Sew Fun LOL

So today we had a choice of activities to do.  It is really supposed to be our only free day however we chose to do the activities.  7 am wakeup, 8 am breakfast, 9 am departure.  We were to meet Sharon and Elizabeth, our leaders, to go into Old Shanghai to explore the fabric streets.  Unfortunately they had an emergency so Sharon and I were left on our own.  The taxi driver was told where to drop us off.  Well that didn’t happen, he dropped us off at the market place where we were at yesterday.  So being the adventurous twosome we decide to find it on our own.  I take the leadership role and consult with Sharon each time we make a turn.  We have a map but it is mostly in Chinese…well now I say to her why should that stop us…We go left and after a brisk walk decide it is the wrong way.  We ask someone but they just smile at us, I say ok and so now we go right.  We are walking quickly because we only have a few hours to get back to the hotel and join the bus.  Ok so now we walk, and walk and walk….we see very interesting shops but they are not fabric or trim.  We stop several times and each time we are pointed a different way.  We learn very quickly that the word is not fabric but it is material.  So now we enter a tourist bureau, guess what, they also don’t speak english and send us back in a circle.  We took one really wrong turn and ended up in the alley ways.  This wasn’t quite fun as we are now doing our own tour of a chinese neighborhood.  I make light of it and pretend to be Sharon’s tour guide, but truth be told it was a bit unnerving.  I smile and say Nee How to everyone we see.  At then end of the long alleyway are two policemen.  So I ask them for help, they smile with their toothless smile and say they don’t speak English….great….we emerge and now we enter the market place and as we are discussing with a vendor a young chinese man approaches and gets involved.  At the same time Sharon sees a white man with a chinese family and quickly asks for help.  The next thing you know I have asked the chinese man for help and he has hired himself as our guide.  Ok so guess what happens next….we follow and he runs…ok he walks really really fast and we have to keep up.  Of course along the way we learn he is a student…I am jogging to keep up with Sharon close behind…we go back to the same street we just walked, but this time we are running it.  We finally emerge and we are brought to a Fabric Wholesale Marketplace, 3 floors of fabric.  One would think at this point that our Chinese guide would leave us, but no, he has taken it upon himself to stay with us and bargain on our behalf.  We are sweating, ok glowing as some would say, and in the building it is hot and very humid.  I think we lose a bit of spirit but we troop on.  We go on every floor.  I bought two pieces of fabric; Sharon nothing.  We decide we have had enough and also realize we have 40 minutes to get back to the hotel.  Now we need a taxi…do  you know how we got one?  If you guessed that our little chinese guide hailed it for us you are absolutely right.  I give him 50 Yuan and he is quite happy.  As we pull away I see him circle back to the fabric building, I bet he collected a commission for bringing us there…none-the-less we would not have made it without him.

So the taxi pulls away and after two turns guess where he was?  Yes he was on the street we were looking for all along.  So I say to Sharon “remember 79 Jinling”.  She was laughing – why are we coming back…well maybe not this year but it could happen in the future.

We arrive at the hotel in time to depart for the next adventure.  The tour takes us to a very large Tea Room and we are partaking in Tea Testing.  We learn how to steep the tea and so much more.  We also get to try 5 types of tea.  The second tea was for the digestion system,  well I drank mine and within minutes needed to find a bathroom.  I made it thru our testing only to spend the next 30 minutes in the bathroom.  I guess the tea did what it was supposed to do.  At this point the group is going on a fabric buying trip.  We are a little concerned that we will end up in the same place we were before but no, we are taken to another building with many venders all selling very similar pieces of fabric.  We shop for 2 hours and then we depart for the hotel.

One hour later we are off to our Farewell dinner.  It is at a nearby Chinese restaurant where we are to experience 10 different dishes related to Shanghai.  Unfortunately, at least half of them were fish.  Well we drank the wine, and the water, ate some rice and a few vegetables and looked forward to our last dish of watermelon. 

It is a sad but happy end to our 2 weeks in China.  We have made new friends, learned of a whole new culture and developed a huge appreciation for what we have and where we live.  It has truly been an experience of a lifetime and we do not hesitate to recommend this trip to anyone.  I would love one day to bring my family back here.

Tomorrow is a 630 am wakeup and early departure; it will take us 24 hours to get home.  We will post our days events after some rest and reuniting with our family…Thank you for sharing our adventures with us

Lorrie and Sharon

We are excited to get up this morning as we are off to Suzhou where they have another Silk Spinning factory.  I am not feeling good today, I have a very bad head cold but I am a trooper.  We have a 2 hour bus ride and so I am able to take the last seat in the bus and just zone out.  Occasionally I open my eyes to make sure I know where we are.  Sharon is also at the back and taking a small rest too.  Thank god for Claritin…

Suzhou is a small city and is based around a system of canals; all the houses are built this way.  Each canal has a set of boats to go up and down.  If you can imagine being in Venice and riding a beautiful Gondola then you can imagine us on a yellow river in little motorized passenger boats that seat no more than 20.  We walk up and get on our awaiting chariot.  We spent 40 minutes going up and then back.  Afterwards we board the bus; it is now time for lunch.  Gerry tells us that the food is a bit different here, authentic for the area, well it was authentic – I think Sharon ate some fish and here I ate just a bit of cooked cabbage.  So now you are thinking we are losing loads of weight, well not so much.  Because somehow we always find an ice cream stand or some cheese and crackers back at the hotel.  We also have our trusty protein bars – so no starving is happening here.

