Passport Woes and Typhoon Nuri

Joe always gets his wish! Today was the first day of school, a half day. Tomorrow was supposed to be the first full day. Then, tonight, we get a text message - no school tomorrow! Woo hoo! There is a typhoon headed in. Could be up to about 75 mph winds. The last typhoon that was supposed to come fizzled out, so we will see if this one amounts to anything. I don't think they've ever closed the school, at least not for the last couple of years. Joe said he was wishing that we could have an extra day. Aren't we lucky? It is great because I barely have tomorrow figured out. We just got books and school supplies today.

I did not even go to the first day of school today. I spent the day travelling to Guangzhou which is where the nearest U.S. Consulate is located. Yesterday, the school took a bunch of us to the police bureau to hand in our final visa paperwork. That's when they discovered that I had no passport pages left. Who would have thought I would ever fill it up! We thought that I might not be able to get extra pages because my passport will expire this year. I was sent on a mission to go and beg for a passport as quickly as possible. If I couldn't get it, I wouldn't get my visa and they would boot me out of the country.

So, I spent the day in a van with a personal driver on about a two-and-a-half hour trip. My impressions as we crossed a small fragment of the country? It all looked about the same. I kept thinking, "I can't believe how many people live here!" There were apartment buildings and highrises the whole way. As we passed through the exits to DongGuan (where there is another QSI school), I was really disgusted by the air quality. It was really bad. I can't imagine living in that area. All of the cities we have seen so far have been bad, but this was even worse. I was grateful that we live on the coast and it seems to be better.

When I got into the city, the driver dropped me off at the consulate. I had to wait about a half hour for it to open. I was amazed by the number of Chinese people at the consulate trying to get U.S. visas. Many of them had family members who would bring them to the entrance and anxiously wait for them as they went up the consulate escalator. You could tell it was an exciting and anxious event for them. For me, it was really easy. I was the first appointment, and they gave me more visa pages! Yay! I get to stay in China. Hopefully, we'll have our visas soon and we'll be able to go to Hong Kong and Macau.

The highlights of today - 1)Sitting in the back of the cozy, clean van while my driver played explicit 50 Cent lyrics. This was followed by an instrumental of Chariots of Fire. Good mix :) 2) Enjoying the highways, so easy to drive. If only they had highways in Kazakhstan 3) Sophia's first day of school! She was nervous to be dropped off at the shuttle bus and so spent by the time she came home. I think she told me she cooked at school. Maybe they have a little pretend kitchen? She definitely remembered her teacher, Ms. Angie.

So, now, Joe and I will relax and start our weekend. A neighboring teacher found a huge stack of about 50 pirated movies in his classroom and he passed them on to us! We have movies to watch for days!