Penang

Penang, an island off the coast of Malaysia, is not a place we ever expected to visit. But, here we are and it's been another great experience. It's very hot and humid and we are here at the beginning of the rainy season. We're experiencing the third downpour of the day right now. The locals tell us it will end soon, the sun will come out and the heat and humidity will return. An interesting thing we've learned is that the people from the mideast really enjoy the rain because they so seldom experience it. We're enjoying the 'downtime'.
Malaysia is dominately Muslim so we're having an interesting cultural awareness session. One is the call to prayer which begins at a minaret by the mosque and ends up being broadcast through speakers throughout the town. The first call is at about 5:40 A.M. and is loud enough to wake you out of a sound sleep. In each of the hotel rooms we've stayed in, (3 so far), there's been a small triangle placed on the ceiling which points to Mecca. Penang is also a tourist destination for mideastern people so we see many Muslim families. It's not uncommon to see a lady on the beach covered from head to toe in black with only her eyes showing. Seems like it would be unpleasantly hot.
We met a tour guide in the hotel yesterday. We were the first people he's met from the United States. The restaurants reflect the fact that this is not your typical destination for North Americans. Most restaurants feature foods the mideast or India as well as Malaysian foods. We did find "Mario's" which featured all of the above plus Italian foods. The lasagna we had last night was so good that we're returning again tonight.
If you're a bargain hunter Penang is the place for you to come. Everynight from about 7:00 P.M. until 1:00 A.M. the 1 and 1/2 mile long main street is lined with merchants selling all kinds of merchandise. From typical tourist t-shirts to fake designer watches and purses you can find it here and the rule is "bargain".
Tomorrow we're back on the bus headed for Genting, a mountain resort near Kuala Lumpur. The people who made the arrangements for this vacation did a first class job.

Kuala Lumpur

We woke up this morning and checked the latest earthquake news to find that an aftershock of 6.0 happened last night. We emailed and skyped our friends in Chengdu and were glad to find they were okay. One of our American friends ran from his apartment and was not eager to get back to work today. We're glad to be away for awhile. The thunderstorm here seems pretty tame in comparison.

This morning we stood in line for 45 minutes to get tickets for the skywalk between the Petronas Towers. Those of you who are shoppers, (that doesn't include us), would be very content to spend time in the towers shopping. The bottom 6 floors are filled with prestigious shops from around the world. Most of them far beyond our league or pocketbook range. Because this is a major tourist spot for this part of the world we're experiencing the most multi-ethnic crowds we've ever been in. There are many people from India as well as people from the Middle East. Airports, bus stations and malls have prayer rooms for Muslims. Our hotel room even has an arrow on the ceiling pointing to Mecca. As Dorothy would say, "This isn't Kansas, Toto".

As we went to an ATM to get some local currency we realized that we would be carrying cash from four different countries. Keeping the exchange rates clear is a bit complicated. But, we're kind of figuring it out.

Tomorrow it's back on the bus for an hour ride to Penang where we'll be spending some time on the beach.

Singapore

After an hour delay our plane finally left Chengdu for Singapore. We were glad to get off the ground. Finding magazines and newspapers on the plane that were in English was also great. The stewardess gave us a copy of Newsweek to take with us.

After settling in to our hotel we finally turned out the lights at about 11:30. At about midnight the phone rang. We've been pretty jumpy for the past week and this put us out of sorts. It was the husband of the person we were supposed to meet at 10:30 in the morning to get our bus tickets to Kuala Lumpur. "Would it be okay if we met at 9:00 A.M. instead?" "Okay," was my reply and off we went trying to sleep. We slept some and did meet and we have our tickets. This was followed by the best breakfast we've had since we left the states. Omelets cooked to order, and all of the extras you can imagine. We had a feast and look forward to another tomorrow.

In the meantime we were working on a new problem that came up yesterday. The airlines called us and told us our flight back to Chengdu was cancelled. We were able to book a flight a couple of days later, but, this left us needing new plans for where we would stay, how we would get around, etc. By 3:00 in the afternoon we had finally gotten everything straightened out. This included phone calls, e-mails and a taxi ride to the bus station to get our ticket which brings us back to Singapore from Malaysia changed.