After lunch we finally get to the Silk Factory – it is a working factory and we learn so much here.  It was one of the highlights of the trip.  We don’t buy anything here as it is the same stuff we saw before, but we are still very happy.  Next Gerry takes us to the workshop where they do the hand embroidery.  I decided not to get off the bus, I have seen it so many times so Sharon stays with me and we just relax for a bit.  It is not too long before all the others come back…

Next is the Humble Administrator’s Garden, of which we also decide to stay on the bus.  It is a 40 minute stop and we decided we did not need to see it.  After the others leave we get off the bus and wander around in some of the little shops.  Many are the same but there is one with really interesting sewing boxes.  We did not buy any but it was really fun to see them.  We stop for an ice cream, ok Darlene and I had one and Sharon didn’t.  We get back to the bus before anyone knows that we got off.  Charlie is so nice he brings us back a brochure to show us what we missed.  We didn’t have the heart to say no so we took it.

On to dinner now, but wait we have a two hour bus ride back to the city.  This trip is far from boring; driving on the highway is like driving in crazy land.  There are no rules and we have people trying to cut in everywhere.  This keeps us amused until we arrive for dinner.  Up to the 2^nd floor again for another scumpdeliicious dinner.  Here we eat some rice, some vegetables and they had a great pork dish that we both tried and liked. 

Our day ended with Gerry and Charlie stopping the bus at the local Foot Massage parlor.  We get off and guess what go to the 2^nd floor.  Sharon and I get put into a room for two.  We are hoping to have a relaxing foot massage but no…they are here to hurt us.  I tell my massage girl that she is hurting me and she said “Sleep no good”.  I turn to Sharon and said that that means she will continue to hurt me…and she did.  What is really interesting about the foot massages is that we have had three and each time I have had the exact same type of massage, the techniques is what I mean.  Sharon has had the same as well but what is interesting is that they are different for the two of us….Strange they tailor the massage to your needs based on what they feel.  Sharon always gets jiggly legs I always get twist, turns and punches….ok; we really need to go back to the hotel now.  We arrive and it is already 10:30 PM….lights out – we don’t want to be tired for our last full day in Shanghai.

The theme of today is “On the bus- Off the bus”.  Well maybe it is the theme of the trip.  We are a bit tired…and of course everyone has an ache or a pain or a cold.  But we are troopers, the wakeup call comes and we get into routine.  We shower, now let’s digress here for a minute.  It is Sharon’s turn to go first so we read the manual and she goes into the bathroom.  About 20 minutes later she told me she was done.  “But be careful she says.  I decided to wash the bathroom down…not sure how that happened.”  I proceed to enter the bathroom at my own risk, not knowing what I was going to see.  Sharon had turned the dial so that all 3 shower heads were on and not just the floor but the whole bathroom was wet.  I take my shower and Sharon asks, so did you do the same?  To this I quickly replied “No” J. 

 So we go for our usual breakfast and get “On the bus”.

It is a busy day today we are told and we must adhere to the schedule.  First stop is the Jade Budda Temple.  We arrive and can you imagine all our Chinese friends have come with us.  It is packed because today is a religious festival day.  We enter into the square and there are 4 large incense burners.  All all filled to the top with incense.  People are buying them all around us, they light them, then they do their prayer ritual and then throw them into the burners.  There are ashes everywhere.  We proceed to the temple to see the Jade buda.  Guess what….we climb and climb and we arrive.  We are quiet now, or at least I got told to be quiet…Charlie was talking to me and I was just answering.  We say our prayers and exit into ….can you guess….yes another market place.  Here we get separated.  I am approached by a Chinese vendor who asks me to come in and see the Laughing Buda, he brings luck.  I go up the stairs and do as I am told.  I rub his belly three times.  I then decide I had better find the group.  Yes I do know what you are thinking now…I lost Sharon and I am a bad buddy again. It is what it is. 

I meet up with the group, there is Sharon and we get “On the bus”.  Our next stop is the Cashmere factory.  It is already made cashmere clothing.  I am not sure anyone wants to stop here but it is on the revised schedule.  Sharon and I quickly walk thru the place and then get “On the Bus”.  While on the bus we are discussing things we have seen.  Sharon tells me to remind her that she needs to buy “Black”.  I am thinking “what is black?”  Just as I started to ask so did the two ladies in front of us.  What is black they ask?  Sharon said well I did say Black silk.  Well she did not so we have all decided she is now speaking Chinese English too.  We had the best laugh of the day.

