June 9 - Surprise Party and Jurgita

We started our finals this week.  It is with mixed feelings that we do this.  Is it really a good way to judge them on a five minutes interview?  It is really the best tool we have, and after three years of doing this, we have gotten to where we feel like we can know their skill level by the questions we ask and their responses.  It may not be perfect, but it is what we have.

Kang Ming informed us Monday morning, that we needed to go over to the Immigration office THAT afternoon in order to get the papers turned in to get our residency permits extended for the extra time that we will be in China past the expiration of our current permits.  Jackson offered his services to help us get a taxi and go over to the office with us and help us. 

We hurried through lunch, quickly giving Jackson some also, and then headed out for the taxi.  We made good time and only had to wait in line for three people ahead of us.  Within a half hour of arriving there, we were headed back to campus in another taxi.

One of David’s former students that is a good photographer, offered to take some pictures of him around campus.  He met her at 4:30 p.m. and with the help of some more of his former students, they took some great photos.

 

David's photo shoot.  His "Journey to the West."

Journey to the East?

Tuesday we had been invited to dinner with Daryl and Jackson that evening.  During the finals that morning, one of David’s students had mentioned that he wouldn’t be able to come to the party that evening.  David was a little confused.  A little while later, David gets a text from Eva asking for the contact information for his class monitors.  This was starting to get a little suspicious. 

After a while another text from Eva, and she wanted the telephone numbers of his class monitors because they needed to come do a special survey and meet at the southeast corner of the little woods on campus to take it.  Now, we were really suspicious.

Daryl and Jackson picked us up from our apartment at the appointed time, and we walked over to the canteen.  We got off on the third floor and started to walk toward some of the special rooms they have.  When they opened the door, there were about 20 people in the room, all of them either my students or David’s students.  Yes, it was a surprise party for us!  Eva told us to contact my monitors and tell them to come.  I did, and within 15 minutes, the number of the people in the room had more than doubled!

Daryl was the master of ceremonies and talked about how he had met us, and that we had invited him and Jackson, his Chinese roommate, to come by anytime when they wanted to talk.  He said that it really touched him, and when we were good to our word, he has had a great time getting to know us. 

 

Daryl Reeve as emcee for the party.

Next was a roast by Eva.  She brought up some of the more silly moments of our first adventures in China.  At the end, she was crying, because she is really going to miss us. 

The floor was then opened up for students to say what they wanted to say about us.  It was very heart-warming to hear their comments.

Someone mentioned that they wanted to hear us sing, so Daryl ran back to our apartment and brought the guitar.  We sang several songs for them, some that the students knew and could sing along with us.  Then we sat and ate with our students, trying to divide our time between the several tables that they were sitting at.  

 

EVERY CAMERA!  

After eating and talking, they had us talk some more and then it was time for pictures.  Lots of tears were shed when the students learned the reasons for us not coming back next year.  It is hard to leave this place that we have loved and felt so much love from!  We had planned on having a little reception on June 11, and we still will for those that couldn’t make it to the surprise party.  

 

A table of David's students.

More of David's students.

Another table.  The students started selecting Chinese farewell songs and singing them to us.

This girls are from one of my classes.  Melody Zhang, Catie, Amber and Diana from Monday 10:00 class.

Jenny had a hard time holding back her tears.  

I don't remember all of their names but the striped shirt is Candice, then Sunny, Anne to my left, Dai, and Jackson.  Monday 8 a.m. class.

These students were from last falls class.  Tracy, in the blue dress was the best actress in the readers theater.  Jasmine is standing next to her.  The boys are Victor and Ace.

After singing, I was mobbed by these former students.  Scarlett audited my class because she already speaks English quite well, but she had heard about my class and wanted to join it.

Jurgita was still having some health problems, so I was able to get her to come to Jinan to meet with the doctors here.  I went to the hospital to meet her at 2 p.m., but the bus from Zouping didn’t make it here until that time, and it took almost another hour to get to the hospital from the bus terminal.  We got in to see the doctor, and it was decided that in order to get the tests and observations made, she would need to stay in the hospital for several days.  After I got her settled in, then I had to head home.  

