October 28 - Hospital, Chrysanthemums, and Buddha Mountain

Two of the unusual chrysanthemums. This one is called the "Flaming Phoenix."

After our classes and getting lunch on Monday, we came home.  We couldn’t get our massage that day, because they didn’t have a time for us.  It was nice to get home and get our work done earlier than usual. 

Tuesday evening, a young couple, Mark and Cherry, came over to talk to David about possibly having him tutor Mark.  He is trying to get a fellowship with a professor in a foreign country and wants to improve his abilities.  David doesn’t have a lot of free time, and they didn’t really have the money to pay David, but they wanted to see if it was possible.  They contacted David later that week to say they were going to try some online options for a while to see if that would work. 

 

Baotu Springs was all decorated with chrysanthemums.

As we were headed to our massage on Wednesday, we were waiting for bus 48, the one we usually take.  It was taking a very long time for a bus to come by.  We usually waited for the bus on the west side of campus, but when they changed the bus route for construction that was happening on its usual route, we could catch the bus on the south side, which was closer for us to walk to.  After waiting for over fifteen  minutes, David looked at the board that has the buses that come to that stop, and the orange (temporary) sign for bus 48 was gone.  I guess they were finished with the construction, and that bus wouldn’t be stopping there anymore.  We quickly walked to the west side of campus and caught bus 48 there, but we were a little late for our appointment.  We were glad that we had found out about the change that day, because we have been taking that bus on Monday mornings to go to the far away campus for teaching.  It would have made us very late on Monday had we not found that out on Wednesday!

David started an English Corner for students on Wednesday evening.  He would usually go to it at four in the afternoon in the canteen, before it got busy with kids coming for supper.  Not a lot of kids could come at that time, because they still have classes.  I think the most he ever had there was about a dozen students.  He had twenty-three there this time!  I was afraid that it would be a lot more than that, and he wouldn’t be able to handle it.  Twenty-three was a good number, and they had a good time.  

 

Kung Fu Panda and the chrysanthemums.

The flowers were not quite all in bloom on this display.  We hope to go back and look at it in a few weeks when it is all in bloom.  

Part of the problems with using the canteen is the dirty tables, other kids eating and not being able to use more than two small tables.  His class monitor was able to find him a nice classroom that can hold about sixty people and the chairs and tables are movable - another feature that makes it a nice classroom.  Most of the classrooms have seats and tables that are bolted down to the floor, so you can’t move them around for activities.  Being movable makes it much nicer for English Corner.

We have had problems with our maid not coming at the time that she is supposed to.  We contacted Dr. Tricia, our go-between, and found out what was happening.  The maid had been having some problems back in her village and was having to go back there a lot to take care of them.  The woman who owns the company had allowed her husband to build a company under her license to operate a business  cleaning homes. We had bought our contract with him and the maid worked for him.  He has since had an affair, divorced his wife, run into bankruptcy, and cheated all of his employees out of money, all less than the year we have had our contract with him.  The wife has taken back the company he started, taken on the employees that he cheated, and is trying to keep her business afloat.  She wants to keep this woman working, because she is a great worker and cleans well, so since the maid couldn’t come because of the family problems, she came on Friday afternoon and cleaned for us.  She seems like a great woman, I hope good comes her way after the way her ex-husband treated her.

 

Looking at the length of a pavilion.

This rock is called the longevity rock.  It also is the same shape as the character for longevity.

Friday morning David and I went to the hospital to meet with Dr. Tricia.  My right knee has been very painful, and I am still having some problems with my right leg due to the fall I had on October 8.  An eighty plus year-old orthopedic doctor that has been forced to retire, but still comes around the hospital to treat some cases, was who Dr. Tricia asked to come look at my knees.  He moved them around, then poked and prodded.  Then sent me for X-rays.  Another young doctor in Dr. Tricia’s office took me down for the X-rays, and we waited about three minutes while the radiologist looked them over, and then took them back up to where the old doctor was waiting for us.  They prescribed a medicine for me to take that would reduce the inflammation in my knees and said if that didn’t work in two weeks, that they would try an injectable medicine.  Just two days and some rest has helped already.