Next stop is the Arts and Crafts Center; everyone is excited about visiting this place.  But what a letdown it was.  Guess what we got “off the bus”, climbed the steps, went down the steps and here we were in a very small museum.  It had some interesting art work and pottery.   The lower level had some things for sale but nothing that moved us.  Back “0n the bus”.

We are now in the Pudong district which is most prominent for the financial center in what they call the new China.  Here we proceed to dinner.  We climb up to the 2^nd floor; did I tell you every time we eat it’s on the second floor?  We have dinner and tonight there are a lot of heads on the table, fish heads I mean.  Needless to say we ate our staple, rice and watermelon.  We have only 40 minutes to eat, it’s ok for us.  Now we get “on the bus” and drive to see an Acrobatic show.

The show is quite amusing, some professional acts and some filler acts.  We had people that could move their bodies in ways that I will leave to your imagination.  We had a magician doing card tricks, a knife thrower who cheated and then to end the show we had a young man stack 8 chairs up to the sky and then proceed to do handstands…I was not really in the mood to see blood but he amazed us all.  No safety net, nothing if he fell he was a goner…back “on the bus” and off to our hotel.  It was a very busy day.  We didn’t have to climb our 77 floors but here we are as close to god as we can get without really crossing the line…

7 am morning wake up call, then the loud speaker in our room goes off….first some music and then Chris our River Boat Guide tells us to make our way to Deck 2 for breakfast….On this cruise if you snooze you lose.  We did not sleep well last night, the beds are like slate, hard and bumpy, the boat rocked from side to side…but still we get up we don’t want to miss the only food on this boat we can eat.

We start our morning by going to see some demonstrations.   First one was Chinese Painting.  We spend an hour learning about the heritage of the painter.  He did not speak English so Chris our River guide did the interpretation.  We learned the ancient way of creating the ink and then we saw the two types of paintings, I can’t spell the Chinese names but one is very detailed the other not.  At one point we got up to look at all the paintings, today I think I have adapted and now speak Chinese English.  I was trying to tell Sharon something and the words kept coming out without the endings….we broke into laughter and couldn’t stop….it was a very funny moment.

When this was over we moved to the Pearl demonstration.  Here we learned how to tell what is a real pearl and what isn’t.  We learned about cultured pearls, the colors and so on.  It was a very informative session.

We docked at Shengnongixi and we are supposed to take a small boat to explore the “Lesser of the Three Gorges”.  But first we are called to the upper deck of our battle ship to view the scenery as we pass thru the Gorge….we are on a yucky brown river, in the middle of these gigantic mountains.  The scenery is breath taking; we are able to see caves and interesting shapes of the first Gorge.  Picture taking in not great because of the haze but we did our best.  It is very windy and after a while we move to the Sunday room deck where you can still watch from the outside.  We spend a leisurely morning and then are called to deck 2 for lunch.  Not a good lunch for us, I think we primarily ate rice and watermelon…The food on the ship is not agreeing with us.  After lunch the group meets to disembark and go on the smaller boats.

I was not feeling good and decided to stay back.  I retired to my room, slept a bit then worked on a 2.5 inch teddy bear.  While in my room, Anna, our housekeeper came in.  Anna is 18 and is working to help feed her family and save money for school.  She would like a better life.  Anna was very intrigued with the bear and stayed awhile.  After that she came by to see if I need the doctor.  I ended up giving her another kit for a bear that I had with me and she was very grateful.

Around 5:30 Sharon and the group were back to the boat, they took a Ferry for a bit and then ended up on little boats with 5 men doing a kind of standing up rowing.  They saw some interesting animals like Monkeys etc…They all had their life jackets on and were quite impressed with the vegetation they saw. 

Now it’s off to dinner….guess what….the food was not so good again.  WE dined on rice, watermelon and maybe some cucumber.  There were a few of us on this diet and we decided to go to the Sunday room for a Banana Ship.  Have you ever heard of these?  Well as you know English is not the main language here in China and the interpretations of things sometimes feels funny to us.   None-the-less we all decided to get Banana ships – however I wanted mine without the Banana…Have you guessed yet….You probably got it right, they are actually Banana boats at home.  Three scoops of ice cream with sauce and bananas on the side.  Sharon and Darlene’s arrived as expected, my banana ship sans banana arrived and they decided I still needed fruit so they lined mine with apple…it worked.

Tonight there was a talent show, so after our Banana ship we all decided to go up and watch.  You have to know that there are no more than 100 passengers on this grand battleship, half the people are from our group, a small group from Germany and then some Chinese.  We go upstairs and the grand ballroom (as they call it) has chairs around a small dance floor which has a disco ball and colorful lights above it.  Color our other River guide introduces some Chinese dancers – they are the wait staff at lunch and dinner.  After several danced we have one entrant – Sarah from our group is going to juggle.  Sarah hadn’t juggled in several years; she was given 3 apples and made us all laugh hysterically.  Color then called a Canadian guy and a Chinese guy to the stage to play a game.  Basically they tied a box around their waists and made them jiggle to get ping pong balls out of the box and into a box on the floor.  It was supposed to mimic a hen laying eggs.  It was hysterical…The talent show was over and it was time to go to bed.  Well we thought we were going to sleep.