We decided to go for a bit of walk from the bus station as it looked like it was close to the water. It was and we enjoyed the long walk immensely. We watched 'dragon' boats practicing for the upcoming Dragon Boat festival in two weeks. These long narrow boats are paddled by 10 - 18 people and will be decorated like dragons for the race. These festivals take place all over Asia. As we continued our walk we watched a few ultralight single person planes flying around, it sure looked like fun. After walking a few kilometers we turned around and started walking back. Have you ever seen an ultralight crash? We watched as one of them began to spin out of control, finally lose all lift, and quickly plummeted into the water. Fortunately the dragon boats were not too far away and the man, along with his ultralight was rescued.

After that we headed for the hotel, at least we thought we were headed for the hotel. It didn't take long to figure out we were lost. We finally ventured into a large hotel and asked for a map which we took outside and pondered for awhile. We went back in and I, (Steve), had to admit that I had no idea how to get from where we were to where we wanted to be. The concierge was helpful and 15 minutes later we were in our room. Perhaps we should get some chalk to mark our path as we walk ... or maybe we just stay close to our hotel.

Two items of note. First, we haven't worried about tremors for 24 hours now. It's good to have ground you can trust under your feet. Second, pedestrians are respected here. It's been good to relax a little as we cross the streets. Make that three items of note. All of the signs are in English!

Tomorrow we head out for Malaysia.

May 22

Just when we thought things were slowing down we've had three more aftershocks in the last 24 hours. The last one found us working in our 15th floor office. Some offices in our building are still closed. Up to the point in the day our office had been very productive, a quiet place where people were catching up with what was missed last week. After the tremor work basically stopped for the afternoon and people spent the rest of the time socializing, telling stories and laughing.

A common experience for all of us is to think we feel another tremor. You look around at other people and see if they are reacting and, if not, you keep quiet. As I've said before we can't begin to imagine how the people who were in the heart of the quake last Monday react to the tremors.

In this large growing city there is an incredible amount of building going on. Most of the buildings we see going up are in the 25 to 40 story range and will be used for offices and apartments. There are some places where you can stand and see 20 or more of the cranes used to bring materials to the top of these tall buildings. Those cranes must have been one of the scariest places to be in this city during Monday's quake. Most of the construction workers are migrants who come from villages to work. Each large construction site has one or more dormotories to house the workers. Since the earthquake the construction sites have been idle for two reasons. One is for safety and the other is due to the workers heading home to their villages to help their families.

As I'm writing this I've just been interupted by a convoy of 26 ambulances, sirens blaring, lights flashing going down the road below our apartment. This is the first time we've seen so many and the only time we've seen them going by our abode.

Today Kathy and I sent our students out with some cash and the challenge to use it in the most effective way they could to help the victims. When we return from our trip to Singapore we'll get a full report from them. Normally they would be working at the restaurant this weekend but they are not scheduled due to the slowing down of business in the past days. They'll do a good job, much better than we could.

We had no idea that the trip to Singapore would be so timely. We are very anxious to get out of here for the next week and not have to debate whether we should sleep with our pajamas on or fully clothed and ready to run. Hopefully the quakes are over and things will settle down. We'll try to post during our trip. In the meantime we appreciate your concern beyond measure.

May 21, 2008

By what we’ve been able to determine there hasn’t been a tremor for the last 34 hours. That’s been the longest span of time since last week Monday. We didn’t even feel that one so we’re beginning to feel relieved.
We are back in our 15th floor office today and it’s gone much better than Monday. Our staff is much more relaxed and seems much more productive. Perhaps having Tuesday off was a good thing. Mike, our translator, told us that he had listened to two earthquake experts on a television interview last night. Both of them live in Chengdu and feel very confident that they are safe in their buildings. Unlike many other residents they have spent every night sleeping in their own beds. This gave us a bit of confidence as that’s exactly what we’ve done.
After posting yesterday we met up with a friend from Louisiana for some pizza, (think ‘comfort food’). It’s good to spend time talking to someone that’s easy to understand, particularly after a stressful time. Walking back to our apartment we noticed that the streets were lined with cars and there were many more tents set up. It was much like the night of May 12 when very few people wanted to be in their apartments. Many of the tents are made from a frame of light pvc conduit and a sort of heavy duty woven plastic. According to our Australian friends the frames and plastic were being sold near the university gate very inexpensively. I’m guessing that most of tent-dwellers will return to their apartments tonight. Of course, this is an entirely separate group from the earthquake refugees.
Last week we downloaded Google Earth to our computer. It was helpful to give us a better picture of where all of the earthquakes were happening. As we explored we found a picture posted that had to be taken right from our apartment building, perhaps 100 feet west of our own humble abode.
This morning we spent a few hours with our students sharing the experiences of the past week. We hadn’t seen them since the morning before the earthquake and were eager to hear some of their stories. 6 of them had spent time helping in Mianyang and in some of the smaller villages further north. They brought supplies; helped clear areas for tents to be set up for refugees; cooked food; cleared up trash; and listened to people’s stories. They have also spent some time helping in local hospitals. It was good for us to hear the firsthand accounts. We’re a bit frustrated at ourselves as to how to help but glad that our students have been able to do some good. We’ll spend this evening doing the laundry and other routine activities. Our lives seem to be returning to a more normal style and that’s great. Our day, however, has been filled with reminders of the tragedy that has happened in this province. From the tent communities to the constant sound of sirens, from the looks on people’s faces to the pleas for contributions we’re very aware of the struggle going on all around us. Just moments ago a text message from the government asking for volunteers to drive vehicle to the quake areas came to our phone. It will be good to get on the plane for Singapore on Friday afternoon