 

The parents and grandparents of this little guy in the yellow were trying so hard to get a picture of him among the chrysanthemums, but he wouldn't stay.

While I was at the hospital, our friend, Carol, had said there was an exhibition at Baotu Springs of the Chrysanthemum flowers, so David took off and went with her.  They had some really beautiful displays. 

 

At the gate of Buddha Mountain.

Jay and Tresa Wilkins by one of the Buddhas.

On Saturday, we had planned to go with the Wilkins, Aaron, Patty, and Nancy Rounds to Buddha Mountain, so they could experience the huge Buddha there.  I declined to go, because I am supposed to avoid stairs, if I can, and there are LOTS of stairs to get to the Giant Buddha!  David went with them.  For lunch Aaron, Patty, and Nancy were then going to go to a new sandwich shop that a Vietnamese friend of Aaron’s was opening up in Jinan.  

Patty, Nancy and Aaron.  See all the stairs!  

Big, gold Buddha!

We are told that there is one even bigger than this guy!

Eva was joining us and the Wilkins for lunch, and then we had been invited to the woman’s house that we went to for a tea ceremony last fall.  She was having a gathering there on Saturday afternoon and invited us to come.  We sat and drank some herbal tea for a while.  In the courtyard, they were having someone play an ancient Chinese instrument, so we got up to go see him play.  There was a woman making some candies, similar to rice crispy treats in ingredients, but crackers instead of rice crispies.  She also had a nougat candy.  Both were really good, and we took some samples, but they wanted us to eat a LOT of the samples.  I’m not sure they know how much sugar goes into making marshmallows.  It was a great candy, and we ate more than we should have. 

 

Our assistant hostess had a hard time believing that we didn't drink black or green tea.  She kept saying how good tea is for you.  Coffee is bad, but tea is good.  This young lady goes to Yunan Province to pick the leaves.  She hand picked the leaves for this special tea.

As we were eating these treats, a hostess came out and started speaking to begin some event.  After a while she ask David to come up.  She introduced him and asked him to show his picture of our big family.  She explained how many people were in our family amid oohs and ahs.  There was also a retired traditional Chinese medicine doctor there, and he decided to take David and analyze his health in front of everyone!  None of this we understood, because it was all in Chinese.  He took David’s pulse, looked at his skin, had him hold out his tongue to look at, and then he went off on a long, long talk about something saying his Yin and Yang being not balanced.  That’s all we could get out of Eva.  She seemed reluctant to say much more about it.  Of course, the doctor didn’t know about David’s cancer.  That would make anyone’s yin and yang be off!  He then went to a room, and a lot of people went in and had him do the same for them, including Jay Wilkins.  

 

Traditional Chinese medicine doctor checking on David's health.

The courtyard where most of the other activities took place.  The woman with the red scarf is a prominent television person.

More of the courtyard.  They had trays with grapes, oranges, apples, figs and persimmons for us.  Also fresh made yogurt and the candy.

The opera singer.  He was great!

A regionally famous opera singer sang for us, and a storyteller that we couldn’t understand told a story.  We met a man who was a former mayor of a city in Shandong province, who talked to us with Eva interpreting.  It was about 4:30 when we finally left there.  It was a fun afternoon.

 

Painting Chinese characters with gold.  There were other painting demonstrations as well.

Last night, my throat started feeling sore, so I stayed home from church while David went.  I listened in from our apartment.  That is the good thing about the way we do church here.  We can listen in, even if we have to stay home!  They changed the branch presidency.  For the first time in this branch’s history, the entire branch presidency will be able to meet in the same room, since they live in the same city, Dalian.  Previously they had to meet by video chat!

