Something I've noticed for a while and have become used to- the way raw meat is packaged here. Any time of the day, you will find people walking down the street with a sack of raw, fatty meat of some kind. It is not wrapped tightly by the butcher, on top of a nice styrofoam plate, but it is piled into a clear grocery sack that is thinner than tissue paper, and is tied at the top by someone's careless efforts to make a knot. I am sure that raw meat juice constantly drips from these bags. But people don't care here. They just stroll around with these sacks of solid white (not like white meat/dark meat but white fat) meats and just go on with their day like they were holding their purse in their hand! Bizarre- and gross.

The weather has begun to get cooler here. It is about 50-60 degrees- but you would think that it is below freezing by the way people here dress. It is like there is a memo written on everyone's calendar that says, "First Day to Wear Your Warmest Pieces of Clothing" and they put on every heavy coat and sweater they own and will not take them off until March. So it's obvious that they think I am crazy when I wear a short sleeved shirt in this weather. Girls will come up to me on the street and ask me if I'm cold. Really?

It has been a while since I last blogged- we traveled about a week ago for a national holiday and then getting back into our routine this past week has been a bit hectic. During the national holiday, a group of us decided to take a three day cruise down a famous river in the country. Let's just say I feel like I took a huge step in crossing cultures as a result of this experience. First of all, our cruise ship was nowhere near what an American cruise ship would be like. It did have more than one level- four or five actually. One of the most hilarious things about the beginning of the trip was that two of us, probably the girls, were going to have to be in the same tiny room as an old Asian couple. We got it worked out thankfully and all got to sleep together, but the fact that total strangers will sleep in the same tiny rooms together while practically living on top of each other for three days just blows my mind. The bunk rooms were tiny- four or six people stacked on top of each other with about 2 feet or less of aisle space in between the bunks and no other space to be found in the room. We did have a bathroom in our room - which was smaller than a hall closet and smelled so terrible that we made the call to keep it out of use for the duration of the trip because every time the door even opened, the stench would linger for an hour in the poorly ventilated room. The food on the ship wasn't served at any kind of interval- first of all it was not good at all and expensive- so we avoided eating on the ship and just threw together some pbj's and some street food if we ever found any.

We bought passes to the ship's "sun-deck" for the trip. The sun doesn't shine here, literally. So we should have known before we expected luxury, that it would less than perfect. But this outside area where we could actually breathe and move around was our saving grace. It was just an open space with plastic chairs and stools where we sat and watched the scenery roll by as the boat cruised.

We spent a lot of our time off of our boat- walking around temples or cruising on other boats that were more mobile. The scenery was gorgeous - the mountains were enormous and towered over the river on both sides. The weather was foggy and rainy, no surprise again, which was a shame but it added a very "native" feeling to the whole trip- typical Asia weather.

The people here love to take pictures- with only one person in each picture. It was a struggle at every stop and every beautiful scene to take pictures of our group or pictures of the scenery because they were going crazy with their solo shots. Just a cultural norm I'm learning.

There was some drama on our boat on the last night. An Asian lady was apparently deemed "crazy" by someone else on the boat and so the captain had asked her to leave. She had already purchased a ticket so she was refusing to get off the boat. Everyone on the boat was crowded around this lady who was sitting on her luggage with her arms crossed and they were all fighting and yelling and arguing. It was an event! After about two hours of arguing, I guess this lady either got off our boat or was allowed to stay on, because we finally left shore. The way the people here approach problems in public is so different. Everyone is in everyone's business and there is no privacy about a matter.

Overall, our trip was incredible. It was one of those trips we'll talk about forever. I loved traveling with people who are so laid back. I love that in the midst of these less than par accommodations, we were right at home and at ease. The high maintenance people who demand luxury in life miss out on some amazing things in this world- they can say they don't care, that they're satisfied with their nice couch and nice TV, but I doubt any of them would get to the end of their life and say they wish they'd spent more time in their house on their nice couch, and less time experiencing new adventures in this world. I'm thankful I never learned to expect luxury or to demand it. The experience is all about what you make of it. And we definitely made it great.

Living here is making me a blank slate. All the things that were once important and necessary to me are slowly being removed or altered.

Every time I connect with family back home, Alabama football is one of the main topics that we talk about. This has made me realize how SEC football has been the dominant factor of my fall schedule for 22 years. If you live in the Southeast, fall = football season, and if you're an Alabama football fan, you can't help but talk about the Tide in nearly every conversation during this time of the year. The environment supports this lifestyle. Here, there is no environment for SEC football. I watch the games at 3 am or 5 am on Sunday mornings, and if Alabama plays a great game and is victorious over a rival team, the game ends and I'm hit with the realization that I live in East Asia. If Alabama plays a terrible game and (possibly) loses to a rival team, the game ends and again, I'm hit with the realization that I live in East Asia. Without the environment of a "gameday", or the smell of an autumn breeze outside, or the faint (or loud) sound of hearing "Sweet Home Alabama" playing from someone's car, house, porch, or RV, it is hard to have the same excitement about football. I know it's just football, but it's our culture. I'm learning that part of living in another culture is having to leave some of your culture behind to gain some of theirs.

I'm also realizing how little time I spend here worrying about what I'm wearing, how my hair looks, etc- overall, my appearance is becoming even more invaluable to me. I'm still taking care of myself- I haven't let myself go to the point where I'm wearing oversized sweatsuits and baseball caps everyday. I just see how unimportant it is to spend so much money and time investing in these garments I put on my body. Once again, the environment does not support this lifestyle of value in appearance like America does. I could continue to dress in fashionable style everyday here, but what is the point? People here wear the same outfit everyday, which I may add is very trendy and stylish to my taste. If it doesn't matter so much to me here, why does it matter to me in America? If there is no point here, then why is there a point to it in America? My Asian friends see me as beautiful and worthy of their friendship regardless of how I look. And I think my American friends do too. I think the difference is my heart's motives behind what I put on and how I fix myself. Here, my heart is void of the need for approval and pride in my appearance. I can replace my "want" for pride in my appearance with the "want" to know people for the beautiful person they are beneath their skin. As I lose the importance of appearance, I can replace it with what matters- loving people.

SoI gain some and I lose some. Losing the excitement of football is a loss, but losing the importance of appearance and materialism is a gain.