I wasn’t able to go see her on Thursday, because we were getting ready for our trip.  After our finals that day, we quickly packed our bags, and Jackson helped us get a taxi to take us to the airport.  We flew to Chengdu, arriving at 10:45 p.m.  We had only a few minutes to wait for the BYU teachers that were coming from Tianjin, and we were quickly taken to the hotel, so we could get some sleep and be ready for our adventures tomorrow.  More about the trip to come in tomorrow’s post.

June 2 - Dinners with Friends

Most of the first part of our week was quiet.  We finished teaching this week, and we will start the two weeks of final exams on Monday.  Spent a fair amount of time entering the last of the grades, because we finished all the personal presentations of the students, too.  Glad that is over.  Some of the students do such a great job, and I even learn things from their presentation, but others just don’t put much into it, and you can barely understand them.  This second semester is students that mostly don’t seem to care if they learn English or not, but they have to take the class anyway.

 

Some of the students are getting ready for their graduation.  You will see people in cap and gown all over getting pictures.  Some are getting special pictures taken and this is one of the places they are doing it.  I'm not sure what the one with just the Chinese characters mean.  I'll have to ask.

As we were on our way to the canteen for supper on Friday, we saw one of David's former class monitors taking some pictures by this sign.   She offered to take our picture.  She wanted me to kneel like David is but that is just too painful to even contemplate.

Thursday at our massage, the lady with the red hat came.  We found out the reason that she was so popular there.  She used to work at a big factory where most of her colleagues were women.  She loves to talk and always seems to have something fun to say, because they all laugh a lot when she comes.  The workers at the massage place wanted a picture with us, and then she wanted a picture with us also.  So many times I have wished that I could speak more Chinese, or that they could speak more English.

 

Our massage people.  The man in the yellow shirt worked on me most of the time.  The girl standing behind me did the cupping on my legs.  The girl standing behind David, Xiao Ya, did his massages all the time.

She doesn't  have her red hat on, but she wanted a picture with me and David when the picture was finished with the massage people.

David explained to all of his classes this week why we wouldn’t be back teaching in China again.  He told them about his cancer, and that my knee would need surgery.  David also said that we felt it was important to go back and spend time with family now.  They all understand that very well.

Thursday was English Corner for David’s students.  He had almost 20 students there that night.  A lot wanted to say goodbye to him.  These farewells are getting harder to take.

David needed to have another treatment on the wart on his toe, so we went to the hospital to talk to Dr. Tricia.  She had a young man come and escort David to the podiatrist.  I stayed in her office and talked with her.  We kept getting interrupted because of different patient needs.

 

David has been going for walks in the evening without me.  So he brings back some great pictures.  This is at Da Ming Lake.

Da Ming Lake

Da Ming Lake.

Da Ming Lake.

The people come out in the evening to either dance or exercise at the park and really all over town.

Exercising at Bai Hua Park (Hundred Flower Park).

One woman who came in is the daughter of a patient of Dr. Tricia’s.  When the woman brought her mother to the hospital, and they started talking, they found out that the woman who is the daughter, was one of Dr. Tricia’s tutors when she was going to school at the university in Qingdao.  They were very surprised.  Dr. Tricia was about twenty and her tutor was twenty-six.  They really seemed to enjoy renewing their acquaintance.  She introduced me to her, and then Dr. Tricia would translate between us. 

We stayed and had lunch with Dr. Tricia. We had a good talk and then she sent us home in a taxi, but not before she had invited us to her home for supper on Saturday evening.

We had a lot of things that we wanted to send home (winter clothes and some gifts we have bought), so we asked Eva to help us on Wednesday after lunch.  She drove David and the large suitcase to the sending office, but they said they didn’t have boxes big enough for everything that was in there, so they made an appointment to come to our place on Saturday afternoon to box it all up.  

Eva couldn’t be here Saturday when the man came, but through the translation apps, we were able to communicate.  At first, they were going to just take the stuff down the stairs in their arms.  It would have taken two or more trips up and down the stairs, so I suggested that they take the suitcase down to the little truck and box them up there.  They lugged the suitcase down there and set up the box.  It looked like we were going to need two boxes, so I sent David back up the stairs to get another suitcase that had a bunch of stuff in, so we could put more in. 