After church they enjoyed a nice meal with a bit of Halloween decorating of the food.  The stuffed peppers had been cut to look like jack-o-lanterns, and there were carmel apples there too!  They sent some of the food home with David for me.  I sure hope I feel better by tomorrow.  It’s hard to teach when your throat hurts.

 

The women providing the lunch today.  Patty, Linda Jonas, Sue Stubbs, Tresa Wilkins, and Bonita Quillin.  I enjoy knowing these women.

October 21 - Dentist, and Lily and the Kuzmich's

Students performing the readers theater about Rumpelstiltskin.

Toward the end of the cruise, I started having some sensitivity in my teeth on the upper left side. Aaron Tran, a Vietnamese member of our Church, is here in Jinan getting advanced training in oral prosthetics.  He is a dentist with his own practice in Vietnam.  I talked with him, and he made an appointment for me on his day off.  He is usually at the dental hospital on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings, but that is when I teach, so I couldn’t make it then.  It was so kind of him to do that. 

We couldn’t make it on Monday, because of our heavy schedule that day, so it was Tuesday afternoon before we could get to the dental hospital.  David also needed to go to the medical hospital on the other side of the street to get registered to have his blood drawn on Friday for his next PSA test. Aaron and I waited for David to get the registration done, which wasn’t long and then Aaron escorted us to the hospital.  

When we were here teaching five years ago, I had one class of 1st year freshmen dental students.  They are now in their fifth year of their program which puts them working at the dental hospital now.  When Aaron talked to the person that he borrowed a workstation from, so that he could take care of me, she knew who I was.  Several of the students remembered me, and word got around that I was there.  None of them were brave enough to come and say, “Hello,” but that is their way.  They get shy about talking English, because they haven’t really kept up what they learned when they were my students.

When I was talking with Aaron on Sunday, he told me that one of the questions that the student’s asked him was about the size of my mouth, “Was it bigger than Chinese mouths?”  Aaron chuckled and said that in general, people of European descent have a smaller mouth than Asians.  It was interesting to hear.

This is the dental hospital.  There is the option of private clinics also. They are a little more expensive, but you get a little better and more customized care.

Looks like a dentist checking out my mouth.

Aaron adjusting the light.

Aaron found that I have several small cracks in my teeth, and that some of my old fillings are starting to not have a good seal.  They will have to be replaced.  He also suggested that one tooth may have to have a crown put on it.  Not good.  We are trying to decide if we should do it here in China or wait until we get home in January.  The Sensodyne toothpaste will only take care of the sensitivity for so long. 

David had his first meeting with his class monitors on Tuesday evening.  He taught them some games that they can use for English Corner and also to brainstorm, if they can find a place that the English Corner can be held each week.  They had a nice meeting.

There has been work going on under our building for the last week, replacing pipes.  We hope that it will make it so that we have better heat from the radiators this year.  We had to spend a lot of money last year just to stay warm with our electric heaters.

Thursday evening we went over to have dinner with the Wilkins at Pizza Hut.  Food was good, and then we went to their apartment and played a card game.  Really enjoy them being here!

On Friday, we were able to have lunch with Eva at the canteen.  It was good to see her, because we have been gone for so long and not able to meet her for lunch.  We showed her our pictures and told her stories of our travels.  We missed her!

Friday evening, Lily came to our apartment with the first BYU China teachers that she had met.  Six years ago, John and Roslyn Kuzmich were riding the bus to church.  They decided to ask Lily, a complete stranger to them, if she could speak English.  Lily could, she graduated from Shandong University as an English Major, but she was reluctant to speak.  Lily shyly said that she could and a great friendship was formed after that.  Lily was a great help to John and Roslyn, so that they started to enjoy China more.  She would help them get tickets for places and sites they wanted to see, and would accompany them to different places when she had the time.  The Kuzmich’s bought tickets for Lily the following year to go on the Silk Road Trip with the BYU teachers.  Lily met us and Stan and Nancy Pace on our first Sunday in China to make sure that we could get to our Church meetings at the Hanlin Hotel, even though she couldn’t attend.  We included Lily in our activities, dinners, game nights, etc. 

