t intend to do that at all. I made another appointment right after the visa rejection and luckily I passed the second visa interview and made it to the US last summer.

This time the visa application was much easier. I just needed to submit the application online and mailed the documents to the US embassy through a bank that they work with. I got my visa last week so we decided to buy plane tickets soon. It was two months ahead of our travel time; we thought we could find cheap tickets, but the price that Nathan’s travel agent quoted him was more than 1700USD. We searched through several search engines and a few major airlines’ websites but still couldn’t found anything less than 1580 USD.