Sharon turned her light off at 10 pm; I could not sleep now so I decided to read.  Around 10:45 our loudspeaker when off and Chris decided to tell us we were entering the locks.  That sounds okay right except she spent the next hour and a half explaining step by step.  I was getting annoyed so I jumped up to look out the window and we were inches away from a cement wall.  I decided it was best to close the curtain and ignore what I saw.  Now wait, I should be able to sleep right but remember we have these little tiny beds, every time you roll over you fall on the floor….THUD….a common sound on this boat.  Around 3:30 or 4:00 Sharon’s CPAP machine decided it wanted to make noise, this went on for about 1.5 hours too….it was a sleepless night….

A cave in one mountain in the first of the Three Gorges

Rise and Shine everyone, the announcement in the room begins at 6:45 am.  In our stylish room we have a stand that has many dials on it and a loud speaker inside.  We were told not to touch the middle buttons, these control the loud speaker and the cruise director makes announcements for everyone.   I think we are back in the 1930’s when the war broke out. Our stand certainly resembles something from that era.

Sharon and I are wondering how people are fitting in the shower, bathroom overall is so small you can barely get thru the door.  We get to breakfast, not so wonderful today, but toast and watermelon will do.  We are told we have a choice; we can stay on our ship or go to Fengdu, the ghost city. This is not really a city but a group of temples.  On our agenda we received with the day’s events there was a tip or should I say a “warm tip”.  One would think it related to the weather but no it was to warn us that there are 400 steps to the temple.  We decide to go because the alternative to stay on the ship was not so appealing.  We walk the plank one more time to get to the other side, I would have thought somebody would fall in but they are prepared for this.  They had a person every 8 feet or so lining the plank, helping you maneuver to get to the other end.  We climbed about 30 steps and walked about 10 minutes.  We arrived at a place where they had electric cars (sort of like a ten person golf cart) we thought to ourselves that it was not so bad….Wait, there is more….the cars take us to the base of a mountain, here is where we are to take 400 steps….We begin to walk up, and up and up and up, the day is hot and we are already wondering why we were doing this.  But we continue on….we get to a spot and there is a large rock formation carved into a head.  We are told it is Paradise and that he is the king of heaven… but we are not at the top yet….so now we reach stairs and we climb, and climb and climb….I thought it was supposed to be 400 steps.  At each plateau there are temples.  These temples are all graveyards for Taoism.  Tao believe that when people die their spirits will gather here.  So there are 72 of these all together.  We take pictures, see some people praying and continue on to the top.  We climb and climb and climb and climb….eventually we get there.  It is quite beautiful at the top, many people, and much history…quite amazing.  There is an 80+ year old man selling hats, many people can’t resist him, he just has a smile about him, Sharon and I did not buy hats.  After a brief rest at the top, it is now time to go down the mountain.  Going down was not stairs but a street (I’m thinking why didn’t we come up this way?).  The street was steep but it was a mountain after all.  Sharon and I are feeling very proud that we made it all the way to the top but it is just as hot coming back down.  Then when we get back to the bottom it is back on the electric cars to the ship and again we have to walk the planks.  Do you remember the warm tip?  Well we had a pedometer in the group instead of 400 steps it was 5000…just a bit different don’t you think?

Once we get on board we reserve a time for the free foot message and get ready for lunch.  After lunch we attend two demonstrations.  The first is by a Chinese woman who does hand embroidery with silk thread on silk fabric.  Her work is exquisite; she even does some that are reversible.  Some of the reversible ones are even different on both sides.  We were all fascinated by her art.  Some of the women from our group were looking for kits so they could make them for themselves.  She explains that it is something passed down through families and takes many years to practice to learn the art.  The second demo is done by Sharon Pederson one of our leaders.  She is a quilt author and educator from Vancouver Island.  I told her I am also Canadian and she and I get along great.  So in her demo she shows us her method of reversible quilting.  I think it is quite interesting.  After the demo she does some drawings for door prizes and guess what; I won a DVD that she made!

After the demo we go down to the front of the ship in an area they call “Sunday Club”.  No one is sure why it is called that as they are open every day.  We sit down and I order some rose tea.  When the tea arrives I can’t drink it.  Well it had about 5 or 6 rose buds floating on top of the water.  How am I supposed to drink it without the roses getting in my mouth?  So I look at it…I look at Sharon…I look at the two other ladies that are sitting with me and I still don’t know how to drink it.  Vicky suggests I just use my teeth to hold the rose buds back from my mouth.  Sharon was no help; she thinks that using my teeth sounds plausible.  Well, let me tell you…that is not going to happen.  So I asked the little Chinese girl at the serving station how to drink it without getting the roses in my mouth.  She comes over and brings a cup and saucer like the one she gave to me and showed me how to hold back the roses with the cover of the cup while drinking the tea. 

