One of the benefits to living in Asia is the travel that otherwise would probably NOT be very likely for our family. We were blessed to be able to enjoy that benefit this past week when our family traveled to Indonesia. Now before you get too green with envy as you read, let me start off by stating that actually getting there was NOT necessarily part of the enjoyment. Between our going and our returning home, I calculated that we spent 16 hours flying, 6 hours driving, and 17 hours waiting at the airport in order to make the trip a reality. My conclusion: my kids are amazing! I know that they are mine and therefore I am necessarily biased, but I've got to say that for a 7, 6, 4, and 2 year old to be able to travel they way they do, with the patience, creativity, and attitudes that they display MOST of the time, it is nothing but His hand of grace being evidenced in them! Oh, and did I mention that MANY of those hours of travel were in the wee hours of the morning? (For example, our flight leaving Indonesia departed at 1:30am, causing us to arrive at the airport at 10:30pm and wait several hours, in an airport with no seats, no carpet, no designated "waiting area" until we were actually able to enter the gate--which was 30 minutes prior to the plane taking off--which was, in essence, when it was time to board the plane.) It's this kind of "normal" for our kids that makes me see how people often say TCK's (third culture kids, a term for kids growing up in a culture that is not their parent's home culture nor fully the culture in which they live (for us, that is Chinese), making their culture an entirely different, or third, one, unique to them alone) are so travel-adept and willing to go and see new places. The fact that my two year old can pop out the hand-held remote in the seatback in front of him on the airplane and operate his tv on his own, knowing which button NOT to push because it will "call the lady" (aka the flight attendant) is proof enough that our kids do more time on planes than the average!!
Besides the time away being incredibly helpful to our family in thinking through our life in China and having sweet time meeting with dear friends, we had two scares (one big, one not so much) while in Indonesia. The first was an earthquake that hit on one of our last days on the island. While we were meeting on the fourth floor of our hotel, everything in the room suddenly started shaking violently. Even thinking about it now makes my heart beat faster and my stomach drop. Kevin and I immediately stopped what we were doing and ran out the door with a quick agreement that he would get the boys and I would get Karis (who was at that time in a different location). We ended up meeting in the hallway and all flew down the four flights of stairs to the open-aired courtyard below. Supposedly the earthquake was rated a 6.4 on the richter scale, but I'm not sure how far away the epicenter was from where we were. Close enough to be too close for comfort from my perspective, for sure! Later that afternoon, when we felt another aftershock and repeated the same drill of running to pick up kids and race downstairs, my stomach again was churning for about an hour after the last pulses of the quake had passed. My comic relief was Noah's reaction--his repeated "Shake! Shake!" that he continued saying with huge eyes and raised eyebrows as I held him close outside in the courtyard.
The second event was not quite as scary, but still a bizarre phenomenon. A shuttle from the hotel took us to the beach our last day in town, with the plan of letting the kids play in the sun and waves for long enough to wear them out so they would take afternoon naps, thus preparing for our late night at the airport. When we arrived at the dirt parking lot near the beach, we all disembarked from the van, only to find out that there were huge red ants all over the ground. I never saw an ant hill or even a large hole from which they came, but they instead seemed to be swarming all around, right near the door of the van. The kids were immediately fascinated, and, as they usually do with our friendly Chinese black ants, stopped to investigate and have a closer look. As soon as they did, the ants started climbing into their Crocs, causing screams from the kids as some of the ants began to bite! Before we knew it, we had screaming kids dancing through the parking lot, as the vicious ants bit several of the kids and clung to their shoes and clothes with a vengeance. I was shocked when I tried to knock them off of my own flip flops at how aggressive the little creatures were and how tightly they clung to whatever they wanted to keep a hold of! We finally managed to rid our shoes of the little red devils and continued on to the beach, with the kids screaming bloody murder any time any sort of any crawled close to their path. Pretty sure we discovered the Indonesian cousin to our Texas fire ants.
One of our highlights was Eli finally loosing one of his front teeth! The tooth has been loose for MONTHS--literally since we were back in the US this summer, and has just been hanging in there! The photo of him up close (and with a messy face!), is him showing off both how untidy he can be while inhaling large quantities of pizza and how wiggly his tooth was just prior to it falling out!
The other shot of Eli and Noah together was taken at the Hong Kong airport, which we became quite familiar with after spending about 7 hours there on our return trip. We were sooooo thankful to find a kids' play area that was ideal for little ones running around and stretching their legs some!
