Where we're NOT going

Many of you are aware that today is just ONE WEEK away from our flag day, and that next Friday, October 12th, we will find out where our first post will be!

Honestly since we submitted our bid list last week I haven't been nervous about it.  I really relish the idea that our placement is out of our hands. I think we did an adequate job communicating who we are and any preferences that might come into play for us in particular.  At the end of the day, the "needs of the service" trump our personal preferences anyways so we can't put too much stock in those anyhow.

I also surprisingly enjoy the bliss of not knowing where we're going.  It's exciting and there is anticipation of this new adventure.  The difficult aspects of leaving and moving (again) aren't reality yet.  Heck, I'm still dealing with the last transition of leaving Atlanta and moving to DC. Part of me doesn't want to engage with the next transition just quite yet.

So I will savor this coming week, but be oh-so-excited to tell you where we're going next Friday.

I hope.

In the meantime, since discussing the bid list is off limits, I thought I'd tell you a few of the places we will NOT being going.

First here are several places we would love to live, but were not on our bid list:

• Hong Kong
• Taipei, Taiwan
• anywhere in Germany
• anywhere in Australia
• anywhere in South Korea

Ok, so that's a start.  If some of you remember, and several of you were probably in attendance, we had a little goodbye party before we left Atlanta. As part of the festivities, we asked friends to pick a location where we have a US embassy or consulate that they thought we might go.  It was a bit of a contest and while I can't post the finalists, as that would give away posts on our bid list, I think I can post cities people chose that did not appear on the bid list, for better or worse.  You can really see the range of optimism and pessimism in our friends based on these choices:

• Buenos Aires, Argentina (WOULD LOVE TO LIVE HERE!)
• Chiang Mai, Thailand (site of best double date ever before R and I got engaged)
• Guangzhou, China
• Istanbul, Turkey 
• Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (dream post)
• Rome, Italy
• Sapporo, Japan
• Suva, Fiji (riiiiiiiight, keep dreaming Rambo)
• Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia
• Wellington, New Zealand

Honestly we had a good number of posts on our bid list that we had to look up exactly where they were and even a few countries I had NEVER heard of.  There were even more posts that, at first glance we thought- they want us to go where?! But after further research these posts became quite desirable, and, as we keep hearing, "there are no bad posts." When I consider where I lived for the first 10 months in Asia I think: "I can do anything for 2 years," but that remains to be seen.  You will just have to keep reading to find out if I survive.

As a nod to the less desirable posts on the list and in tribute to 2007-2008 in Asia, here are a few pictures from where I lived during my first year:

This is the street I lived on- if this doesn't give me street cred, I'm not sure what could

This was my apartment building.  We lived on the 3rd floor over a muslim noodle shop.  I would do anything to eat those noodles now.  Pretty sure next door was an underground house church and above us was a brothel/ pay-by-the-hour motel so that gives you a little bit of an idea of the neighborhood.

Down the street from our apartment- old school Asia!