The guy took another box (the boxes are collapsed), started to put it down over the top of the other one, and just made the box larger (and stronger).  We were able to get it all in and with the extra room, he pushed the box further down on the other one until it was just the right size, and then he started taping it up.  China is really good at taping the boxes together so that they handle the journey they are about to take and the abuse that they will probably be put under. 

I was in the process of making a birthday cake for one of the BYU teachers for Sunday dinner, so I had to get back up to it.  David stayed down with him.  The guy made a handle out of tape on the box, lifted it up with the scale, told David the price, and then put the information in his little machine, printed off a receipt, loaded the box on his little truck, and left.  So, the box is on its way home.

Getting the box ready made us a little late for starting out to Dr. Tricia’s home.  We were about ten minutes late for the agreed time.  She was out waiting for us by the gate to their complex.  We met her five-year-old son, Baobao, and her 25-year-old son, Bill, and her mother.  I found out the other day that the Chinese never refer to their parents by their given names.  They call them mother and father and introduce them as “Mother” or “Father,” but they don’t say their given names. 

 

We spotted this little guy as we were walking to Dr. Tricia's home.  We were looking down watching him and trying to get a picture.  The people that were walking around us probably thought we had some problem that we were looking at the ground so hard.  I guess we just didn't expect to see a cute little lizard in the middle of Jinan.

Here we are with Dr. Tricia's husband, Baobao, Dr. Tricia, David and Zina.

Dr. Tricia’s mother was in the kitchen finishing her Bible reading before she started cooking the dumplings for supper.  Bill came in and out of his room a few times.  Bill has autism, and he speaks some English.  David played with Baobao while Tricia and I talked, when she wasn’t busy with Bill’s or Baobao’s interruptions.  We kept waiting for Dr. Tricia’s husband. He was having an English lesson from Nancy Rounds, and Nancy said he just didn’t seem to want to leave.  They talked about ways for him to deal with Bill’s autism.  She said he seemed to really be absorbing all the information he could.

 

Whenever there is a piano in China, David wants to sit and play it.  When he did, Baobao ran to his room, found his little toy saxophone and started playing it.  He was sounding pretty good as David was playing, "Rock 'em Boogie."  Then Baobao wanted David to wait and not play until he had played an introduction and then David played with him when Baobao gave the cue.  

Dr. Tricia wanted to have us all go to the park.  David and I thought it was a small park or playground nearby, but it turned out that she meant to go to Buddha Mountain.  Just as we neared the gate of the complex, Dr. Tricia’s husband came on home on his scooter.  Baobao was very excited to see his dad, so his dad got off the scooter and picked him up. Bill jumped on the scooter and rode it into the complex, I assumed to put it away.  

We decided to get pictures then.  Baobao wanted to take a few pictures first.  Then a woman on a scooter came by and said she could take some pictures for us.  She took some on her phone and also some with David’s phone.  After the pictures, Dr. Tricia’s husband wanted to go get some supper, so he took Baobao home, and we started up the hill to the park.

The big golden Buddha at night.

Buddha Mountain is up a really steep hill just outside of their complex.  It is really close, but with my knee, steep is not a welcome sight.  I walked as far as I could until I had too much pain.  Dr. Tricia and I then sat at the side of the road, while David went on ahead and saw the huge golden Buddha.  

As we sat there, several of Dr. Tricia’s neighbors came by and wanted to talk.  One woman even wanted to invite us into her home.  Bill came by, and she told him to go find David.  After about five minutes, Bill came back with David.  I know the Dr. Tricia would loved to have us stay longer, but I was tired, and it was starting to get late.  She ordered a taxi for us, rode down to the main road with us, and then got out after she gave the driver instructions on how to take us home.

On Sunday, we went to church and had a fine lunch afterward.  Jurgita and Huang Songsong were there.  Lily came for lunch after church.  We had a fun visit after lunch.  Lily got us a taxi to go home in.  It was good to see her.  She gave us some gifts for two of our grandchildren.  Jurgita had some gifts for me.  She and Lily are both sad to see us go.

