Well, as the titled says, i'm back in China visiting my fiance. I got here Sept 23. I spent my first few days in Shanghai staying with some friends from past trips. Most of my friends got jobs in shanghai, some in shenzhen, and some in beijing. Unfortunately, i won't be heading up to beijing this time.

After shanghai, we went to luoyang. that's where her family lives. the train ride was about 17 hours long, but we had a sleeper car, so it wasn't so bad. in the sleep car, there is like an aisle on one side with tables and folding chairs that come out from the wall. on the opposite side of that is cubbies withs bunk beds. there are 2 sets of 3 stacked beds in each cubbie. it was fun.

i met her parents and 3 of her sisters in luoyang. her oldest sister lives in the city. her older sister lives about 2 hours away and is married. her youngest still lives at home with her parents. So i stayed with them for almost a week. they live out in a rural property with a tiny bit of farmland. there's nothing quite like living with the natives. i really enjoyed it. i got to separate corn from the cob, pick cotton, plant stuff, and more. her father taught me how to drive their motor scooter. so selina and i used it to go to town. it's about 30 minutes drive from their house.

Thankfully her family likes me. they aren't especially happy that i'm american, of course, but at least her father accepts us. I really like them too. i'll miss my new little sister. hehe.

We left luoyang to go to shenzhen. the week-long, nation-wide holiday was up and she needed to get back to work. after a 45 minute taxi ride, a 24 train ride, and a 1 hour fast train ride, we finally arrived and took a short bus to the hotel. my apartment wasn't ready until the next day, which was another 45 min bus ride away. did i mention china is huge?

I've been able to see a few more of my friends here which is really cool, and selina's younger sister lives here. i get to see selina after her work every day. we walk around town, have dinner and usually watch a little tv or a movie. everything is going well. we are starting our paperwork now. my attorney tells me it will take 8-12 months to get the visa for her. we'll live in the states for about a year, then who knows. maybe we'll be back here

Well, my 360 got back form XBox support last week. FINALLY! I was pretty happy. While they had it, they replaced the fan and disc drive. The fan used to wake the dead, so that was definitely a welcome addition. I'm not sure why they replaced my drive though. Every once in 20 times, it didn't open right away, maybe that's it.

Well, I went out and bought GTA4 and Dark Sector to brush up on some games, but after about 3 days the drive stopped reading. it's really loud and won't read games or dvd's. So, I called Micro support again. They're sending me another box. Maybe some day this year i'll be able to play my xbox again.