If somethings too good to be true, especially in china marketplaces, it is. I should have realized that when they were tricking me out of my precious yuan. One of the first things I bought was a CompactFlash memory card for the SLR camera I'm planning to get. A whopping 1 gig for only around 30-40 dollars.

It wasn't an easy bargain too. We had to do the "walkaway slowly" supermove on the seller just to get her to bring the price down to 280 yuan. Happily, we handed over the money and I clutched the memory card like a little bum with candy.

During the trip, my camera started having problems. First, on the plane trip there, a flight attendant spilled water on my right pocket, which my camera lives in. It was broken at first, but miraculously it started working again. A few days into china, sand got into it, which made it's lens movements scratchy. Finally at a restaurant, my little cousin grabbed for the camera and suddenly the camera turned off with it's lens out.

Any attempt to lure the lens back into the camera proved futile, and we just had to keep it with the lens exposed until we got home. When I returned, I plugged it in, and it started working fine again, so I assumed it was something wrong with the battery. We decided to buy a new battery, but didn't find a chance to, before my uncle traded me his battery from his identical camera as he was leaving.

Happily, I charged it up overnight and took it out the next day. When we went to the mall, I took it out and took a single picture, when suddenly the screen's colors turned willy wonka on me. It suddenly turned off and froze again. I decided to put it away till we got back to the states, but after getting home, it seemed to work fine after hundreds of power on and offs. The only problem was that the two little plates that normally close to cover the lens were stuck with sand. I put it in my computer bag and used my bigger camera the rest of the trip.

One of the last gifts we got in china (with money being an exception) was an awesome stone carving of a grapevine sort of thing. I suggested we carry it onto the plane since it was fragile, but in the end it was decided that the box was protective and the stone was sturdy, so we just put it in luggage with clothes.

We return home

I discover that instead of getting a 1 gig memory card for cheap, I got a 512 mb memory card for expensive. They took a normal 512 and made it look like the latest and greatest 1 gig memory card. Great.

I tried repairing my camera like I always have done in the past. I took a tiny screwdriver, and disassembled everything I could, including the casing and the lens. After taking off the casing and most of the lens, a certain part of the lens I've never had trouble with fell apart into separate pieces and two micro springs. After a couple days I finally figured out how to rebuild the little lens component, and after air cleaning all the parts, I put the camera back together. When I tried powering on, the lens came out a few millimeters and then the camera permanently died. Using AC power doesn't work. Disassembling and reassembling doesn't work. Resetting the camera doesn't work. Nothing works. If you have a great, compact camera that you're willing to sell to me for way under it's value, send me an email or something.

Finally, while we were unpacking everything, I opened up the box with the stone carving and discovered that it had been obliterated into some big chunks, little pieces, and a pile of dust. We thought all was lost, but yesterday my dad spent a while on it like a puzzle and basically put it back together again (minus the pile of dust) with super glue I got in mexico.

It's okay. Material things fade away after time anyways. I'm proud to say that I had consistant devotions and journal keeping during my stay in china. We also had the opportunity to witness to a few people we've been praying for. Praise God for all the grace and travelling mercies we received on this trip.