So then it is time for our foot massage and we start climbing stairs all over again, as if we haven’t climbed enough of them today already.  The massage room is on the 5^th floor and our young ladies don’t want us to be late so they came and got us and brought us up to the room.  So with some fear after the last massage we prepare ourselves for the massage.  Luckily this one is mostly gentle other than the knots they need to work out.  And again, just like the last massage; the girl tells me to relax, and I’m thinking I am relaxed!

After the massage we go down to the room and get ready for the Captain’s Welcome Dinner.  The captain comes into the dining room and speaks to the room, welcoming everyone, yada, yada, and most people just keep on talking like he is not even there!  These people are so rude, it really upsets me.  Sharon and I go to our room and open up the wine we bought on the way to the ship.  Tonight we will skip the crew singing and dancing and just relax with a book.  We will see you again tomorrow….

Apt's next to the hotel

After yesterday’s early rising, activities and then the flight to Xi’an we are a bit tired today.  But that does not stop the tour from going on.  The alarm sounds at 8 am, but we are already awake…we need to pack and be in the lobby to deliver our luggage to the concierge by 8:30. 

We are one of the first down in the lobby, we see Sharon one of our tour leaders and get ourselves organized.  We then go to the wonderful buffet breakfast in the hotel.  Here we are expecting to have the normal breakfast but also some Black Forest Cake.

I think I forgot to tell you about the cake incident yesterday, so let me catch you up on this event.  When we arrived to the hotel we had to quickly check in and leave for our dinner show, as we were waiting we wondered around and found next to the restaurant a really cool bakery with 5 cakes.  One of the cakes was a black forest.  We decided that when we returned we would go in and have a piece.  So what is the issue…well we returned from dinner and went to get the cake, however the cake was part of a buffet…the buffet was too expensive besides we had just had all those dumplings.  The waitress took us to the cake room and told us to pick cake from here, but not the black forest, we did not want any other cake so we went and got Sarah our guide.  She asked them in Chinese to give us some cake and they refused, citing a price that was absurd. Sarah told us it was useless and that when we came down from breakfast we could have cake.

So back to today; we arrived at our table, proceeded to get our breakfast and guess what….you got it the cake is only for the dinner buffet and we could not get any.  We were disappointed but soon found other things to eat.

We departed the hotel and learned that we were to see two museums in Xi’an, a national museum and the Wild Goose Pagoda.  The national museum was ok; we went thru it in less than an hour, spent some time looking around.  Back to the bus….time to move along and guess what – eat lunch…Sharon and I are expert at using chopsticks now….well ok Sharon came knowing how to use them as for me, I only flip food every now and then, so you could say almost expert….no stabbing the food we are told…it is not polite.  Once again we get only one glass of water or one glass of beer.

We arrive at the Wild Goose Pagoda, it is huge….we learn the history and story of Buddhism, this was much more interesting than the museum…we walk everywhere and today we heard some of our group complaining, but guess what the person complaining had on high heeled shoes, can you imagine, you know you are going to walk 5 kilometers but still want to wear high heels, and did I add how old she is, probably mid to late 60’s….we do our traditional bathroom stop, these ones are pretty clean, no toilet paper again but there is one regular bathroom in with the squatty potties…we luck out. Somewhere along the way I lost Sharon, she went in one bathroom, I went in another and then she was gone.  The funniest part is that when I asked everyone if they had seen her I got 4 different answers.  1) She is climbing up the Pagoda (no I didn’t believe that), 2) she is in the store shopping (could be but I didn’t think so), 3) she went to the bus and 4) no idea haven’t seen her all day.  A little kid waved at me and he had a fudge cycle so I went to find the stand.  Within minutes I had at least 10 of the group all having ice cream, but still no Sharon.  It’s time to leave and we go to the meeting spot, guess what;  there was Sharon right where she was supposed to be….I think I failed at the buddy system today.

Now we are off to the airport to board our next flight to Chongqing.  We get to the airport and are told that we must make the ship by 11 or it will sail without us.  It is 4:30 – I guess flights can be delayed up to 4 hours.  We are lucky today, they changed our gate but we only waited 40 minutes for a delay.  The flight is uneventful – well it all depends on what you might call uneventful.  Of course we are 32 in the group and they issue us our boarding passes.  It seems nobody likes there seat assignments so when they get on the plane they decide to switch.  However the pilot wants to leave on time and begins to taxi, he does not wait for people to sit down.  Some are still in the aisles with their suitcases.  Sharon is 2 rows back, we don’t care – only a 1.5 hour flight.  We are excited for our next stop.