Our picture with Jurgita and Huang Songsong.

Me and Jurgita.  My Lithuanian daughter!

Lily wanted this picture of all of us sitting around talking after dinner.  She wanted to keep it for a memory.

In the evening we were invited to dinner with Michael’s and Stone’s parents.  They wanted to thank us for teaching them this year.  We met them at a hot pot restaurant that is fairly near to our campus.  Stone and Michael were watching for us and came running to meet us as soon as they saw us.  Michael’s parents are both fluent in English, but Stone’s parents are not.  His father understands some of what we said but his mother didn’t understand very much at all. 

We had a fun time visiting and getting to know them.  They wanted Stone and Michael to speak as much English as they could and Stone made a good effort, because he was sitting next to me.  Michael has never been hesitant to speak English with us, because of the year he had in South Carolina with his mother and his father uses English as much in their home as they do Chinese.  Michael’s father studied in England for three years.  He works for an international company that does financial feasibility studies for future construction projects.  His mother teaches English at our university.  Stone’s father has a doctorate in molecular biology, and he works with genetics.  His mother works on our campus but doesn’t teach.

Michael's parents are on the left, Larry and Jenny.  Stone's parents in the middle.  I don't think they ever said their names.  Then Michael and Stone.

David and I with Michael and Stone.

 Michael is with the red shoes in a fencing tournament.  His ambition is to be a world champion fencing master.

 He won first place in the last regional tournament in Chengdu a few weeks ago.

Michael looks like a champion.

They gave us each a fan as a gift.  We gave Michael and Stone a set of card games “Go Fish” and “Old Maid.”  We had played these games when we finished with the assignments that they had, and it was very well received.  They were both very excited to be able to play the games on their own.

One of the many beautiful areas of campus.

This area is called, “The Little Woods.”  The wooden walkway they had going through it was falling apart.  In the last part of April they tore it all up and now they are redoing it.

This is what the walkway will look like when it is finished.  Still wood, but this one is treated and up on metal railing rather than wood blocks.

May 26 - Hot, Golden Rooster Mountain, BYU Spectacular, and Sad Farewell

When David and I were walking home from buying groceries on Monday, we saw this little patch of wild strawberries growing in one of the groves of apricot trees on campus.

Last week, I was asked by a text, if I would mind having some government officials come to my classroom.  A delegation of government officials that are over education were coming to Shandong University on Tuesday and wanted to observe teaching in a foreign teacher’s class.  Not sure why I was selected.  David also received an invitation to a meeting with these officials at 10:40 that day, but he had to decline, because that was the time he was teaching.  He offered to end class early, but they said no, that he should stay with his teaching.

I was already for them to come, even had a small gift of some BYU pens to give them.  Fu Yawen, the person who contacted me about them coming, was there outside of my classroom waiting at the time that they were supposed to come, to tell me that they were delayed about fifteen minutes.  That was okay by me, because the activity would be starting about then, and that is always more exciting to see than the powerpoint that was going to set up the activity. 

About the time that they said they would be there, Fu Yawen came back to my door to tell me that the officials were running so far behind, that they wouldn’t be coming after all.  She had a gift to give me for being willing to have them come to my classroom.  I guess that’s the way it goes sometimes.

We went to the English Salon at Qilu hospital on Wednesday evening.  We sang another song, went over some idioms, and then played a game called “Talking Cards.”  We have a list of questions that coordinate with numbers and suits on a deck of cards.  We usually have the students line up in two lines and do kind of a speed dating thing.  They need to talk about the question that is on the card for two minutes with each other.  Because this was a smaller group, we decided to just divide the group we had into two groups.  David had one group, and I had the other. We went around in a circle and answered the questions that came up.  It was a rather fun evening and went late.

Jinan has been really warming up.  Thursday, the temperatures got up to 100º F!  I was glad that the humidity was only about 16, or it would have been almost unbearable at that temperature.  We didn’t really feel like going out in the heat, but we had our massages scheduled for that afternoon, so we headed out in the heat.  

