Expat Ruminations & The Northwest {Part III}

As I mentioned earlier ... our trip to Vancouver allowed us to catch up with four other families we knew in China. There is really no way to explain how neat it is to reconnect with people you knew on the other side of the planet!

When we bid our farewells in Qingdao twenty-two months ago, it was with the knowledge that we may never see some of our friends again. So, in many ways any such reunion is sweeter with the knowledge that it's likelihood was so slim.

Expat life is a series of circles and cycles. I often equate it to a Venn Diagram. Our family's circle, overlapping with another family's circle because of living arrangements, school choice, something as simple as shopping in the same international import aisle at the grocery store and/or, most importantly, because my husband's employer and the employers of other families all deemed a seaside city in peninsular China a worthy spot to deposit an expat family for a couple of years, allowing our circles to overlap.
{Of course ties where often greater than a shared interested in hazelnut spread, but that was often the fun and sometimes funny way friendships began. I recall one friendship in my earliest days in China, that began with a rather disgruntled expat wife showing up at playgroup after having voyaged back from a month of blissful seaside living in her motherland, returning in the smokiest days of Qingdao March. She complained about her husband's American employer, the hours of he was required to phone into conference calls... which translated into almost the middle of the night in China ... and about the the abysmal air quality in the Middle Kingdom. But, I noticed, her daughter had left the house in a dress-up cape, and I gave the mum the benefit of the doubt. Sure enough, it was jet-lag and exhaustion talking, and she became of my staunchest confidants in those first fledgling months in a foreign country. She was as fun and witty as her daughter's cape had suggested! Our Venn overlap began @ the expat playgroup.}


We had, in 2010, on our return voyage to QD, laid over in Vancouver, and considered it fortunate that we were able to see both The S & W families at the same time {in fact, at that moment, both families were sharing the same roof as they waited for slow boats from China to arrive with their expat goods.} They gamely let the girls and I hang out with them for a weekend.

The S, W, and Johnson Girls {Summer 2012 :: Crescent Beach}

When we promised a return trip this summer, and then learned that our Australian pengyoumen {The T's} had also managed to arrange a summer in North America {with greater Vancouver serving as a home base of sorts} we were thrilled!!

{All set to bike Stanley Park :: seventeen bikers and two riders}

{The Johnson fam, The T Fam, The W Fam, and the H Fam}

{silly faces}

As noted earlier, we had a week with The S Family before they took off for a 40th birthday get-away in bear inhabited interior BC. We headed south across the boarder to Seattle for a long weekend and a little 15th wedding anniversary celebration, some penny smashing on the tracks, swimming with skinny dippers, and drinking coffee.

Sufficiently caffeinated, we then returned to Vancouver, where The S's generously allowed us to live in their well appointed home, in their absence, and we spent three more lovely days biking, hiking, canoeing, swimming ... sharing lattes, BBQing and simply catching up with good friends.

As an added bonus, another family that we knew from our QD fellowship had recently repatriated to Seattle and joined us for part of that time as well. It was bittersweet as The H's lost their 11 year old son in a tragic accident in China last year, and now face a new life in America with three, instead of four, children.

There is much to be said about the importance of maintaining and nurturing these relationships, though oceans and timezone separates us. Our children benefited from the re-connection with other expat friends as much, if not more, than we did. The emphasis of the whole 3CK Movement (Third Culture Kids), is that expat kids share a unique camaraderie with other children who live abroad in a culture that is not their home culture, and not fully their host culture. For me personally, I see my kids reconnecting with other expat kids in shared lingo (referring to some words in Chinese rather than English) or using terms they shared in the British school system. I also seem them come alive as they rehash memories or connect on common ground (a shared dislike for Weekend Chinese school and a love for their respective Chinatowns).

our TCKs

{The don't call it Beautiful BC for Nothing!}

{sweet girlies}

{ice cream boy in his ice cream shorts}

{the Northwest II}

After a great week with the S's ...

We headed south in our wretched rental car across the boarder along the scenic coastal highway to Seattle. (When we got to Enterprise we had our "choice" of 11 generic grey Impalas!) But regardless of the gutless vehicle, we had a great little road trip ... stopping for local cherries, and at scenic spots along the way.