Our tour guide has the bus waiting and we are off.  We are given history of the city – only 32million people live in this area.  As we are driving the guide explains that the cost of water, coke etc. is very expensive on our tour ship so he suggests we stop.  We pull up to a store and half the bus gets off to get beer, wine, water.  When we arrive at the ship we are greeted with unwanted helpers, everyone here needs to earn a living somehow…we continue down the planks to get to the ship…now have you ever been on a cruise, let’s say to the Caribbean…what did your ship look like?  We imagined this beautiful white boat, 5 stars….just like the hotels….Nope that’s not what we got. We had to walk planks that I swear were going to break at any given minute.  The ship is grey, I have decided it is an old battleship….decommissioned as it is too old to use in battle any more.  I tell Vicki I am not getting on, I will meet them in Shanghai, but this is not an option.  We board and are ushered directly into the dining room, bags and all.  After all we are late and it is now 8:30, they need to serve us dinner.  Remember the one drink rule it applies here, good thing we stopped.

We eat and then are given one key, we come to our room, it is as bad as the outside of the ship…not what we are used to at home or in China…we laugh a bit and decide we had better get settled…well we can’t wait to see what the next few days will be like on our not so luxurious battle ship.

Early to bed early to rise…4:45 am wake up call, 5:45 am departure for the airport.  Our time in Beijing came to an end and we are off now Xi’an.  This is the city of the Terra Cotta Warriors.  No luggage to worry about as they took it the night before…we get to the lobby and we are handed a boxed breakfast, but remember you must drink the coffee and juice before you get to security.  I passed on the boxed breakfast, the vultures in our group were happy to have it.  We board the bus and we are off….all 32 accounted for….Charlie stays with us…so we must continue to “Follow the Flag”.  We get to the airport and some people don’t have boarding passes…Charlie quickly fixes this…

We arrive in Xi’an and have a local tour guide join us, her name is Sarah….She is very cute and she too has a “Follow the Flag” flag.  Our first stop is the place where they actually make the warriors, we learn about the whole process from start to finish, we also learn the history behind the creation of the warriors.  Ok – so now we are at 9 out of 32 people that have fallen….no its not Sharon or I…

We leave and have a drive to get to the Museum site….we disembark from the bus and walk to where we pay 5 Yuen for an electric car….Only 10 people in a car….we lucked out – we got the crazy New York driver…we get in the car and he decides to pass the others, he guns it and those of us on the outside seats are holding on for dear life, he turns we all scream….we get to our destination and all have a good laugh…funny the others didn’t experience this roller coaster event.

Sarah takes us to lunch where the specialty is noodles….we have already learned how they make them…..take a large rectangular piece of dough, stand over a boiling pot and then use your vegetable peeler to slice and throw into the pot at the same time….

Now for the most interesting part of the trip.  There are 3 pits…..we start at Pit number 3.  It is the smalles of all the pits and where the warrior headquarters is.  We go in and look into the pit and see these amazing warriors.  Did I tell you that only 100,000 of our Chinese friends joined us on this part of the trip…We still need to use elbows and be firm or you will lose your spot.

Pit number 2 is bigger and here they have 4 of the warriors outside the pit on display.  Again quite amazing, Pit number 3 is huge – over 6000 warriors buried here – they have only dug up about 1600 of them….you stand in awe.  We then move to the cinema area and here we get to meet the Chinese man who actually found the warriors in 1974.  He was a farmer and in the process of digging the well discovered them.  The governemnt took the land and he now receives his pension and his role is to come to the Museum and sign books and meet the people.  You cannot take his picture, and he does not speak to you.  He is 77.

We depart – check into the hotel and quickly convene for our trip to dinner and an authentic show of music and dance.  We get outside and our friend May gets hit by the bus….ok not really – the driver opened the door and she got hit in the arm….its our new way of getting hurt.  We arrive at our destination and have to cross the road – no easy task, we are told don’t make eye contact – just cross – they will have to stop – if you look at them then you have to stop….we make it across escaping a near collision with a bus…

The specialty at this dinner theater is the dumplings.  We got to experience 16 different kinds, they just kept coming and coming and coming and coming…..Ok I know what you are thinking, did Sharon and Lorrie eat all 16…..NO….of course we didn’t I would say I ate about 4 kinds and Sharon maybe a few more.  Guess what we got for dessert – yup – you’ve got it now – Watermelon.  I have decided when I get home that our family should have watermelon every night after dinner..

During the show Sharon nudges me, we look to our right and Sharon and Elizabeth (our tour leaders) are fast asleep, as are two other ladies in our party….the only reason Sharon nudged me to look is that she herself was almost there.  One lady was nodding so much we thought she was going to fall off her chair.  Did I also tell you we still have the one drink rule  – One glass of water, or one glass of beer…..The show was spectacular….it ended and then our chinese friends immediately tried to sell us the DVD. 

We board the bus again and we arrive at the hotel….another day gone….

With great expectations we arose today thinking only of one thing….you guessed it the trip to the Silk Factory…unfortunately it was not the first stop for us.  Ok –  let me tell you the first event of the day was great.

