American Rite of Passage 5th grade overnight field trip

CA poppies on one of the hikes

I recently had the opportunity to go with my daughter, as a chaperone, on her 5th grade overnight field trip. The trip reminded me of my 5th grade field trip I took so many years ago.  It was fascinating to me how some things haven't changed over the last 37 years and how different other things are .

The Same old thing

First, the camp focus and location.  My daughters camp was at Marin Headlands, just north of San Francisco. It was housed at an old Cold War missile base. It was a very cool location, right next to the beach. There are miles of hiking trails, places to see and wildlife everywhere.  My 5th grade camp was in the Sierra Nevada mountains, just south of Yosemite National Park. If I remember my camp, from almost 40 years ago, we talked about nature, ecology, and environmentalism. Things have not changed. They still teach the same things, but they sure made them more fun than I remembered, and gave them new names. Like Garbology. 

Garbology

Ice Plant on one the hikes.

That is right, the study of garbage. Specifically the amount of garbage the kids produced while at camp. This was brilliant! They assigned kids to sort the garbage after each meal. Liquid,  edible, and non-edible. They weighed it and then kept track. This taught the kids great scientific methods, and gave them a goal to achieve after each meal. In the evenings they would look at the results. Great lesson on so many levels.

Hiking

Hiking seems to be one of those things that all 5th grade camps seem to have. I totally understand the philosophy around this. It gets the kids out in nature, they get to see the beautiful world that we live in and most of all they are dead tired at night. :) As a chaperone I appreciated the exhausted kids at night. We really did not have to tell the kids to be quiet very often. Lights out at 9:15pm and by 9:30pm most of the kids were already asleep. Maybe we should do that with my kids at home. Hike them around the neighborhood for 6 hours and then tell them to go to bed. 

Suspension bridge to St.
Bonita Light House

The hikes at Marin Headlands are incredible. With ocean views and beaches all around, every hike had beautiful views and great learning experiences for the kids. Because Marin Headlands was an old missile base there are lots of old bunkers and batteries for the kids to explore and learn about. Most fascinating was and old gun turret hole that had been filled up with water and wildlife had taken it over. 'Newt Nation" as it is called by the camp. The kids got to see an ecosystem of newts, frogs, snakes, and insects and how they have overtaken something in a short 30 years since it was last used. 

One thing that one of the camp "Educators" mentioned, is that kids today are not as in shape as they have been in the last 15-20 years, the length they had been working at these camps. Too much screen time. The "Educators" are pretty good about pushing the kids and not listening to the complaining. And really only the first hike was the only time I heard complaining. But by the third day the complaining was back, but mostly by the parent chaperones. One of those may or may not have been me.

Home Sickness

Hawk Cove near Camp

One thing that has not changed is kids and home sickness. For many of these kids this was the first time staying away from their parents. And those are typically the ones that were having the hardest time. Luckily all of the kids made it through the first night with only a couple calls home, but no one leaving. I remember the same thing from my 5th grade trip. 

For many of the kids at the camp this was also the first time the kids have lived in a dormitory. One thing they learn quickly is they have no privacy. There was some difference from when I went to camp. The showers when I went were just an open bathroom with shower heads. Everyone was scared to take a shower. I only remember one or two kids taking showers in the three days of camp. I was not one of them. The showers for these kids were isolated stalls with shower curtains.  So we had more than half the kids take showers each day and about 75% took them at least once.

Madeline and a WW II gun

Bunk beds

Bunk beds have always been part of 5th grade camp and this was no different. The only difference this time is as an adult, I had to share a room with 2 bunk beds and 3 fully grown men. Being 6 feet tall I would have thought that I would get the bottom bunk. But the other two guys I was with were taller. And because the bottom bunk did not have a foot-board or headboard I ended up on the top bunk. It has been years. I think my mission was the last time I was on the top bunk.

Luggage and Hair products

I have never seen so much luggage for 3 days and 2 nights in my life. I think there should be a rule that you must carry your own luggage. No roller boards. You have to carry your own stuff. Kids were coming with enough clothes to survive for weeks. I blame roller-board luggage for this. The problem with roller-board luggage is they do not work well in the grass or dirt. So we had several kids not able to get their luggage where it needed to be.