One Day at at Time

Tuesday, May 20, 2008
After a good supper of baked potatoes, apples and bread we decided to go for a walk to check on our friends who work at one of the western style restaurants. We were hoping for some apple pie ala mode, but, settled for a brownie sundae which was very good. For some reason we’re finding ourselves enjoying comfort food. The restaurant is located on the second floor of a large shopping mall/office building. I’m hoping to post a picture of what the ground floor looks like when I make this posting. As of 4:00 P.M. it has become a sort of refugee center with people setting up mats everywhere. Because of our language barrier we’re not sure if these people are refugees from the quake areas or people from Chengdu who are either one of the 250,000 here who have become homeless or are choosing to stay out of their apartment for until the aftershocks are done.
We’ve spent every night in our apartment except for a short part of last night. At midnight our phone rang. A friend who works with us called to tell us that she had heard that there was an earthquake predicted in the 6-7 magnitude range and advised us to get outside. We stayed inside until about 4:00 A.M. when we received a text message from our office manager telling us that there really was a prediction. We got dressed, took our loaded backpack and headed outside. We found a bench near our building and settled in for about 20 minutes. The bench wasn’t much harder than our mattress so we weren’t terribly uncomfortable. However as we were stretched out there we kind of thought we’d be just as safe in our apartment so we decided to head back upstairs. After preparing a food and water supply in our bathroom, (small with supporting walls), we climbed in bed and after a short time we both fell into a sound sleep. We woke up at about 6:30 to a text message informing us that work was called off for the day. We stayed in bed sleeping off and on until 8:30.
Those of you who remember the time after 911 will recall how it was difficult to get much done. You found yourself kind of riveted to the television in a sort of hypnotic state. That’s what we’re experiencing today. Kathy keeps up on the television news and Steve searches the internet for any information that might prove helpful. It’s really interesting to use the USGS website to check up on earthquakes. We find they’re posted about 15 minutes after they occur.
After spending the morning in our apartment we finally walked over to Carrefour, (French supermarket), to use the ATM and look for a whistle which we’ve been told is a good thing to have if you’re stuck in a building. No whistle so we walked to IKEA for cheap ice cream cones and to visit Decathlon, a French sporting good store. Still no whistle so we walked back to Carrefour and purchased a bicycle bell that has a pretty loud signal. Our hope is we’ll laugh at the purchase later as you can probably understand.
The IKEA store is also becoming a sort of refugee camp as you’ll notice in the picture I’ve hopefully been able to post. Also, since IKEA has many bedding supplies many people were purchasing mats and blankets to send to the quake zones. One person from the USA purchased what looked like 150 thermal blankets.
I’m looking forward to the time when I’ll feel like posting translated signs that are a bit confusing. Right now, on this day, it just doesn’t seem appropriate. In the meantime we’re grateful for our safety and the ability to communicate regularly with our family via Skype and all of you via our blog. Those of you who have our e-mail, feel free to contact us, just keep politics and religion out of the message.

