Christmas greetings from Rob and Karen

December, 2000

Christmas, being at the end of the year, is a good time to catch up with everyone (especially those we've been delinquent in corresponding with!) on how our lives have been going, and that's largely what this letter is. But we also should remember that Christmas commemorates the birth of the Savior, without whom the world would be a much worse place, and from whom both the blessings and lessons of the year come. So let us commence with the true spirit of Christmas and be thankful that God sent His son into the world to redeem us and enable us to have a personal relationship with Him. (Cue the lights -- end of sermon.)

The year 2000 came in with a bang; specifically, the "pow" and "bang" of fireworks in New York City's Times Square. We both love New York, but we had abandoned hope of ringing in the calendar-rollover (or "faux-millennium" since the new millennium actually begins this New Year's) there -- the prices were just too high. However, as the date approached, we were able to find an affordable room and airfare from the Midwest (where we were already visiting family and friends). So, flying in the face of Y2K paranoia, we celebrated New Year's Eve with several million new friends, and in the process met some really interesting people -- there were as many foreigners (German, Italian, Jamaican, etc.) as there were natives!

After we returned in January, Rob joined the faculty of Portland State University as an adjunct professor, teaching classes one evening per week. His appointment is with the School of Business Administration; the focus of the students is different from computer-science majors, which makes the job both easier and harder. In April, Rob transferred to a new job at Intel (same type of work, different research area), joining the Mobile Data Services group in the Applications and Services Lab. This group is a better fit with Rob's professional interests, and (as Karen's mother points out) provides a lot more high-tech gadgets to play with.

In the spring, Karen continued pursuing her J.D. degree, finishing the second year of law school with continued success. It's still a lot (a whole lot!) of work, but she's continuing to enjoy it, and Rob is enjoying the ability to ask her legal questions and get free advice!

In August, we did another Midwest circuit, visiting friends and family in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Wabash, then playing tourist in the Ohio Amish country and at Niagara Falls on the way up to Montreal, where we saw the wedding of Amit (friend of Rob's from grad school) and Nathalie Parghi.

Autumn was when Rob took advantage of sabbatical! To help prevent employee burnout, Intel offers 8 weeks of paid time off after every seven years of service. Rob added on some vacation time, Karen got a one-semester leave of absence from law school, and we took off for a (literal) round-the-world trip.

We flew from Portland to San Francisco, changed planes to fly to Tokyo, and promptly changed planes again for Shanghai, China. Shanghai was a good introduction to China, as it was more modern and less poor than other parts of the country. Rob got to visit the tops of the third tallest building in the world (Jin Mao building), and the third tallest tower in the world (Oriental Pearl TV Tower), while Karen enjoyed the food and the coffee (once we stumbled across a Starbucks, that is). From Shanghai we went to Beijing, the capital of China and probably the most interesting city we visited. We walked through Tienanmen Square, saw the freeze-preserved body of Mao Tse-Tung, and listened patiently as the guide explained how "Tibet has always been a part of China." We also visited the Great Wall of China (in several different locations), which was incredibly picturesque. After Beijing, we visited Xi'An (home of the army of terra-cotta warriors) and Guilin (for a cruise on the Li River, which rivals both Oregon and New Zealand for scenic beauty). Our time in China concluded with a stop in Hong Kong -- where, despite Karen getting a sinus infection, we ate a lot of Chinese dim sum and got to meet the relatives of some of our church friends. There aren't a lot of Christians in Asia, and we were glad both for their fellowship and for their referral to a good doctor!

Next stop was Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This is home to the Petronas Twin Towers, which are (by one definition) the tallest buildings in the world. Sadly, we missed out on tickets to go up to the bridge in the middle and, better yet, Karen didn't get arrested when she tried to bribe the guards into letting us in (even though the tickets were free). Rob had to be content with staring up in awe and risking sunburning the roof of his mouth. KL was extremely hot, as it is within a couple hundred miles of the equator, but the Malay people were very friendly and the other sightseeing was interesting, since we knew very little about the country and its culture.