Madeline on the beach

Another thing I do not remember from my 5th grade days was the amount of hair products the boys had. Hair Gel, Gorilla Snot, Hair spray, etc. No wonder the kid's suitcases where so large, they had to bring everything from the bathroom with them.  Some of the boys were actually late to breakfast because they were doing their hair. Can you believe that? What is happening to our children :)

Right of Passage

In the end it was great to get to know these kids in an unfamiliar environment. Watch some of them conquer their fears and work together to solve problems. I especially enjoyed the time I got to spend with my daughter Madeline and watch her face challenges and overcome them. 

DWP

Church in Taipei Taiwan

In my travels I have the opportunity to see lots of different things. One of my favorite things is to

attend church on Sundays in the countries I travel. This last week I was in Taipei Taiwan. I do my best to find an English speaking ward so I can at least understand what is being said. And that is typically fairly easy in large cities through out the world. And Taipei was no different. The Taipei Ward is an English speaking ward and right next the the Taipei temple. So I hopped in a taxi and went to church.

One common thing I find in these expat wards is typically a little bit older ward with diplomats and expat executives attending the ward. This ward was very similar, but I did find a large youth program, larger than I have seen in most expat wards. I especially found a large number of young women in this ward compared to young men. I thought, wouldn't be nice if I had some of my boys with me on this trip. :)

One thing I found in this ward was that it was very reverent. Which is a nice change from my ward which is very loud during sacrament meeting (we have a large primary and 2 nurseries, :) ) I also noticed that much like my ward they loved to sing. I always enjoy wards that love to sing. It brings a nice spirit into the meetings.

Being Mother's day the meeting talks were all about Mothers and their roles in society. A family spoke as this was their last week in the ward before they moved back to the States. All of the talks were very good and reminded me how important a good mother (which I am privileged to have) to society. One of the best phrases in the talks was given by the 16 year old daughter that spoke. "If at first you don't succeed, do what you mother told you." I had to right that down it was so funny and os true. Look for something from Daisy Blossom about that in the future.



I then spent sometime after church walking around the temple grounds and took some video and pictures for Austin (my nephew) and Daniel (my brother) who both served in Taipei on their missions.

One of the best things about Mother's day for Mormon families is we get to talk to our kids that are missions on Mother's day. So, even though it was on Monday morning in Taipei I got to talk to Dallin via Skype on Mother's day. Something I always look forward to no matter where I am in the world.

DWP

Chinese Hawaii - Sanya China

Chinese Hawaii

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Sanya, China for work. I did not know anything about
Sanya before my trip. Just that I had a conference to attend and needed to get there. First it was not an easy place to get to. I could not find a direct flight from the US to Sanya. Instead I had to first land in main land China and then a connecting flight to Sanya. Since I had business in Beijing I spent a day in Beijing with meetings and then flew down to Sanya. From Beijing the flight is about 4 hours.

This time of year, May, is the slow season for Sanya as it is really hot and humid. It most definitely was their slow season. There weren't very many people at the resort and it was very hot and humid. I arrived at about 11:30 pm at night and the airport was crowded for that time at night. It seemed that that was normal for that time of year. It very much reminds me of Hawaii. Small airport. Lots of people and humid.

I was met by "Feng" from the conference staff to make sure I did not get lost. Which was nice since I do not speak any Chinese and had no idea how to tell a taxi driver where I wanted to go. It was also nice to be able to speak English to someone. Because I was there for business meetings I had to bring my suit jacket. I made the mistake of wearing my jacket off the airplane. Which just made things hot and sticky, but I did get lots of looks from the locals. Feng started laughing when we got to the car and said that the local teenagers we passed walking to the car thought I was movie star or something because no one else would wear a suite jacket in the heat and have such "white hair." :)


We drove from the airport about 40 minutes to the Resort in Sanya named the Royal Begonia. It was one of the nicest resorts I have ever stayed at and about $120 a night it was a steal. In the high season the price can double to $240 a night, but that is still a great price. My room as huge 700 sq ft, which is bigger than my first studio apartment when I first got married. And the resort was beautiful, well maintained, lush, and grandiose. It was about a 5 minute walk through the gardens and past the pool to get to the beach.

Beach

The beach was very clean and basically empty (Remember the low season for the resort). I saw several signs at the beach that there was no lifeguard on duty and that it was dangerous to swim. The waves where not much bigger than 3-4 feet, much like the beaching in southern California on a normal day. There was also a long list of rules for the beach which I think was funny. It seems like they are trying to make sure that no one has fun at the beach. They have a green, yellow and red flag system and it looks like the red flag is up all of the time, it was heavily faded from the sun. :) I asked some of my work colleagues from China about all of the rule. They said that is normal in China. Lots of rules because they know most people won't follow them. But they might follow some of them.