Back to Work

Monday, May 19, 2008. Today marks the first day of our return to work, one week after the earthquake struck. We began our day an hour earlier, as we usually do on Mondays, taking time to sing some songs of praise and spend some time ‘thinking’ with our staff. Asked to share a few words, Steve, struggled through tears to encourage and console the Chinese people, (more like family than co-workers), we work with. Some of them have lost relatives and friends and the grief was very visible. They all were in the office on the 15th floor when the quake struck. Unable to walk, convinced they were going to die, they spent the longest few minutes they’ll remember huddled under a table. How fortunate for the two of us to be on the second floor at that time.
Not much work got done this morning. We’re all stressed and feeling tired and a bit concerned about aftershocks. One was felt at 2:06 P.M. that had most of the staff on their feet. Being on the 15th floor is not exactly where we want to be today. We were actually looking forward to a long taxi ride to the NW side of the city to teach English this afternoon. Classes were cancelled so the business could catch up with work they missed last week, so here we are on the 15th floor.
Normally the two of us eat some fruit for lunch and take it easy. Today we went with five of our friends to a small restaurant behind a building. The seating is simple and covered by a couple of canopies. The seven of us had a feast of rice, a sort of grated potato, egg plant stew, sweet and sour chicken, and a couple of other dishes that were not recognizable nor recommended to our non-spicy palates. Claiming to be their adopted parents we paid the bill, a whopping $60 RMB, (about $8.40 US).
The government is using text messaging to let people know what’s going on and it seems to be very effective for most people. For us, well, we need to find a Chinese friend who speaks English to help us understand. One of the messages was a call for doctors to report to a local hotel which was offering 200 rooms to be used as a sort of hospital. Stories of generosity and kindness abound. So many people have gone to the hospitals to help with injured children that at one point each child had two people assigned to take care of them.
At 2:28 P.M. today, one week after the earthquake struck, the entire country spent three minutes mourning. Sirens wailed and horns on cars and trucks blew for three minutes while we stood silently with our staff. It was a moment we’ll not likely forget.

Latest Update

The last couple of days you could sense people wanting to return back to what is a more normal life. In the morning we took a 40 minute walk to IKEA, (yes that IKEA), and bought a couple of bags of coffee and had an ice cream cone which cost 1 RMB (about 14 cents). In the afternoon we took a bus ride to the large shopping area in the center of our town to check up on our friends that work in a restaurant there. The mall was packed with people much like it would be at a busy sidewalk sale in the states, perhaps not quite as many people as a normal Saturday, but, busy. We walked from the mall to meet a friend who had invited us to eat at an outdoor restaurant near her office. During our meal we saw many convoys of ambulances headed for the nearby hospitals. Sirens are pretty normal in this city and often don't mean anything at all, but, they have increased in number and now seem to have more significance.

Everywhere in this town of 11 million there are people collecting donations, food, water and clothing to send to the disaster areas. People are using there private vehicles, businesses are using their trucks, and the government is using all their force to bring the goods to where they are needed. We've been told there's quite a traffic jam on the highways headed north. Of course the biggest difficulty is the roads in the mountains that are ruined. Also we've seen many people sleeping in tents in parks, on the sidewalks and any open area they can find. Some of them are from Chengdu and others are refugees. It's not easy for us to sort it all out because of the language difficulties.

Last night we decided it would be okay to sleep in our pajamas instead of fully dressed and ready to run as we had the previous nights. We've kept a backpack, a bag with shoes and food at our door all week ready to grab and go. Anyhow, at 1:08 A.M. our bed began to shake, there was a rumbling and we were wide awake, very wide awake. This was followed by strong winds, thunder, lightning, and rain. We quickly got dressed but decided to stay in our apartment. According to the earthquake website we check often, last night's quake was 5.7 and about 100 miles away from us. By the news we're hearing there were no new casualties from this tremor.

We are scheduled to return to our office tomorrow morning but are very hesitant. For some reason working on the 15th floor of an older office building just doesn't appeal to us right now. In the afternoon we're scheduled to teach English at a petro-chemical research building and that will be fine as the 'classroom' is on the second floor. It's where we were when the 7.9 earthquake hit on Monday. We'll see what happens.

A month ago we schedule a vacation trip to Singapore and Malaysia to begin this coming Friday. We're anxious to get out of here for a bit, now much more than we were before. In the meantime we're getting along fine.

Day 4

After a quiet night we spent a good portion of the morning catching up on laundry and doing some cleaning. We were also able to talk to quite a number of our relatives back in the states. Using Skype has made it so much easier for us to get along.

We really feel that things are returning to normal although everyone is understandably a little jumpy. We do hear and see many ambulances coming from and going to the north where the damage you are probably seeing on television occured. Chengdu is the largest city in the province and is well equipped to deal with the crisis. There is a large medical university here with a hospital that has 6,500 beds, imagine the logistics of a hospital that size.

Relief efforts remind us what happened in the states after Katrina. There are many collection points for food and other supplies all over the city and, just like in the states, people are donating generously. We met some students from Israel who organized a campaign of their own to help out with supplies at the hospitals. We've also seen several army convoys and also some heavy equipment heading north.