We were thrilled to meet John and Roslyn, that Lily had talked about so much.  We went to the canteen to have dinner, but we got there a little late, and there wasn’t much variety in the food.  That’s the way these canteens work, they only serve food for certain hours and when the time is up, they don’t make any more food.  We had enough to eat though. 

We had plans to go to a violin concert on our campus after dinner.  The violinist was Zhuo Pin.  He was really good.  There was a pianist to accompany him named, Wu XiaoLiang.  They both did a wonderful job.  The room was packed.  Fortunately, an artist that the Kuzmich’s knew had saved seats for us all.  People were standing along the walls, sitting in the aisles, and I’m sure there were many out in the entryway just trying to listen. The thoughts that kept going through my head were, the fire marshals in the US would NEVER allow the aisles to be filled like that!  It was a great evening.  We parted at the end of the evening so they could catch a taxi to their hotel, and we could go back to our apartment.

Saturday was a day that I had set aside to do catch-up.  I was behind on the blog, some classwork and some churchwork.  David had some of his students contact him, and they wanted to come over.  They came about 2 p.m. and brought all sorts of food: bananas, oranges, tiny jello cups, potato chips and Goldfish crackers.  They played games, sang and talked for over two hours.  I joined in a little in the singing, but kept working on all I had to do.  They are a fun group of kids.

 

These are the students that came over.  They stayed for about two hours.  It was fun.

Performing the readers theater, Shiro and His Master.

We went to a new pizza place that is outside the west gate of campus.  We had hoped that because it was a pizza place, they might have some English.  No.  One guy was able to communicate with us a little, enough to get our order.  It was really good pizza thought, almost like home.  The Chinese like to put corn kernels on their pizza, I’m not a fan of that.  

 

Chinese goldfish flavors: honey & milk, BBQ or Shish-kabob (not totally sure which), seaweed, and tomato.

Two unusual flavors of Chinese potato chips.  The yogurt ones were okay, but the cucumber were just a little too strange for me, and I'm someone who likes cucumbers!

Sunday we made our way to Church.  The reception on the phone was really bad and there was a lot of dead air space that we were listening to.  Oh well.  We still felt the Spirit.  We had an extra large group.  The Kuzmich’s joined us and then after our meetings, Lily and Patty (Aaron’s friend, but now a friend to ALL of us) were there.  It was an enjoyable Sabbath day.

October 14 - Falling, Chinese Cupping, Zhengzhou

In other words, don't walk on the grass...

On the way to teach our classes on Monday, I stopped to use the washroom.  The Chinese have a habit of not having even floors, especially when you leave the washroom.  I was hurrying out of the room, when my foot caught on that lip, and down I went!  My left knee hit first, and then my right knee, and then my hands.  China also uses a LOT of tile on their floors.  I hit the floor with a lot of force.  It did not feel good at all!  Fortunately I landed right next to a radiator so that I had the ability to get up on my own.  

I quickly took stock of where it hurt, which was mostly my knees, and decided that I had survived.  We hurried on to classes and taught the students.  My knees were tender, but they didn’t bother too much.  We had lunch at the canteen, and then went to the little nook that we had found that has comfy chairs where we could relax a little before going to our massage.  After our massage, we went home to do our school work and get ready for the next day.

As I was sitting at the desk, entering scores, I could feel my knee swelling up.  I had to get up and hang some laundry, and I could barely walk.  It just got worse and worse as the evening went on.  By the time we were ready to go to bed, I was in a great deal of pain.  I asked David to give me a blessing, and we asked our children to pray for me.  