I enjoyed walking down to the beach in the mid-morning before it got too hot and found a nice breeze at the beach that made it even more enjoyable. There was no one but a small family (Husband, Wife and their 3 year old son) at the beach. The beaches are kept really clean and there is several cabanas and lunge chairs to get out of the hot sun. Since this was the low season not all of the services were available at the beach, but they have great facilities.

Food

The food at the resort had a good mixture of local cuisine, mainland Chinese food and American food choices. Breakfast included a buffet spread that included local fish dishes, chicken feet, ox tail, Chinese dumplings, spring rolls, pot stickers, omelet bar, hash browns, sausages, baked beans and a huge spread of pastries. Since I love all kinds of foods for breakfast I loved the buffet. It was like dinner food for breakfast.

The dinner and lunch menu included traditional Chinese fish dishes, and the all american club sandwich and a bacon cheese burger. I think it is funny that no matter where I travel I always seem to be able to get a club sandwich and hamburger and fries. The universal food.

Communications

The language barrier was some what of a problem at times and I found the use of sign language very useful. If there was confusion, they typically would go find someone near by that could figure out what I was trying to say. There was only one time when I wish I new Chinese.  The phrase "please don't come in" would have come in handy.  I had just gotten out of the shower and was getting dressed when the house maids knocked at the door to clean the room. I yelled at them them to come back later. but they thought that meant to come right in. I almost fell over trying to get some shorts and a shirt on before they got a show. :)

Another thing that was frustrating at first but learned to enjoy it was the internet connectivity. The best I could get on my phone was 2G (Edge) and even then it was very spotty. It would drop in and out all of the time. And when I did have connectivity, via phone wifi on my laptop,  the Great Chinese Firewall blocked lots of my things. Including gmail, google maps, and anything attached to google. I had to rely on normal SMS messaging instead of google hangouts like I am used to. I quickly learned how dependent I have come to good/great internet connectivity. It was nice to not be notified of everything going on all of the time.

Overall the trip to Sanya as quite enjoyable, I only wish I had my wife with me and some more time to explore more of the island and spend more time on the beach.

DWP

Carnets and Lamp Shades (Experience traveling with declared computer equipment)

In a recent trip to China and Taiwan I experienced what a "carnet" is for the first time. I am carrying some computer equipment with me and needed to make sure it got through customs. I learned about something called a carnet. It is basically a passport for the equipment. But getting through the international borders can be some what tedious. My company uses a service to draw up the documents. Which are not trivial by themselves. Then they gave a set of instructions that needed to be followed.

1. Get the carnet signed and stamped in the US before you leave
2. When you arrive at your destination get the carnet stamped and signed in customer at customs in the foreign country.
3. When you leave the foreign country get it stamped and signed again by customs
4. When you arrive in the US get it stamped and signed again.

Seems pretty easy. But As I have found the first step can be difficult if you are flying out of a smaller airport or one that does not have a customs office. Sacramento (SMF) for example only has office hours from noon until 3pm, 5 days a week. My flight left at 9am. So I could not get the stamp and signature I needed in Sacramento. My connecting flight was in SFO. They have customs officers 24 hours a day, so it was not a problem. But getting to customs was a bit of a challenge. Since customs is on the other side of the security you have to go out of the secure area. And find the back door to customs and knock on the door. I basically did a lot of asking around. Until I found it.

Once I got to the Customs officer things went pretty quick and it was actually entertaining to talk to these guys. They have some pretty funny stories about people coming in from all over the world, especially in San Francisco. One guy standing in front of me was being pulled aside because he just looked funny I guess. He was wearing a lamp shade on his head an a full length fut coat that looked like it was hand made out of some small animals. He carried a walking stick and was not completely coherent, but very talkative. He was an American that had come from Thailand. They said they pulled him aside because he had medicinal herbs with him. He was going to be there for some time with the customers officers.

Now with the carnet in hand I had find my way out to departures and go back through security and then to my gate. Total time from one plane to the gate of the other was about 1 hour. Good portion of the time as trying to find the back door to the customs office.

So overall if you have a carnet, plan on an extra 30 minutes to an hour at the airport and make sure that the customs office is open before your flight leaves. I also learned that if you just smile a little and laugh with the customs agents and the guy with the lampshade on his head you can have a fun time.

DWP.