We're doing well but are very tired, a bit stressed, and a little on the jumpy side. We did take a long walk to a department store that has a wonderful bakery that makes raisin bread as good as we've ever had. We'll probably eat them over the next few days.

In the meantime we appreciate your concern and are grateful to be able to communciate in this way.

Water Problems?

How things change in a few hours. Yesterday's report about contaminated water turned out to be an internet hoax. Three men have been arrested. We received a text message from our phone company late at night telling us all about it. Since the message was in Chinese we didn't understand it anyway, and it was the middle of the morning before a friend translated the message for us. As was mentioned in the last posting the rumor of water being shut off caused massive overbuying all over the city. We were convinced that there was a problem as we heard it from a friend who was told by the German Consulate and also it was announced on the English television news. We're grateful that there is no problem. Now, what to do with all of the water stored in buckets, the wash machine, and all of the pots and pans.

Life seems to be returning to normal in a slow fashion. We're not returning to work until Monday, or, perhaps later. Most businesses seem to be open although we're not sure about the offices in the high rise buildings.

he news we watch of the rescue efforts and the damage reminds that our problems are so small in comparison with those not to far away, again, we are grateful.

Earthquake News 3

Given a choice, Kathy and I have decided we’d much rather go through cold weather or a blizzard then an earthquake. We’re not talking about a major quake, we have no concept of what’s going on just 30-50 miles away from us, we’re talking about 6.2 on the Richter scale while the major quake was 7.8 (I think). Today we experienced a couple of minor tremors but in the back of your mind you keep wondering if there’s another big one coming. If we knew what was going on in our city it would really help but there just aren’t many sources that speak English. We quite stressed and have lost our appetites.
Yesterday’s joy for Steve was a bout with Montezuma’s Revenge, better known as the Cramps of Confucious. A very difficult thing to deal with when there’s no bathroom available. Fortunately our apartment was given the all clear and by morning he’s feeling better and very grateful for PeptoBismol.
The word from our friends is that the water is going to be turned off for a few days. Apparently the water supply was contaminated with some chemicals from a couple of industrial plants … at least that’s what we’ve heard. The rumor that this was going to happen has caused container we have with water, some boiled for cooking, some just for basic hygiene, we decided that we should get some water ourselves so we walked the 25 minutes to our local supermarket to find it more crowded than it was during the New Years festival. We went to a couple of other stores and found that their supplies of water and juice were completely gone. Off we went to the fruit market to get some apples, oranges and bananas knowing that we could get some liquid from them. As we returned to our apartment lobby we found an SUV delivering bottled water wrapped in packages of 24 to the small, (think walk-in closet), convenience store located there. We were able to buy a package at what was probably a premium price based on supply and demand and possibly that we are foreigners. What does it matter, the water, which we feel we really needed was delivered to our front door and we’re now set.
Another trip to another supermarket for bread found the shelves empty. However we were able to buy a couple of packages of rolls that were fresh out of the oven. They were being grabbed up as fast as the two clerks could put them in packages. You would have been amazed at Kathy’s boldness.
We’ve been told that we will not be working at our office tomorrow, however, we will leave our selves available to travel to the company where we teach English. If they want us we think it would be good to have something to do and also to share the common experience we had during the quake on Monday. After we eat some supper we’ll be heading out to take some pictures of the tents and shelters around the community. Many people are not going back into their apartments yet. I would guess that on Monday night more people slept in parks and on the sidewalks than slept in their own beds. Those people that have cars slept in their cars. We have been sleeping in our apartment but have an emergency kit ready at hand in case we need to evacuate.

Thursday Morning: when we returned to our apartment after a long evening walk we were surprised that the gas had been turned back on and we were able to take our first warm shower in a couple of days. During the night we did not feel any tremors. Also we are hearing more airplanes landing and taking off and are hoping that the airport is open to commercial traffic again.

Earthquake News 2

We slept in our apartment again last night, a bit better than the night before. There were several small tremors through the night and one about 8:00 A.M. Nothing noticeable after that. We've been told that we will not be working tomorrow, (Thursday) and are not certain about Friday. We just walked to the grocery store and were amazed at the number of people. After investigating we found that there is a problem with the water in town and it may be shut down for as much as three days. As a consequence we are busy boiling and storing water as fast as we can.
We're a bit stressed, but, that's to be expected. We certainly are much more fortunate than the people not to far away who have lost everything. We'll try to keep you posted.

