First posting!!

Sim's cozy guest house - the hostel we stayed at in Chengdu

We've been here in Chengdu for a few days now, holy shit its hot! Chengdu is a pretty nice city; I dont have much to compare it to yet, but besides being 100 degrees, humid, and smoggy its quite nice. It has a lot of character especially if you get off the main streets - and the food is absolutely amazing, and amazingly spicy. We've been doing a lot of planning and organizing for our trip to Rilong in the mountains, but everything takes twice as long as usual. A trip to the bank to flip bills can end up taking an hour or so - lots of paperwork. We hope to be out of here by friday morning, thats Thursday night for you east coasters.
We were very worried when we returned to our hostel one day and heard the road to Rilong has been closed due to construction. Nothing like flying halfway around the world to find out you cant travel the last 6 hours!! Luckily there is another way around, and instead of 6 hours it'll be more like 11 or 12. It's alright, we'll get there and breathe some clean air and maybe see blue sky. We went for a run the other night, and it probably was worse for our lungs - and I probably shouldn't have run in my TNF sneakers that have a half shank in them, but it was all i had. Once we get up to Rilong we need to pick up our climbing permit (takes 7 days - costs $750 USD), submit our climbing itenerary, find a liason officer (he comes to camp 1 with us - costs about $30-40 USD per day - and thats for our entire trip), and organize horses and porters for the hike up (real cheap! thank god). This certainly will take a big bite out of our budget for the entire trip out here, but it will be worth it, its what we came here for anyway.
I've got lots more to tell everyone because this is the first day I've been able to post anything, and I have a lot of pictures I will be adding too. However, I'm not sure when my next chance will be to post, but I'll try my best.

Hey, so glad to hear you are having fun. Mom and Dad have been keeping me posted when they talk with you. I miss you so much. I thought of you a lot when Jason and I were in Orlando. The Everest ride I told you about was the best roller coaster out of all 5 parks we went to. It goes forwards and backwards there is an outline of a Yettie that they try to scare you with, and the whole roller coaster is within a huge imitation of Everest. Also while you are in line (we waited over an hour) you walk through this "museum" that they have made about climbing Everest (some of the different famous teams that have climbed it) and about the mystery of the Yettie. It was well done for an amusement park, and it certainly helped pass the time.

Anyway I miss you very much and hope you have a wonderful time. Jason says hi. Love you so much - molly

written by Molly Brigham on August 23, 2007

Hey Jake. It's morning now and I've left a phone message for Rena to email Dad and I whatever contact info she has and we'll post phone #s as soon as we get them. Dad will email Jon Otto and get a phone # for him as well. Just read your 4th posting: what an amazing experience! No amount of $$ in the world can buy that--just being in the right place at the right time and being open to whatever opportunities appear and willing to pursue them.

Perhaps we were too hasty in discouraging you from pursuing Rena's magazine writing/photo suggestion. I don't know what the cost is for you to take the trips they want stories/photos of. Perhaps you should try and find out and then figure out if it's something you can afford. We'll be happy to help you figure it out.
Love,
mom

written by Harriet Rubenstein on September 10, 2007

Monday Sept. 10 -- Hey there buddy: I really enjoyed reading about your adventure in Xiou Jin; absolutely amazing!!

As soon as I get any more contact info, I'll post it here.

If you do get a new chance to go climbing in China, mom and I might be able to pick up the gear from Rhys' family's house and ship it back to you during our trip to Vashon (we'll be there 9/22- 9/29).

Love Pops.

written by Pops on September 10, 2007

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Chengdu, China