I kept trying to think of what else I could do to help my knee.  David had some naproxen, but I kept wondering if there wasn’t something topical I could put on.  I didn’t have any ice to put on it, and I didn’t have any way to put heat on either.  Dr. Tricia had given David some patches to put on his stomach for sea sickness, and he had only used one.  We had read on the directions (fortunately they had them in English also) that it was good for bruises and arthritis.  Basically swelling in the body.  We decided to try that since there were plenty left.  

By the time I got up in the morning, I was still in a lot of pain, but I could walk.  I decided that I had probably bruised the bone when I fell so hard.  Teaching went okay, I was able to climb the three flights to my classroom and then back to the apartment.  This is the week that Reader’s Theaters starts, so it has been a fun week.  The students don’t have a lot of resources to make props, but they are very creative in what they do.

In the afternoon, we went to the train ticket office that is on campus, hoping that we would be able to pick up our tickets for the trip we would be taking to Zhengzhou later that week.  After a phone call to Kang Ming to get the numbers, we were able to get the tickets. 

Wednesday, my knee was still sore, but I could move it without problems, so I was able to teach.  After lunch, we made the trek over to the massage place.  David warned them ahead of time that my knees hurt a lot.  As soon as we got there, they had me lay down on the table and looked at my knees.  There was a lot of concern in their voices as they looked.  When they gave me the massage, they were very careful around my knee. 

Our friend, Carol, who got us introduced to this place, arrived, and they were able to tell her of their concerns for my legs.  They wanted to do some Chinese medicine procedures to help reduce the swelling from my knees.  We thought, “Why not try it?”

I laid back down on the bed, and the first thing they did was a procedure called, “cupping.”  The cupping are glass vacuum cups, which are placed on certain places on your leg, being aware of where the blood veins cross in particular.  A vacuum is created and then taken off.  Afterward a small needle is inserted three times in that cupping spot.  Then the cup is put back on, and the vacuum returned.  This pulls some thick blood and clots out, relieving much of the swelling.  If the cup causes too much pain, they release it and put it back on.  It really wasn’t painful for me, more of a pinching sensation.

 

This is what the cupping looks like.  They drew out several small blood clots. 

After the cupping, they did a different procedure called, “mono moxi=bustion,”  With this, they attach by suction a small little “chimney” on your leg.  Then a tube of herbal medicine is placed in the chimney.  They light the tubes and let them smoke and burn down almost to your skin.  Once again, it is not really painful, just a tingling sensation as the tube of medicine burned down.  

The mono moxi-bustion helps to draw out toxins in the  body.  These little "chimneys" are attached to my skin and then they put a tube of  herbs in each cup.  

Each tube has to be lit separately.  

There I am, smoking away.  It was a rather pungent smell.  The technician that was lighting them, had to step away for a while to catch her breath.  I could smell that odor for several days.  It is a smell that I remember and I have smelled it on other Chinese since.  Just lets me know what they have had done to them.

Taking the cups off my leg.

My knee felt much better on Thursday.  Still a quite tender to the touch, but overall, a lot better.  My right knee hurts much more than my left now.  I was wishing that I could have the same treatment applied to it.

I like to take pictures of some of the better moments of the readers theaters.  This student was expecting it, and flashed the peace sign without even breaking his lines!  He was so funny!

We let our classes out a few minutes early on Thursday.  The university had invited us to go to a conference in Zhengzhou that is meant to foster relations with foreign teachers.  We thought that many would be applying for a chance to go, but David and I were the only ones who could.  It was easier for us, because we don’t teach on Friday, but most of the others do teach then.  We had to meet our guide from the university at 12:25 p.m. by the north gate of the campus, so we hurried back to our apartment, grabbed a small bite to eat, got our bags, that we had packed the night before and got to the gate right at 12:25.  

Yu Yawen, who works in the Foreign Affairs office of the university, was able to get us a taxi to the high speed train station right away, and we arrived there with enough time to get some KFC for lunch.  

After we had ridden south on the train for about two hours, we stopped at Xuzhou. Yawen told us that everyone needed to stand up, so that the seats could be switched around to the other direction.  We hadn’t seen this done before, so it was interesting.  Then the train left in the opposite direction, taking a different track west.

