Our first glimpse of River City

As most of you know, we are getting ready to make a BIG move to a new city that is in a new province. We are moving to a more developed city to provide better medical care for our son who will be born in November.... (and that will remain the official party line) haha

Also, as you know, the city we live in now barely has a hospital and has no experience treating westerners (they don't even check check my blood pressure at "prenatal" visits- yikes). It is very poor and uneducated.... and although we love "Boone" so much, it would be like Angelina Jolie trying to send her kids to public school in Gastonia- our children will be treated so differently simply because we're Americans.

We took a trip to our future home this week having NO IDEA what it would be like. We couldn't find any information on the internet or from other foreigners, so we were filled with both dread and excitement to get a first glimpse at where we'll be living for the next few years.

I should add that we will be living an hour outside one of the largest cities in the world (35 million people! yowza!) As you can see from the pictures below, it is 100% the opposite of the city we live in now.
green, green, green- almost every where you look (even downtown) is beautifully landscaped

quiet neighborhoods....

big shady sidewalks...

and hey- it's not a suicide mission just to cross the road!

We are so thrilled about how CLEAN this city is. We're still in Asia, so no matter where you go you'll see children using the bathroom on the street and men will throw their cigarettes on the ground, but still, the difference is just shocking. We're in a part of town that is mostly made of neighborhoods, coffee shops and little stores so it is the cleanest and quietest. When you get down town there is more construction and mess and the sidewalks aren't as nice- but still a far cry from Boone.

I also love that this city still has an open air market even though most of the produce is sold in grocery stores. Check out this mama and her baby buying pumpkin. He is chillin in his little tank top because it is about as hot as Thailand here!

This picture was taken in the neighborhood section of town, but you can see the sky scrapers that are being built down- town. -- Do you also notice how much of the blue sky you can see in between buildings? Love it!

Because this city is where 3 huge rivers meet, we're naming this place RIVER CITY. It only has 1.5 million people so it's easy to walk down town- or just take a 5 minute taxi ride. We love that we're still in a small town but so close to a big city (Starbucks is only an hour away)!

We walked down town last night to try out what was named a 'western style coffee shop' (which in our experience has been yucky yucky not western food at all) and we ventured to try the "baked noodles" as it was called on the menu. It was straight-up baked spaghetti with real spaghetti sauce topped with real cheese. Holy COW we were so excited!!

We also found a coffee shop near our hotel that serves real coffee drinks (not instant coffee that they charge $4 for) and we've had a delicious latte and iced coffee that we will definitely be getting again. We've also noticed that the streets are empty from 11 am- 3.pm.... that's because everyone are in coffee and tea shops to get away from the heat of the day!

So to sum up- I feel very very blessed that we get to move here. Living in Boone was fun and exciting, but my "bad days" were getting worse and more frequent- hopefully moving to River City will refresh us to continue our work! We plan to move in January after the baby is born!