Time Zone Trama

Hi Everyone,

Well it is 3:51pm back home, 4:51am here. I was asleep and then all of the sudden sleep turned to wide awake. I don't think my body is in either time zone right now. Once I think that I have adjusted to the local time this happen or I nearly fall alseep at dinner. Oh well I am still having a blast! I can't believe that I am over here. I'm having the time of my life and we haven't even picked-up Kiera yet. I never thought that China would be so much fun. I never thought much about what it would be like to be here because I never thought that I would be. One never knows what the future will bring. Well here is a stream of random comments that I hope that you all will find interesting.

1) It is great to hear from all of you. It gives us a lot to look forward to on the way back to the hotel. It certainly makes the world seem much smaller. I am glad to see that our Ohio friends have tuned in. Kathy arranged all of the communication type stuff before we left so I am not sure who received the “We are finally going…” e-mail so please everyone spread the word to others.

2) I can’t believe we flew over the North Pole to get here. I heard about it and thought ‘well we probably just go way over the top part of Alaska’, but no, it goes right over the North Pole, down over the former Soviet Union (I’m dating myself because I don’t know my current geography well). There is a monitor on the plane that shows where the plane is all of the time, given different views and it updates that flight stats. It was –93 degrees outside the plane on the way here – Kathy should have liked that good enough. It is interesting to be flying straight north for over 6 hours and you never leave your time zone..but then when it does change it changes in a big way! Saturday was that shortest day of our lives. I think it only lasted about 11 hours for us because we showed up late to it.

3) Our Ohio friends will be glad to know that even in Beijing (Ba Da Ling actually) there are Buckeye fans. As we were walking along The Great Wall, a group of about 6 or 8 Chinese folks were passing the other way and one older fellow ran up to us, leaned over, put his face in front of ours, with wide eyes and a big grin said “O – HI— O. We were shocked at first, pleased but shocked. So I let lose with a big GO BUCKEYES!!! and his whole crowd just erupted. We weren’t wearing any Buckeye paraphernalia, just our Buckeye hearts, and I guess it showed.

4) Actually I was wearing my new, fashionable, red army hat. It was below freezing on the wall and quite windy, so my new winter hat did a good job of keeping my ears warm. Plus I think that it helped me to look like a local!!! Kathy sticks out like a soar thumb with that blonde hair and blue eyes and all, but not me. Just throw on in a Red Army hat with a big red star on the front of it and I look just like a comrad. The local vendors are very inviting to me when I wear my new hat. They act as though they have known me forever and offer me very good deals – special for me. See I do look like a native – I think I “pass” as they say.

5) You would be surprised how many people here speak English at one level or another. It will be interesting if the smaller cities are the same way or if this is really just a Beijing thing. Our guide has been telling us wonderful things about Chairman Mao. He has made everybody equal, brought modernization and prosperity to China. Hmmmmm?

6) Now I tend not to be the most adventurous eater, but so far the dining has been quite fun for me. I don’t get nearly as queasy as Kathy does. When the octopus tentacle fell off of her pizza and she put it on my plate I ate it right up. And by the way, Peking Duck makes for a really incredible meal!!! Yum yum. When we get back to Charlotte we have to find it at a local restaurant.

7) We have learned about 10 Chinese words (hello, thank-you, no, no thank-you, north, south, capital etc.) No thank-you is the most fun to say: Boo-Ya. I will continue to try to expand my Chinese vocabulary while I am here, it helps me to fit in just a little bit better I think.
The pollution here is rather heavy unfortunately. There is a gray hazy fog everywhere and it blocks the view of the many beautiful mountains that are near by Beijing. This too will be interesting to see if it happens in Kunming.

8) We were in a shop in Ba Da Ling (at The Great Wall) and they had some really beautiful stuff, including some awesome globes that were inlaid with mother of pearl, turquoise, jade etc. and I was admiring them. There were a few big ones that stood on the floor by themselves and had a light inside of them that made them particularly attractive. I saw the price was $3200. Apparently I was the only one in the shop that realized that they were not referring to RMB dollars. I showed a lot of interest in it. Of course they were going to discount it for me because I had my red army hat with me. Kathy thought that it was beautiful but she couldn’t understand why (or how) I would spend $3000 on something like that. She said that she saw shop folks literally running all of the shop and swarming around us when they saw my interest. The price did include shipping back to the states after all. When I found out the price was in US dollars I then grew surprised and shocked: “Boo-ya, boo-ya, boo-ya” and I got the hell out of there.

9) There were shipping contracts flying around, packaging being pulled out, it was quite a scene. I guess to be honest, I didn’t exactly “pass” in that store after all, even with my red army hat.

10) The computer is extremely slow when on-line here, so please be patient. Just the posts that Kathy has made so far have each taken her close to a couple hours a piece. She will look-into the picture up-loads the next time that she gets on. Hopefully we will have better internet access when we get to Kunming. Sorry for this running on so long. It does make for a great way to capture the memories. Tomorrow we get Kiera!!! We are soooo excited.

Love,

Will