27 hours later.

27 hours later our train ride finally ended and now we're in Chengdu.
My brother wasn't lying when he said everyone stared and people didn't care if they were caught in the act, nor did they seem to think it weird to continually snap photos or even stop to ask us to pose. There are so many people everywhere, traffic is a a nightmare, and the number of bikes and mopeds is terrifically high, yet pollution still saturates and contaminates the air. I never thought I'd want to learn Chinese, but being completely surrounded by people who speak it elicits a longing to speak it fluently. To be understood. To understand. The desire of all human beings to be known and to grow in relationship with others who accept them as they are.
It's fascinating to see how differently the Chinese live, although there are many similarities. Foreigners are far and few between, and it seems that Christians are just as sparse. But when the foreigners get together, it's a world of a hundred different cultures all meshed together by the lose common bond of English. It's an adventure, that's for sure, and yes, I surprisingly find myself missing the mundane of being in the same place with the same people. But only a little.
It's also true that anything you want to do takes five times as long and you can expect most things to never end up working out, but you learn to go with the flow.
We made a day of hiking up several mountains to the Great Wall, a group of all nationalities, 15 in all. We started at 7am, took the subway for a while, met up with them, then took the bus for an hour and a taxi for more, then when we got to the site of the hike we were told we could do it no more. Someone had gotten hurt? huh. So two men were guarding the path and wouldn't let us through, no matter how we asked. So we tried to go around, but they cut us off, so we paid a local man to take us to the top. We hiked up for over 2 hours, then along the wall for over 2 more, then back down into town where we took the taxi back to the bus to get dinner. You'd think that hike would be tiring but not too hard, but the way my legs felt today tell me I wasn't in shape and now I'm paying for it by the soreness that pulses through my legs. Sitting/lying in a train for 27 hours didn't help get the soreness out either.
The other night was rough, questions and thoughts swirling in my mind, making it tough to sort through it all. But a kind friend helped explain in a way that made more sense than I thought possible, using a mix of words and pictures and even metaphors. Things look different here, but I look forward to what that means. I'm looking around to see the beauty of what's here and what's in store.
But now we're here in Chengdu, where we'll film and I'll help and who knows what else we'll do.