Six weeks to go...

Six weeks today we will be on a plane and in the final hours of our long flight to China. The excitement is mounting!

So it seemed a perfect day to have a get-together to meet up with our travel group ... all were there except Kim, Damian and Sophie from California (kind of a long commute) and the Presleys from Ottawa - we missed them all so took a few pictures to share our day.

Hanging out in Al & Flo's party room...

As the adults from seven families chatted, ate, reviewed itineraries, packing lists, chatted and ate some more, the kids watched movies and made crafts (thanks AM and Julia for the lovely earrings!) ate popcorn and laughed.

What a good looking bunch... ;-)

The party today made the trip much more real and we look forward to travelling together and arriving at our destinations in Hong Kong and Beijing on March 7th...the full group will join up in Guilin on March 10th.

Woohoo!

Where family is found...

I like the idea of the word homeland.

For me it evokes a place that is more than where someone came from, more than just a geographical location. And when I went googling my way through the internet to see if there was a comparative word in Mandarin, I found one that seems to mean more than just country. Well, two words really, as the word is formed from two chinese characters...

The term guó jiā is made up of two characters: 國家. The first character 國 (guó) means "country” or “state.” The second character 家 (jiā) means “home” or “family.”

As the translation explained, the single character 國 (guó) can be used when referring to countries, but guó jiā seems to emphasize that a country is also a homeland where family is found.

Love this.

The perfect addition to our blog banner.

Postscript: My wonderful Chinese colleague informed me that there is a word that is another option for homeland. It is gù xiāng 故乡 ...this means native place or birth place.