We Are Going to China (Day 3562 - 8/26/19)

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They both talk about how Kepler is so cute even when he's misbehaving. Stephen has been talking about his preparations for the trip lately, but he hasn't talked about the details of the trip yet. He thought that Breakfast Stream would've spoiled it for everyone and that this vlog would've come out much later anyways. But, he thought that it wasn't fair for the people who only watch the vlog so he also decided to announce it on the vlog. They are going to China! This trip was planned in November which was before they planned their Japan trip in December. They were involved in the planning of the China trip, but Mark and Rhonda were the ones who planned the trip.

Every other year they go on a trip with Mark and Rhonda. They have been going on these trips for a while now and all the trips they have been on are documented on the vlog. They went to Ireland, Greece, and Arizona. Arizona sounds less exotic than the other two places, but it was gorgeous. In Arizona, they saw the Grand Canyon and Antelope Canyon. Stephen talks about how he is still trying to catch up on vlogs after the Japan trip. The Runaway Guys Colosseum and moving also prevented him from working on vlogs.

Stephen says that they are starting off in Shanghai. Then, they will take a regional flight to get to the Yangtze River where they will have a river cruise. Afterwards, they are going to Beijing and then to Ji'an to see the Terracotta Army. They are going as part of a tour group with Gate 1 Travel since they don't know any Chinese. They used this company when they went to Greece. Mark and Rhonda have also used it for a lot of their other trips. Both of them are looking forward to the trip especially with all the preparations they've done. They have prepared videos, gotten vaccinations, and obtained visas. The visas were a pain to get, but Mallory says that it would've been worse if they did it themselves at the embassy.

Mark and Rhonda told them at Thanksgiving last year that this year was their year to go on a trip with them. Mark and Rhonda alternate between going on trips with them and with Karley. They all sat down and talked about all their options and everyone wanted to go to China. All of them thought that it would be interesting culturally and historically. Stephen has been worried for months that he'll fall behind even more because he has still been trying to catch up on vlogs after the Japan trip. But, he has been doing well with catching up after coming back from Japan. When he was editing Japan vlogs, he had to deal with Jeff's footage as well as his own, so at least he won't have to deal with extra footage this time. The extra footage made the vlogs really cool, but it was a lot of extra work. For the Japan vlogs, Stephen had to try to include Jeff's footage in a sequential way and he had to color grade it in post-production. Stephen tries to avoid doing a lot of post-production work, so he puts all the settings on his camera.

Stephen says that they haven't announced it publicly at this point in time yet. He says that he is not going to take his laptop on the trip, so he won't be able to dump footage. Stephen will only have a set number of memory cards with him which will help him only subconsciously remember that he should only shoot clips that he will use. He explains that he has gotten good at only shooting clips he needs after vlogging for 10 years. Mal is almost done with her painting. Stephen finished recording Red Dead Redemption 2 yesterday, so he is done with his preparation for StephenPlays. He now has to schedule all the videos. Stephen is planning to release a vlog every single day while they are gone, so he has to work on editing vlogs. There are 3 days until the trip and Stephen says that he won't get super stressed about preparations until the night of the day before the trip. He then compliments Mal on how nice her painting looks.

Mal says that they are also worried about the hurricane in the Atlantic. They forgot to account for peak hurricane season when they planned this trip. They will be driving to Chicago for their flight to China. Stephen is more confident that the car will be able to handle the drive since they got a new alternator, They are leaving at 5:00 AM on Friday and driving up to Muncie stay with Chaz and Jeff for a day. They wanted to hang out with them for a day since they didn't go to Thomas's moon party in July. After, they are driving to Milwaukee where Mark and Rhonda live and staying there until Tuesday where they will drive to Chicago for their flight to China. Then, he talks about how they haven't missed a day of doing streams for entire year and now they are possibly missing 2 weeks worth of streams. Stephen says that if their VPN is fast enough in China, then they will stream. He says that they are also going to bed an hour earlier every day until the trip, so that they are able to wake up at 5:00 AM on Friday.