When we got to Seatown, we stayed right downtown in the heart of the caffeinated hipster city. We took advantage of our great location and walked to the Klondike Gold Rush Museum, Wing Luke Museum (a fabulous tribute to Asian American culture and its troubled history in that corner of North America), took the monorail out to Seattle Center where we chilled out with skinny-jean clad locals, drank Starbucks (what else?) and caught the outdoor performance of several live bands preforming @ the EMP while gazing up at the famous Space Needle which to me seems both and retro and futuristic at the same time. Whilst in Seattle, Mr Johnson & I celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary!

{fresh produce}

{fish that fly}

We enjoyed jaunts to the Pike's Place Market where we watched the fish fly, haggled with the vendors, posed in front of the first ever Starbucks, and dined alfresco on shellfish ... looking out across on Puget Sound.
On our last morning, Mr Johnson and the girlies toured Boeing, while I had a solitary brunch back @ Pike's Place, and chatted with both of my sisters on Skype.

my Seattle home in the late 70s

Before heading back to Vancouver, we navigated around Seattle, searching for the rental I spent a year of my life in in the late 1970s. We found it, and I posed on the steps of a house I don't remember living in when I was two.



On our return to Vancouver, we stopped again at the quaint On our way back toward the Canadian border, we stopped again at a cove we had happened upon on our way down. On our second visit we remembered to grab some coins from the car, which we put on the track that ran right along the beach front at the base of the trail. (Placing coins on RR tracks was a childhood trick that I knew, but that Mr Johnson and the girlies had never done.)

After reading up in our Lonely Planet, we learned that the cove is a infamous, locally, as a nude swimming area ... which quite frankly explained a lot. We had great fun on both stops there, and we remained mostly clothed. (Although if you looked closely you would note Mr Johnson adopted a 'when in Rome' philosophy ... Most of the summer term college kids @ the cove just went swimming in their undies ... and he followed "suit"less)

Related Interweb Sites ::
Wing Luke
http://www.wingluke.org/
Klondike Gold Rush Museum
http://www.nps.gov/klse/index.htm
Pike's Place Market
http://www.pikeplacemarket.org/
Seattle Center
http://www.seattlecenter.com/
EMP
http://www.seattlecenter.com/locations/detail.aspx?id=63
Boeing
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/tours/index.html
Washington State Parkshttp://whatcom.kulshan.com/Washington/Whatcom%20County/Western%20Whatcom%20County/Outdoors/Teddy%20Bear%20Cove.htm

Such A Good Summah {The Northwest I}

In late June we jumped on a United flight bound for Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

We spent two and half absolutely wonderful weeks in the scenic, wet, Northwest ... a welcome change, as by late June it was already very apparent that the summer of 2012 would be remembered in the Midwest as a season of drought. {Fate and good planning allowed us to reconnect with four families from China, and there might not be a more beautiful place on the globe for such a summer reunion.}

We stayed with our great friends and gracious hosts the S's who made elaborate meals, treated us royally, and introduced us to their life and surroundings in the Greater Vancouver area. In two short years since emigrating, they have immersed themselves in Canada. Their girlies who carry passports for three countries, are living a Canadian childhood.

We visited Fort Langely, White Rock Beach, Crescent Beach and ...

 a local berry farm, where this picture of
five of our favorite girls was taken!

We were "show and tell" in their girlies classrooms, and we got to see their school and meet their classmates and teachers. In YVR proper we played tourist @ Granville Island, Stanley Park, and Canada Place on Canada Day.





The Johnson's (& some smiley random guy)
in front of the Olympic Flame
@ Canada Place on Canada Day

Related Links on the Interweb ::
Historic Fort Langely
http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/bc/langley/index.aspx
Stanley Park, Vancouver
http://vancouver.ca/parks-recreation-culture/stanley-park.aspx
Canada Place, Vancouver
http://www.canadaplace.ca/

How I spent my summer vacation ...

The Three have been back in school for two full weeks. Even though it feels as though summer is still very much with us (a heat index today of 100 F will bring the girlies home at noon), summer really is drawing to a close.



This weekend will mark the end.



And so, with so many pictures yet to post of our summer holidays yet to post, I thought I'd make a mad dash and effort in these fleeting (and hot) moments before Labor Day.