Earthquake News

In a short 4 months we've been through the coldest winter in the last 50 years and now we've been on the edge of the largest earthquake in 30 years. It's been an experience. We were teaching English at a petroleum company when all of a sudden the floor and building began to move and rumble beneath our feet. We ran down the stairs and out of the building and waiting for things to quiet down. It was interesting, two foreigners and about 200 nationals all wondering what to do next. Since we were 35 miles from the epicenter the damage was not great in our town and it didn't take long for traffic to be on its way. We quickly boarded a bus and headed for home. Since every building and every business was evacuated and people were sent home for the day the normal bus ride of one hour took over two hours. Standing on a crowded bus for two hours wasn't what we'd planned for the day.
We've been able to get in and out of our apartment sometimes with and elevator sometimes without. (Why did we choose to live on the 8th floor?) We've plenty of food and water, and the electricity has been on all of the time. We spent the night in our own bed interuppted by a couple of aftershocks and two phone calls. Needless to say we're looking forward to a solid night of sleep.
A blessing was that we were not in our regular office building. Our office is on the 15th floor and our colleagues tell us it was awful. The swaying was so bad they couldn't walk so they huddled under tables until the tremor stopped.
We're hoping that it's all over for now. Thanks for thinking of us.

Life in the Future

Visiting Beijing was a great break from the routine of life in Chengdu. With the plane leaving on time and uneventful flight we were happy to reach a destination which we really hadn’t expected to visit in our lifetime.
The terminal in Beijing just opened within the past two months. From our understanding it’s the longest building in the world. It’s enormous. In order to save money we took a bus from the airport to the train station, (at least that was the plan). A man who spoke English advised us to get off at a different bus stop as the train station would be packed with Chinese tourists and it would be difficult to catch a taxi. We got off and were offered a ride on a three-wheeled passenger bicycle which was powered by a combination of leg power and the smallest little gas engine you can imagine. Kathy advised against it and wanted to find a regular taxi. We took the bicycle.
Our understanding was that the ride would cost us about 50 RMB, (close to $7 US). When the ride was finished I handed the ‘driver’ a 100 RMB note expecting him to give me 50 back. With great indignation he told me the price of the ride was $50 US. Since the taxi ride from the airport would have been about $20 and he had only taken us a couple of miles I was upset. Eventually he gave me some change, (not enough), and I was reminded to listen to the wisdom of my wife once more. Some people take longer to learn.
Our hotel was a short walk from the Forbidden City and we looked forward to getting up in the morning, going to the breakfast buffet and beginning our tour. An important part of this trip was connecting up with some friends from the Holland area who are studying English in the Beijing area. We called, we called, and we called … no contact. By morning, after making many calls we had about given up when our phone rang, it was one of our friends and we made arrangements to meet him in Tiananmen Square after breakfast. The breakfast buffet was Chinese in style, but, we found plenty to fill our plates. Off we went to find our friend.
What we didn’t know was there were roughly half a million other people also wanting to visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City at the same time. First we had to walk past the wall of the Forbidden City to get to the other end of it where the Square is located. We had to call our friend twice just to figure out how to get to the square. When we finally saw the square we were on the wrong side of an extremely busy road with no visible place to cross. Finally we walked through the crowds and found a tunnel that led under the road. Along with several thousand other people we crossed to the other side. One more call and we found our friend.
It was a great day of getting to see two significant historical significant sites. It was also special because we got to share it with 1000’s of other people. In the evening we took a subway to Friday’s where we met up with another couple from China and had a great time enjoying western food and telling stories.
The next morning we, (our friend from the day before), hired a van to take us to the Great Wall. Again, we shared the experience with thousands of others. After a long, tiring climb up the mountain we were filled with amazement at the effort involved with building a defensive wall that spreads over 4000 miles. Although it was overcast and visibility was very limited, we did take many pictures. Getting down was an adventure also. We rode down on small ‘toboggans’ on a sort of bob-sled run. We returned via a country road, often on the wrong side of the double yellow line to get around traffic jams, and arrived back in Beijing in time to catch the subway which took us to a spot near a Sizzler’s restaurant where we enjoyed the best salad bar we’ve seen since we got here.
The return trip was uneventful and we were happy to return to our ‘home’ in Chengdu.
We’ve had some difficulty with banking here for the past few months. But, with the help of our son and emails to the bank they’ve been solved. Yesterday I was checking my bank account in Zeeland using the internet. Attempting to figure out the latest information I changed the date on the activity page to the current date. The computer came back with the reply that they could not show record from the future. So here I am, living in the future and enjoying it very much.