The place was pretty quiet, because we were the only ones there.  The lady with the red had showed up wearing a new purple hat, that she was going to show off.  None of her friends were there, so she started making phone calls and talked for a while.  It seems the heat had scared off most everyone else, so no one was coming.  After her last phone call, she came over, rubbed on my legs for a little bit with the person doing my massage and then left.  We took a taxi home this time, and were glad to get out of the heat.

Arriving at the park by Golden Rooster Mountain.  David, Zina, Tresa and Sophia.

 David and Carol had set up a hiking group for Friday.  She was sad that I didn’t get to go last time, so she knew of a place where they could hike, that I would be able to sit in some shade in a beautiful place and wait for them.  With how hot it was on Thursday, we were a little afraid that we might have to call it off, however, the temperatures had cooled off to the low 80’s so it was a good day to hike.

The mountain they went to hike was called “Golden Rooster Mountain.”  Jay and Tresa Wilkins came along with us, and also our friend, Sophia.  We met Jay and Tresa at the bus stop on the west side of our campus and rode the buses that we needed to get to the area south of Qianfoshan Mountain to meet Carol and Sophia.  We were a little unsure of the stop to get off at.  Tresa was sitting by a woman who was trying to ask her some questions.  Through a translation app that Tresa had, she asked “Do you know what stop you need to get off?”  Tresa asked a younger person on the bus to help.  Soon, the whole bus was  trying to help us get off at the right stop.

Our Instructions were, “Get off at the third bus stop after the Qianfo South stop,” and a Chinese name in Pinyin was listed.  The woman and all the people insisted that we needed to get off at this second of the three bus stops.  We just couldn’t seem to tell them that it was three stops past that stop.  We decided that we better get off or risk Sino-American relations!  One woman even got off with us.  David called Carol, who talked to the woman.  Carol then told us to just stay there, she would be there soon, and then we could do to Golden Rooster Mountain together.  When all was gotten straight, the woman got back on the next bus and continued on her journey.  It was so kind of all of them to want to help, even if there were some communication errors in the process!

Crossing the bridge to get to the mountain.  Last wave from David and Carol.

Another view of the bridge.  People were fishing from the bridge.

There was a really nice shaded area with lots of benches and even a nearby restroom if I needed it.  Carol even talked to some of the people asking them to look out for me.  I had brought my Kindle with me and had planned to just have a nice morning of reading by myself.  I waved the rest of our group off and after they were out of sight, I sat and was going to get into my story. 

A man was in one area playing a saxophone.  A few grandparents were there with some grandchildren and others were just sitting enjoying the fine morning that it was.  A woman in a blue dress had been over by the man playing the saxophone.  She came to sit by me and tried to talk to me.  I told her my few Chinese phrases to explain who I was and why I was in China.  She kept talking some more, so I got out my translation app and tried to use it.  It is rather frustrating to use, because even though I have a great data plan, I can’t always get China Mobile to pick it up.  I could get a few things translated, but not a lot.  Through gestures and some pictures, we had a nice time.  She even called her daughter who had gone to school in Australia and asked her to tell me that, if I needed anything, she could have her mom call her, and she would try to translate it for her.  It was a very sweet conversation.  I showed her pictures of my family. 

An older gentleman came over and wanted to talk to me, but he didn’t know English and my app was not working well.  The lady in the blue dress told him about me.  He stayed around for a while.  There were some little girls dancing to the saxophone music with either their mothers or grandmothers.  I went over closer to them and took some pictures, they were so cute!

When the girls were finished dancing, they came over to get their pictures with me.  Then the lady in the blue dress wanted pictures, and while all the pictures were happening, the older gentleman came over and got video of all that happening.  

Mothers, grandmothers and daughters dancing to the saxophonist playing. 

This girl really seemed pretty good.

The little dancer knows how to pose!

My new friend in the blue dress.  She gave me a gift of some lotions and a jade blade to apply them with, a traditional Chinese head and body ache cure.

After about two hours, David, Tresa, and Jay came back. I had hoped that Carol or Sophia would be with them, so I could have them translate some of the things that the others wanted to know, but they had to leave, so we said good-bye to all the Chinese people that I had met and headed back to our part of Jinan.  