After Malaysia we went to Bangkok, Thailand. Bangkok was interesting, but not very convenient to get around, and also pretty warm. We did several day-trip tours, including "cultural" shows where we saw fellows catch poisonous snakes in their teeth, people put their heads in the mouths of alligators, and (get this) the dancing elephant show. It is not every day that you see an elephant do disco, or stand on his head, etc. We both fed them bananas, and for the grand sum of 20 baht (50 cents, US) got to have a picture of us sitting on a (real!) elephant's knees. Other high points were the canals (where we rode in longtail boats just like the ones in the James Bond movie "Dr. No") and the floating market, where people sell everything from souvenirs to fruit (K drank coconut juice fresh from the coconut) to cooked meals, all from their boats. We also saw a lot of Buddha statues in various positions and made of things like gold, jade, and so forth. We also met a friend of Karen's (from Farmer's Insurance) who had lived in Bangkok for several years, and did a good job helping us get oriented.

However, that same friend now lives in Cambodia, and he convinced us (without too much difficulty) to make a little side-trip. Cambodia was by far the poorest country we visited (more than a thousand people were gathered outside the National Assembly building hoping to get a couple handfuls of rice), and it gave us new sympathy for the Cambodian congregation of our church at home... Our first stop was Phnom Penh, where we visited the Pol Pot museum -- simultaneously creepy and sad -- and learned more about the Khmer Rouge than we perhaps wanted to know. The big attraction for Rob was an Army training range just outside town. In order to make enough money to survive, the soldiers sell some of their armaments to the public. As a result, Rob got to fire several machine guns (Karen just posed with one for the fun of it), and even got to throw a real live hand grenade (into water, so that the shrapnel wouldn't hurt anyone, but it still made a nice "boom"). We flew to the northern part of the country to visit the ancient temples of Angkor Wat, running around a previously malaria-infested swamp in the middle of the worst heat and humidity either of us had experienced. Rob's souvenir of Cambodia was a nasty stomach infection, for which he was treated in Bangkok.

The one place in Asia that we really, really want to return to someday is Nepal. We spent a couple days in Kathmandu, which is even more exotic than it sounds (the only downside was when Rob vomited on the steps of a Buddhist temple, still recovering from the Cambodian stomach infection). We took a crack-of-dawn flight (on "Buddha Air") through the Himalayas, and got to see Mount Everest from all sides. As it turns out, God is really a very good architect. Nepal is also home to Tiger Tops, in the Royal Chitwan National Park, where we spent several days in the jungle riding around on elephants (real, natural, elephants, unlike the ones we had seen in Bangkok) and Land Rovers. We saw a whole bunch of wildlife, great scenery, and got some really good jungle pictures, but alas, no tigers. Maybe next time...

Our last stop in Asia was India, where we visited most of the cities in the northern part of the country -- Varanasi (center of Hindu faith, where we rode on the river Ganges), Delhi, and several cities in the state of Rajasthan. The high point of India was Agra and the Taj Mahal, which was so breathtaking at sunrise, we went back at sunset. Through Karen's persistence, we got there very early, and in fact were the first ones inside -- so we got to appreciate it (and take pictures!) without a zillion other people in the way. Several of our segments in India were via car -- so we got to learn about Indian roads up close and personal, as we streaked across the Rajasthani desert at a blistering 43 miles per hour... Karen also became a bit more fit, as she is not a big fan of Indian cuisine and ended up eating a lot of plain rice.

We left India a couple days early to have more time in our last scheduled stop, Paris. We love Paris almost as much as New York (OK, maybe it's a tie) and were really quite happy to get back to Western culture. Because we had extra time, we rented a car and drove up to Belgium to visit the village Karen lived in as an exchange student 12 years ago. The route took us through the Champagne region, which again is testimony to God's abilities as a designer. Karen made up for the Indian rice by eating frites (French fries with mayonnaise sauce) whenever we saw a friterie, and we had a good time talking with the people she knew (and both of us quickly regained our French, as they spoke little English). We also saw Brussels, where another friend of Karen's lives, then back to Paris for some shopping and more French food.

By this time, it was late November, so with a strange combination of regret and relief, we boarded an Air France jet for the long flight back to San Francisco (competing the circuit) and then back to Portland, where friends, family, and cats awaited. Coming home around Thanksgiving made us realize how thankful we were to be able to take this trip, and throughout the trip how thankful we were for home -- our religion, our legal system, our political system (recounts notwithstanding), our American culture and heritage, and even our material wealth (for example, two-ply toilet paper). Most of all, we're thankful for all of you, the friends, family and colleagues who make our lives richer.

We wish you a sincerely merry (and Christ-ful) Christmas, and an exceedingly happy and prosperous new year! (A digital copy of this letter, along with better pictures, is available from Rob's homepage)