After we arrived in Zhengzhou, we took a taxi to the hotel.  It took us almost an hour and a half!  Besides the fact that it was drive-time, there was also construction to slow us down.  

We got checked in and then they sent us in to dinner.  It was in the hotel cafeteria, and they were at the end of the time that they were serving, so it was pretty slim pickings in the buffet.  We did get enough to eat.  The hotel room was okay, but still quite, “Chinese.”

Zhengzhou is a hub of the great high speed railroad, it intersects with a lot of different tracks there, so you can go in any direction you want from Zhengzhou.

Friday morning, we were loaded onto buses and transported to Zhengzhou University campus.  It is a huge campus, over a mile long from north to south.  The opening ceremony was good until a professor from Canada got up and began pontificating on what he thought a university should look like.  Then we sat through a presentation by a woman who had lived for eight years in the US.  She told us all about the wonderful sites to see in Henan province.

 

All the foreign teachers and university personnel that attended the conference.  We are just right of the center of the picture on the second from the top row.

Lunch was in the university’s canteen with typical Chinese food.  After lunch they took our groups to two different places.  One was the robotics laboratory on Campus, the other was the medical school museum.  

The robotics were fun to watch.  The students who were demonstrating the robots had won several awards, including the highest award in China for robots in their categories.  

The museum was a history of the medical campus and was rather dull.  They were moving at an extremely slow pace.  David and I were tired, so we decided to go outside and wait for the rest of our group.  Yawen had the same idea, along with another one of the Chinese guides, so we all had a pleasant visit sitting in a gazebo by the water.

Going to dinner included a hike to the opposite end of the campus.  At times we wondered if our guide really knew where we were supposed to go, but eventually, we arrived.  The dinner became long and tedious when some of the men at our table decided that drinking a lot was okay.  They got loud and thought they were really funny.  Some of us got up and started walking around and asking when the buses were coming to take us back to the hotel.  It had been a long day, and we all wanted a rest. 

On Saturday morning, we were on the buses bright and early for the 90 minute drive to the Songyang Academy near Dengfeng.  Dengfeng is considered to be the birthplace of Kung Fu.  This academy was started many years ago and still trains Buddhist monks.  Today was a day for young artists to be there to learn to draw.  We came upon a large group, 30-35 children sitting on the ground trying to draw a picture of a very old tree.  We were a little disruptive as we went by.  The children all wanted to know where we were from.  We walked around a little and admired their work.

 

Students learning to draw.

Some of these kids were pretty good!

This tree is at least several hundred years old.

This is the tree that the students were supposed to draw.

This beautiful spot is full of water in the spring, but dry this time of year.  Still beautiful.

As we continued around the grounds of the academy, we met another group of children all dressed in blue robes with a black cap.  I’m not sure what these scholars were learning, but they all wanted to say, “Hello.” As they passed by us on their way to somewhere.  

Students excited to see Americans.

More of them.

Lunch was at a vegan restaurant that is known for its use of tofu and mushrooms.  They claim that they can make a tofu that will taste like any meat.  It’s all vegetarian.  The claim was pretty true.  We tried tofu fish, tofu chicken, tofu beef and tofu pork sausage.  It was all very interesting.  I would definitely eat the sausage again, the chicken and beef were okay, but I would only eat the fish again, if I really had to.  I think the best dish was a plate of mushrooms that had been sliced, and then crispy fried. 

Lunch was over way too soon, and then we were on our way to the Shaolin Temple.  It is supposed to be one of the most famous temples in China, bringing together the philosophies/religions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism.  We had to walk quite a lot to see and do the things that we saw that day.