We started off going to the Beijing zoo – The 32 of us and 1 million of our closest Chinese friends.  Feeling a bit tired from the Chinese Torture last night we got off the bus and followed the flag…did I tell you about the flag?  Charlie our tour guide carries this orange flag and for the slow walkers they can see it for miles.  Charlie likes to walk or almost run, while the group usually tends to walk or almost crawl.  Charlie carries the flag and as we depart the bus – he yells…”Don’t forget to follow the flag”.  We’ve got it now…

We make our way thru the crowds and Charlie decides we will only see the Panda’s or at least try to see the Panda’s.  We enter the first building and there is a sea of people, wall to wall and guards on their megaphone’s screeching something in Chinese….people seem to ignore the guard.  We later learned that it meant to keep moving, and get the kids off the edges.  So no Panda’s in sight so far, we go to the end of that building and there he is – the saddest looking Panda….but wait, he sees the crowd and gets up to do a dance, ok it wasn’t a dance but him scratching his butt on the back wall…I prefer to think he was entertaining us.. Charlie yells for us to follow the flag, we go to the next building, where there is one Panda lying on its back outside…can’t see his face but he is there.  Now we have to move to the next section, this is no easy task…I think there are two million people there now…but we get to see the greatest Panda…he is busy eating and not at all interested in us or any of the other people for that matter.  We take some pictures and now its time to go to the souvenir shop.  Of course can you imagine not doing that, at each place everyone must buy a souvenier…you know the kind you take home and nobody wants, but you buy them anyways…We lose one of our group and after about 20 minutes we find out she went back to the bus…so much for the buddy system, her buddy had no idea where she was…

We arrive at our next stop – the silk factory.  We are waiting with baited breath….can’t wait to get inside.  We must first listen to the Silk Factory guide give us a tour, teach us about the silk worm and how it is all made.  Did you know that one little silk worm spits out 1680 meters of a single strand….imagine…but do you know how many of those you need to make a quilt…over 200,000.  We find the whole process truly amazing…so come on we want to get to the silk…but wait, first we must see all the silk comforters…we are quickly thinking there is no fabric here.  Charlie comes to the rescue – knows how much Sharon and I want silk fabric and takes us away from the group into another room.  Well it is Silk heaven, a nice variety of color and different types of silk fabric.  Just like all the other places we get our own personal shopper to follow us around – anything we say they do.  Prices were pretty good ranging from about 22.00 to 60.00 per meter.  We spent the next 45 minutes touching everything – oohing and awing over the silk…there was no bargaining here as it is government regulated.  None-the -less we made our purchases with smiles on our face.

Next stop lunch – and then off to the Olympic Center – not many people wanted to get out of the bus, but those that did returned within minutes.  The whole area was closed off for a private event.  However our bus driver took us around stopping on over passes for everyone to take pictures.  Our bus driver is terrific.

Now we head for the Summer Palace, Charlie lets us know its several kilometers of walking each way and many of the people are too tired, so he decides we will do a short cut, later he said it was good because again our 1 million Chinese friends were all in attendance.  Did I tell you its National Holiday week here, if you come to China avoid this week  – not good for tourists especially in a city with 19 million people all on vacation….The Summer Palace was nice, more of the same type of structure but surrounded by beautiful temples and lake..

We go back to the bus and head for dinner.  This is our farewell dinner from Beijing and we went to a very famous restaurant where this is their specialty.  We arrive an hour too soon so we walk thru a Ming Style Shopping area, its fun to see all the people – remember our million Chinese friends…they like to come where ever we go….we are getting to know each other…especially in the arm areas, where elbows seem to work to get you places….my friends think nothing of pushing me aside.  So now I should tell you we had more people fall today, we are up to 9 out of 32…..no it is not Sharon or I….we’ve done the two step a few times but never fallen….Our dinner was quite interesting…we always get something with a head on it…of course Sharon and I are first in line to try it – NOT….Today the first 4 dishes passed us by on the lazy susan…we just laughed and knew the rice was coming soon.  Then some really cool dishes arrived – we actually ventured out of our comfort zones and tried them and to our delight wanted more…We learned how to eat authentic Peking Duck….its like making a mini burritto….duck, sauce, onion and cucumber….Did I tell you in the other blogs what we get to drink….did you guess Beer – you would be correct – no I have not had any but Sharon enjoys a glass or two….then comes the finale…..same dessert as everynight….yup Watermelon…..I think we should make this a new tradition in our house….I asked Charlie if he could take us to a bakery and his answer was there are none in China….they eat fruit….their idea of dessert for Americans is a variety of breads…funny eh!

Well back at the hotel now, needed to pack and give all our luggage to concierge before going to bed….we have to awake at 4:45 for departure at 5:45….so we are off to try and get some sleep – we fly to XI’AN (pronounced Seean) tomorrow where we will get to see the Terra Cotta Warriors….I wonder if our 1 million Chinese friends are coming?

