OK, so those are the only two Chinese phrases I can think of right now . The first is the equivalent of “Hello!” and the second is “Thank you!”.

Saturday is Leg #1 of the trip to China. I meet up with 3 other people to carpool (or caravan, depending on space) to Valparaiso, IN. We check into a hotel, then starting Saturday evening through Sunday evening, we will have 3 rehearsals to go through the music that was sent to us. Saturday will be the first time we will rehearse together as a group! Then, at 5:30AM CDT Monday, we board a bus at the VU Union for O’Hare. American Airlines flight 289, take-off 10:40AM Monday, destination Shanghai. We should touch down 2:05PM (Shanghai time) on Tuesday. Yeah, we lose a day.

We will get to go through the Shanghai Expo, then we rehearse and have concerts and tour and bus and tour and rehearse and concert, rinse and repeat for a total of 6 concerts! We’ll be visiting not just Shanghai (concert #1), but also Jiaxing (concert #2), Changzhou (concert #3), Suzhou (tour), Wenzhou (concerts #4 & 5), Then to Beijing (concert #6) and Chengde (tour).

On the 20th, we fly out of Beijing at 7:55AM and arrive Chicago O’Hare same day at 7:45AM (yep, we get that lost day back ).

I expect it to be rigorous, exhausting, hot, sweaty, even rainy at times. But most of all, I expect it to be FUN! When we did this in 2007, we had a blast, so I expect the same for this trip!

I will try to get an email out on occasion (when I can get Wi-Fi), and maybe even throw a post up on Twitter or Facebook here or there. We’ll see what I can manage with photos (again, Wi-Fi dependent, and only those taken with iPhone) - those taken on the REAL camera will have to wait until I get back home.

Love to all!!