If you’re reading this post, congratulations, because you went here to look for an update on our situation rather than Facebook or Twitter. At approximately 4:30 pm this afternoon, we touched down in Beijing, China, and virtually disappeared behind the Great Firewall of China. Goodbye, social media, for at least a few weeks, or until Steve figures out his VPN. I for one will not miss it that much; a forced exile from whatever new list of 26 GIFs of Ryan Gosling’s face or ’90s pop culture that BuzzFeed has to offer would be welcome. What I really mean is that If you’re trying to get in touch with us via Facebook or Twitter, just email or comment on this post instead!

Steve is already fast asleep, after an epic bout of traveling that began nearly 24 hours ago. Last night, we boarded an overnight bus from Kyoto to Tokyo (7 hours square), took an airport express train (a little over an hour), and at Tokyo Narita, boarded two planes to Shanghai and then Beijing (three and two hour flights, respectively). In retrospect, not our finest decision making process, to squeeze all this travel together, but I cheered Steve up by telling him that train travel in India was almost certain to be worse. Right?

I just have to say before I too fall asleep that I should’ve added Chinese Holidays as a calendar to my Google Calendar before I left home. Tomorrow is the beginning of the Mid-Autumn Festival here in China, a three-day vacation holiday, which is a common time for family reunions. I found out this evening from my aunt and uncle, whom we are staying with in Beijing, that about half a dozen to ten relatives on my dad’s side are expected to descend here for dinner tomorrow. All this when poor Steve really just wants to have coffee and the Internet in peace! Now he’ll have to demonstrate his fledgling Chinese skills for everyone and learn everyone’s names/ relation to me. I did it for his family in South Carolina so this won’t be much worse, right? Also on the agenda are more photos and musings on our all-too-short time in Japan!

Goodnight!
Connie