Temple of Heaven

So by now you know our routine….we get up, have breakfast and then we board the bus…kind of like school kids on a schedule….we don’t mind as there is so much to see and do.

Today we started off by driving to a Hutong Neighborhood.  We get out and there are 16 richshaws waiting for us…we travel in two’s the buddy system.  It was originally built around the water, over 80,000 families live in this neighborhood.  It is structured of small low houses with alleys that are the size of a one car lane.  Every 50 feet or so is a door, the door is important.   Depending on the ornamentation on the door and in front you can tell the status of the person.  Military and high ranking officials have lions on both sides of the door and above the door you will find up to 4 round structures….

We get into the rickshaw and begin our journey….the first thing we get to see is an authentic Ming dynasty wedding, the groom is on a horse and the bride carried in a concealed closure (I don’t remember the name) music and dance and festivities all around, we make it thru the crowd and emerge into the streets of the neighborhood.  After about 30 minutes of touring we get out of the rickshaw for a walking tour.  Our guide “Willie” takes us up to doors and explains the significance.  I need to stop here for a minute.  Did I tell you the minute our feet hit the ground we had 4 additional friends….street vendors…two woman, one man and one 4 year old boy.  They decided we looked like we wanted to buy their goods, they followed us for then next hour or two – or lets just say until we got back on the rickshaws.  I have decided my new name is “Bu Yow”.  Do you remember yesterdays blog….Bu Yow means – don’t want….well one lady in particular seemed to be on my all the time…I kept saying Bu Yow…and at one point we got into a Bu Yow match….a little while later she approached me – realized it was me again and yelled at me “Bu Yow”.  This set us into hysterical laughing…so you may now refer to me as Bu Yow. 

The Hutong is very poor and when you see the pictures you will see just what kind of conditions people live in here…ok so now we enter a private court yard….we go thru the doors and get to see inside one home.  It is a courtyard surrounded by 4 buildings.  The north building is for the parents or oldest members of the family, the building to the East is for the son, building to the west the daughter and building to the south the servants.  We find out we are eating in this private home.  Can you imagine Sharon and I eating here – oh we are very very nervous….you will see our pictures shortly – it tells the story.  We enter the sons home which has been set up with small tables and rickety stools.  We sit down squished together.  They bring us beer and coke.  Here you drink this at every meal.  Sharon will be stealing Robert’s beer when we get home, it is now her beverage of choice.  The lazy susan begins to fill with interesting foods, do we dare…….well we do…we have become adventurous – or is it hunger pains telling us to eat, not sure but we do.  Sharon tips one glass over as it has water in it and she is not taking a risk…I laugh…we finish our meal, saying “Che Che” (thank you) and move along….The Hutong was one of the best parts of the trip so far.

You know this trip is with “Sew Many Places”…so far there is no “Sew” and we have seen “many places”.

Next stop – Temple of Heaven, well it is where the emporer goes to pray….nothing to exciting here except we can say we were in “Heaven”.  I will say that we were celebrities again here, people with children wanting us to have pictures with them.  I held a baby boy and he kept touching my cheek, I gave him an american quarter and you would think it was gold, apparently it will bring the boy good luck.  We walked thru the gardens and arrived at a student gallery.  Upon entering we were all wondering why would we come here, within minutes we were served tea and had a lovely student tell us about all the art work….next thing you know we all had purchases, or most of us did anyways.

Now for the Pearl Market….it was much like Silk Alley – hundreds of vendors everywhere, we went to the top where Charlie had arranged for us to go to a good dealer….I was really disappointed prices were not what I thought was a bargain so Sharon and I left the group and went a wandering….guess what we found…..a Dairy Queen, we sat down had a sundae, not bad, we thought…off to dinner now (yes we seem to eat a lot).

Chinese dinner – we are getting to like the food here…in fact we are not hungry at all.  Even Sharon is eating more….:).   We depart the restaurant at 630 and leave for the Red Theater…we arrive to see the 7:30 showing of “The Legend of Kung Fu”.  It was a terrific show.  Now we think for a Happy ending again…..we have massage therapists coming to our room….Sharon and I think what a way to end the day, nice relaxing ending…..

Wait – no we must be in the wrong place…we are not having massages, we have entered into the Chinese Torture chamber…(yes its our room).  The ladies arrive seem nice enough, no english but we can handle that.  We lie on our beds and they begin…now you have to know our muscles hurt more from climbing the wall than anything else…every time they touch us they kill us – they punch and slap and dig into our skin….every few minutes I hear Sharon “Ow, OW”.  My therapist, says “relax OK”.  Now they touch our fingers they seem to be pulling out our finger nails and toe nails…but “relax OK”.  90 minutes later we are free from torture….they leave and we start laughing hysterically, can you imagine we thought it would be relaxing….Chinese massage is nothing like the type we are accustomed to….So now it is very late and we must say goodbye until tomorrow.  Our bodies need time to recover and prepare for tomorrow…….