Warm liver... there's a tea for that.

Our friends and family were really surprised that we were taking a trip to China. People know we love to travel, but for us going all the way to China was almost as daring as, well, going all the way to China.  But we did the 17-hour flight with only a few minor moments of panic, mainly because the only on-board entertainment was Chinese Idol. It was a reminder that (gasp!) the world doesn’t cater to English speakers.

We visited three cities, each completely different than the next. Alex captured our trip with his Leica, old school black-and-white film style.

Beijing was sparkling clean. Residents walked the streets and exercised without worry. Beijing is a good mix of history and modernity–you can walk down the steps of a luxury hotel and find yourself in a locals’ market, where you can choose from a hundred vegetables you‘ve never seen before, then catch a ride in a rickshaw to your next destination. The Forbidden city and Summer Palace are amazing. We climbed the Great Wall with snow on the ground. It was cold. The next day I was sore, but I still can't believe we visited the Great Wall of China!

The next stop was Xi’An. Less cosmopolitan than Beijing, Xi’An is a place where the air is heavy and you can really see the disparity between the rich and poor. If you  look down from atop the majestic city walls, you can see people living among trash heaps in crumbling structures. But, Xi’An has an ancient-city charm and after seeing the Terracotta Warriors, nothing is better than resting your bones at a tea house. There’s a tea for losing weight, a tea for smokers, a tea to help with your body’s reaction to pollution, a tea for warm liver. As Alex says, “if there’s something that ails you, there’s a tea for that."

Shanghai is a modern city. The entire city is one big marketplace, you can’t walk 10 ft without someone trying to sell you something. Shanghai is very much like any western metropolis, right down to the Starbucks. It’s big city living and big city prices, but if you use your bartering skills (as I was told to do, even though it made me a little uncomfortable) bargains abound. We also got to ride the world's fastest train.

China was amazing, we’ll be back just as soon as we save enough money for another set of plane tickets.

Click here to see more pictures from our trip

Panama

This year we went back to Panama. Alex was having a big reunion with the chinese side of his family and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get away from the cold. While we were there we visited a village of Embera indians on the Chagres river. It was very cool to see how they live. Our guide was a woman from Seattle named Anne who originally went down to Panama to train animals for a film and ended up marrying one of the Embera men. She was a great guide and went above and beyond to make our trip a success. Click here to see some pictures from our trip.

We also got to visit Alex's family in Chitre and flew out to Bocas del Toro for a couple of days. This was the only disappointing part of the trip. The idea was to go out there do some snorkeling and just hang out on the beach. Unfortunatley, it rained sideways the whole time we were there. It was so bad we had a tough time landing on the day we arrived and had to go to a nearby airport in Changuinola to wait for a break in the storm. 

Busy, busy, busy

Hello!

It has been a very long time since we've posted. No, we have not fallen victim to the ailing economy. Exactly the opposite--we've been too busy to keep up our site. This summer we completed a bunch of cool new projects and taught a series of classes to community members, high school and college students. Keep checking back for new content. In the meantime, follow us on Twitter.

New video shows neighborhood sports in action

Saturday, March 28, 2009
While community agencies and sports programs were getting ready for Spring Into Sports, multimedia journalists Sarahmaria Gomez and Alex Fledderjohn were out in the neighborhoods asking youth and adults what neighborhood sports are all about.

Their answers are in the video below. Check it out, and send the links to others so that they can see it too. (If video doesn't stream well, try the YouTube version.)


Neighborhood Sports Chicago! from Tu Multimedia on Vimeo.

Spring Into Sports Wrap Up from Tu Multimedia on Vimeo.

Belize and Guatemala

This month we had a fantastic opportunity to escape the dropping temperatures in Chicago to spend three weeks working on some international stories with a vacation in between. Our first stop was the Feria Internacional de Barriletes Gigantes, or the International Festival of Giant Kites in Sumpango Sacatepequez, Guatemala, about 30 minutes from Antigua. The festival is part of the Day of the Dead celebrations, put on by the indigenous community in the region. Residents

spend months building the giant kites made of bamboo, tissue paper, glue and twine.

See Alex's collection of photographs here.

Coming soon... a joint multimedia project produced by Tu Multimedia and Chance Multimedia.

After one week of work in Guatemala City, we headed out on one of our most ambitious road trips yet. Alex drove straight for 12 hours through dozens of small towns, over countless potholes and we even shared a makeshift ferry with a semi to cross a flooded river. We arrived in Bullet Tree Falls, San Ignacio, Cayo, Belize, late at night and were looking forward to visiting our old friends at the Cohune Palms cabanas next to the tranquil Mopan River. When we stepped out of the car, we were surprised to find the place eerily deserted. Exhausted and disappointed, we headed toward the lights of riverside lodge across the road. Colin, the owner of Iguana Junction informed us that the town (and most of Western Belize) had been wiped out by flooding a month earlier and many of the lodges were now only beginning to rebuild in preparation for tourist season. Colin and his wife Dawn graciously offered up the only place fit for sleeping--a room with five mattresses on the floor. Luckily they had fixed up their kitchen and we had a delicious dinner of Ramen, fine conversation and even an after-dinner drink (We started off with a cooler full of beer that the Belizean boarder patrol helped themselves to. At least they didn't take the rum.) Good thing we were traveling with three of our awesome friends, which made a potentially disheartening situation into a laughter-filled adventure. That night, our floor accommodations felt like the Four Seasons to us. :) We even ended up staying an extra day to relax by the now bloated, rapid river. We didn't much care that someone's washing machine floated by on what was once a clear blue and very swimmable river. Our friend Jessica and I tied vines to our waists and splashed around--just to make sure we wouldn't be carried away by the current. What a difference great friends make.

The next day, Alex drove us four more hours to Placencia, Belize. The pictures speak for themselves. We spent four days in a house just minutes from the beach and even had time to hang out with the local school kids. Our final stop were the ruins of Yaxha which were less-developed, but just as stunning as Tikal with a fraction of the tourists. We were treated to a territorial dispute between howler monkeys and spider monkeys--the uninhibited wildlife is unlike anything I've ever seen. I'll excuse the 100+ mosquito bites I got that day. A week later they still itch, little reminders of a wild vacation.

  

Our Audio Slideshow at the Newseum!

If you happen to be in Washington D.C., check out our audio slideshow about the Knight Brothers at the Newseum. You can watch the same slideshow on our Web site, here. We are thrilled to be a part of journalism history.

Shrinking the Food Desert

There's a new farmers market on 61st and Dorchester in Woodlawn. It bustled with shoppers, the beets were fresh and going fast and the nine vendors nearly sold out of everything. This is one great step toward building healthier communities, especially because of the scarcity of fresh produce in this area. We can't wait to see how this market grows. Enjoy the sights and sounds!