update from china

Both Becca and Grandma sent email updates from Guilin. It sounds like an amazing trip for everyone.

"China has been such an amazing experience, I really wish I could stay here. Guilin has been my favorite so far though. Big giant green mountains and small backwards villages with the sweetest people I have ever met. I am practically famous here. Everywhere I go I get stared at and talked about and many men and women come up to me and say 'very beautiful.' And I get pictures taken with hundreds of people. The other night we went to a Chinese opera light show that I bought a dvd of because it was so amazing, but while we were waiting to go to the show Chinese people were just grabbing me very excited and having me take pictures with them and their families and their husbands; I honestly lost count of how many pictures I have been in. I told Papa that I really wanted to stay and live in Guilin and he said that was fine and I could make a living by just having my own booth where I charge 5 yuen a picture with me; I would make hundreds. But grandma had a heart attack with that conversation. I really do want to go back to Guilin though—it's beautiful."
~ Becca

Later that same day...

"Our stay at the Giggling Tree outside Guilin was really a lot of fun. We arrived after midnight on the first night, and it was so cold.... It was such a basic bare bones bed'n'breakfast after very luxurious hotel up to that point. Becky loved it (and wanted to stay), but the other three ladies were grumbling the next morning. A lovely breakfast and sunshine changed the grumbles pretty quickly. It was the first sun we had seen (lots of haze/smog) since we had left the USA. We had an hour ride to the point on the river where we got on two boats made out of large PVC pipe welded together with a wooden platform on top and a little motor that stuck out behind like a mix master.... Becky and Christine really got sunburned sitting up front on their boats.... The ride was smooth and spectacular. The water was emerald green, and we floated along this amazing mountain range dotted with small villages at the river bank. ...we went to a light show in Yang Shou. We were expecting strobe lights and fireworks; instead it was a beautiful story performed on a huge outdoor stage and in the river with the background of these amazing mountains. The boats and costumes had lights, and there was beautiful music and singing on and off the water. There were floating platforms and over 500 people performing at one time on some of the numbers. It was marvelous..."
~ Grandma Dianne

They are on to Beijing for the remainder of their trip, and the adventure continues.

The Momgoose

Becca in the world

Becca is in China for a few weeks along with Papa and Grandma, Aunts Marilyn and Joylene and cousin Chris. The photo is in Sanya where they are visiting, the "End of the Earth." I do not know if they will be there, but if not that exact location, close by. It will be an adventure for sure. Here's an excerpt of her latest email (hope she doesn't mind):

"Its only been three days so far but so much has happened, and we have already experienced so many things I look so forward to the rest of my trip here. However, I never seem to look forward to eating because its very cultural Chinese food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I just want a cheese burger :( And every time we check into a new hotel our group prays and prays that we have a toilet, but luckily I have only had to use a hole in the ground once so far, and I'm sure it won't be the last. But it has definitely made me appreciate a toilet. The only other problem is that the group is considering having me married off here. So many Chinese people just stare at me and come up to me and tell me how beautiful I am, and I have literally lost count of how many times random Chinese people have just come up to me and asked me to take a picture with them. But I sure have gotten a lot of good chocolate from being an American girl, that's for sure."
~ Becca

It makes me want to put all the photos from Nichole's island/Europe trip and Missy's African trip online. Maybe in between terms at school I will get time to do that project. I love that all three of them have had such amazing adventures in their lives so far. So much yet to happen. It's an amazing world out there.

sherri

rick at the shuttle launch

Rick bought a ticket to see the space shuttle Discovery launch back in November. It didn't launch due to mechanical failure. The second launch date in early January also didn't launch. Initially, he was working in Orlando, so it only cost him a rental car and a day of work to get there. By February when a third and final launch was scheduled, he was home, and now it meant a plane ticket, hotel and cab to the bus shuttle that would take him to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral.

He vacillated. I encouraged him to go. He bought the plane ticket.

I watched the launch at my desk at work via a web feed on the NASA website, and it was amazing, even on the little fuzzy camera window. Rick called shortly afterward, and his energy was palpable - exhilarated and emotional.

In his own words, here is what he wrote about the launch:

Another Moment of Awe

So...imagine the biggest Roman Candle you could ever see, ascending into the sky with a huge plume beneath it. Then, coming across the water, add a buffeting rolling roar to it...as if shaking a taut sheet, but instead of it making cloth sounds, it's the noise of thunder and a major fireworks show all wrapped together into one.

Add to that huge cheers from an enthusiastic crowd, proud of this tangible expression of some of the very best and finest America is, and can be, and has been for the past 50+ years of her history.

Mix that up in the heart of a little boy now grown and showing gray; a little boy still, who used to watch every Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo launch, and wanted nothing more at 9 years old than to be an astronaut astronomer.

Goosebumps...goosebumps.

Before I booked this trip, in a moment of my doubt over time and further expense involved, my beautiful wife told me to go. "Just go," she said. Thank you, baby. You were with me all the way.

And thanks to every astronaut, and every engineer, every lab tech, every construction worker, every voter and every politician who ever supported NASA and the Space Program.

What a ride, folks...what a ride.

~rick

He's posted photos on a public photo gallery on Facebook so anyone can see them:

« Rick Hoffman's Photos - STS-133