We first walked to see a stage production of Kung Fu.  They had several young men show off their skills.  The last three acts were the most interesting.  One young man walks around showing the audience that he has two bars of metal.  They looked to be about one-third of an inch thick, three inches wide, and about eighteen inches long.  Then he brings them to the Kung Fu master who has been warming up on the stage, and the master breaks one of the meal bars over his head.  The next master does some tricks with a chain, and another does something with a rope.

The grand finale was with a piece of glass and a balloon.  First, the young boy walks around the outside of the stage and allows people to touch and see that he has a solid piece of glass.  He walks it up to the stage where someone is holding a blown-up balloon.  They hand the master a pin (looked like a push tack to me), and he proceeded to pop the balloon through the glass!  Then the boy walks the glass around the room that shows that the glass has a hole in it, about a quarter inch diameter!  That was amazing!

When the show was over, we walked to where there were some buses waiting to take us up the mountain to the Shaolin temple.  There was a lot of just standing around listening to the lengthy talk by the guide, so I started looking for a place to sit. My knee was really bothering me from my fall last Monday, so I found a nearby bench and waited for them to finish.  

 

Gate to the Shaolin Temple area.

Tombs of the monks that are centuries old.  The roofs determine the importance of the monk.  The roofs also can have either three, five or seven levels.  Something about the odd number being better.

I thought the shape of this tomb was really unique.

More of the tombs.

As I sat there, a young boy on crutches came over and sat by me.  He looked like he had spina bifida by the way he used his crutches and dragged his feet.  I asked him his name (Talent) and introduced myself.  Talent is here in China while his mother teaches at a school. They have been here for five years.  David texted me when our group was moving on, so I got up and hurried to where they were after I said, “good-bye” to Talent.

We went through the temple and looked at what we wanted to see.  When it came to a part where we had to climb about four stories, I said my knee had had enough of walking up and down stairs today, so we slowly made our way back to the meeting area.

 

A pretty roof line.

Shaolin temple.  There were even more stairs than this behind it to climb, but I didn't have the heart to do it and aggravate my knee more than it was.

While David and I sat there, an older woman (said she was 70) came up and asked in pretty good English where we were from.  She didn’t know much more English, and we don’t know a lot of Chinese, but it was a nice visit with her.

While David was talking to her, I was noticing people as they went by. Young kids with curious stares are who I like to wave at.  Some respond and wave back, some speak the little English they know, and others hide behind their parents or grandparents.  Several asked if they could have photos with me.  

Just before the rest of our group gathered together, Talent and his mother came by.  She thanked me for talking to him and said that he said he enjoyed it. 

Our group made its way to the buses that would take us back down the mountain.  They didn’t have a bus ready for all of our group to go down together, so they had part of our group pile into an oversized golf cart.  When we were still a pretty good walk away from where our bus was parked, the cart started to fail.  The driver got it going again, but it kept failing.  We just barely made it into the parking area for the golf carts before it totally died!

We transported to a restaurant that was NOT vegan for supper, and then went to a special show called, “ShaoLin Zen Music Ritual.”  Most of us were really tired at this point and just wanted to get headed back to the hotel.  After the show was over we were all glad that we had stayed to see it!  The lights, the music, the singing, he choreography all made it a spectacular show! 

 

Some of the scenes from the Zen Music Ritual production.

We got back to the hotel after eleven and hurried to get to sleep.  Tomorrow was going to start early.  We talked to Yawen to see if we could change our train tickets to sometime earlier than 3pm  She said that there were spots available on the 11 and 12 o’clock trains the next morning, but we would need to go there early and exchange the tickets we had.  We decided we were done with the conference and that seeing the museum (that wasn’t even finished yet) was not going to ruin the conference for us. 

The hotel got us a taxi that was able to get us to the train station in a half hour (compared to the one and a half hours earlier this week.  Sunday traffic was light!  We were able to get tickets on the 12 o’clock train, but the eleven o’clock train was all sold out.  The wait at the train station wasn’t too bad.  We made it home in good time. 

 

Just an interesting choice of words, "Retrievable", "Unretrievable."