what's up in China?

For those who have had no clue what's going on here or why I posted the Beijing clock, this is Abby's senior trip with her dad.  They are staying with friends {abbreviated as Y & R} in China for two weeks.  They are just halfway through their visit. 

I've been reluctant to try to share here what's going on in China via the emails from Tim & Abby.  For one thing, Conny thinks Abby should write her own posts  ;-)  And for another, there are the bzillion pictures they have been accumulating on their cameras.  Sooo, my posting before they return will be a bit boring without any pictures...

Today, I came up with an idea {well, just now...} Maybe I should post Tim's emails but not Abby's?  That would give you all a tiny taste of what they're doing, but save all the elaborate and colorful descriptions and narrations for Abby to relate, complete with pictures.  : )  We don't call her Miss Artist for nothing, ya know.  And if you can imagine a paragraph for every sentence from Tim, you'll have a good idea of what you have to look forward to!

Now, without further ado - and before I think of something else I should be doing instead - here are a few comments from Tim.

Thursday 19 July

Well, China is an interesting place when you get outside the image zone and get to realville. We rode a high speed train to a town about 2 hours drive from Y and R’s, he called someone he knows to drive us the rest of the way. Y thought he had a small van, but the guy shows up in a compact car. Y says, “What’s this? this will never work,” the guy jumps out starts shoving bags in the trunk, gets out a piece of bed sheet, ties the bags down and away we go, couldn’t close the trunk. Needless to say he drove like you would expect. We made it without incident. Proof that miracles are real. 

Abby got motion sickness just as we were taxiing to the airport in Beijing, she fought it for a long way.

R had some good chicken noodle soup for lunch, that was the right thing for us.

Tonight we went out to a street restaurant I think Abby got some good pictures, you will love it. Had some lamb kabobs, they were pretty good.



Saturday 21 July

I think my system got a little overwhelmed with new things, feeling a little better today. Maybe you remember their presentation with the fried flour tortilla kind of thing. That was breakfast this morning. For lunch we had blueberry pancakes and some bacon that Y picked up in Beijing. 

I can sleep till about 1am then tend to lay in bed for a couple hours. 

Y's boss showed us the correct way to make tea, you only steep it for about 20 seconds then pour it into a different pot for serving. 

Did some minor house repairs and got to see the China version of Lowes.

I think Abby is really tired, she has been a blessing.

I will let her tell the police and propaganda story, ended up with a TV camera at the house. Nothing serious, we were supposed to register with the local police station. Y called them and they told us to come over this morning. This morning they called up and said they would just come over we did not need to come to the station. We look out the window and see a half dozen police, a TV person and somebody else with a still camera. Everybody was very friendly, I guess that is why R keeps her house so clean. You never know when someone is going to show up.

Tuesday 24 July

We went about 2 miles south today to do an English class with the elementary superintendent at Y's school. Crossed the Yellow River and a dairy farm and saw a lot of China that most would not see.

We went to a Brazilian style buffet for lunch. They would come around to each table with skewers of different things duck, chicken, shrimp, chicken heart, I will tell more later.