One more pose at the start of the hike.  Carol Wang, Tresa and Sophia.

Some dragons carved into the rock.

Carol poured some water on this sculpture to show the dragon and the water flows into a small pool.

Sophia at the top.

Views of south Jinan from the top.

New homes in a new area.

Fun place for a stop.  It's all cement.

I thought this development carved into the side of the mountain was interesting.

David on the trail.

After having lunch at Subway, and buying some nuts and treats at the nearby nut store, we parted ways and went home.  Daniel Quillen was coming over, because he wanted to look at the student store that sells SDU paraphernalia.  He wanted to get some things that had logo from our university because their university doesn’t sell anything like that.  David took him over to show him where the store was.  None of the sweatshirts and T-shirts were big enough, so he just got a hat.

One of SDU's commemorative plates for sale.  320 RMB is about $46.

This plate is even more beautiful, but if is almost $70!

Friday afternoon, we had fun tutoring Michael and Stone.  I’m going to miss those two boys when we go home!

We were up early on Saturday headed to Beijing.  Jackson, a Chinese friend who helps David get taxis to the Qianfoshan campus on Mondays and Wednesdays, went out to the west gate to help us get a taxi to the train station.  Sometimes it is hard for us to just flag down a taxi, because they don’t always stop for Anglos that they don’t think can speak Chinese.  With his help we had plenty of time to get to the station and wait for our train.

The trip to Beijing was good.  Two and a half hours went by fast because there was a young family on the train.  It was a husband and wife, with her mother, and their two small children, also going to Beijing for the weekend.  The five-year-old boy was not afraid of us, and as a matter of fact, he was the one who said “Hi” to us first!  David had fun playing with him, but also speaking with his dad who had quite good English.  The mom was interested also, but she and her mom were busy taking care of things between the two children. 

Our little friend on the train.  He was reaching around the back of my seat to touch me.  One time I reached back and tried to catch him.  It turned out to be his uncle's knee and the boy thought that was hilarious!

 We met Gilbert, Lulu, and their son, Marcelle at a very nice restaurant.  The taxi driver didn’t know exactly where to drop us off at, so he showed us a gate to go through, and we started to look for the pictures that Gilbert had sent us, but we couldn’t find the gate.  We showed the pictures to some men that were walking by, and one of them was able to tell us in English where to find the right door.  We had a lovely lunch with lots of interesting foods!

After lunch we went to a park called, “Ri Tan” park.  Ri Tan means the place of the sun’s power.  It is a place where the ancient emperors would go to get power from the sun.  It is a pretty park.  We went to explore the park, but is was really hot again and very humid.  Lulu and Marcelle went to an area for kids to play, while we went to see the platform of the great energy.  The heat was starting to get to me, so we went to find a little tea house where we could get out of the sun, and the heat, and get something to drink.  The tea house was cool, and they had cold things to drink.  We sat and visited for an hour until the heat lessened and my face was not so red from the heat. 

The story on this panel tell about how there were once seven suns in the sky. The archer on the far left shoots all but one of the suns down.  There's more to the story, but I don't remember it.

We are posing at the north gate of the place of the sun's energy.  The north, south and east gates all looked about the same.

This is the west gate.  Much larger and more carvings.

They won't let you in to the place of the sun's energy, but they say you can feel it through the gate.  When the emperor would want more power, he would go and stand in the middle to take the power from the sun.

Getting a picture with Marcelle.  He decided to do a funny face for us.

 Another purpose for us to go to Beijing this weekend was because of the BYU Spectacular that was happening there.  Forty years ago, BYU was the first university to perform in China after China first opened up to the world again.  The BYU Young Ambassadors came and performed then.  They recorded the show, and it was played for many years on China television.  It helped to open the doors for the China Teacher Program to come in also. 

The Spectacular had 203 people from BYU come.  Vocal Point,  The Young Ambassadors, Living Legends, BYU dunk team, Cosmo, cheerleaders, ballroom dance, and the orchestra all came over.  The show was phenomenal!  The final song was a well-known Chinese song sung by all the students.  The Chinese woman who was sitting next to me exclaimed that all the performers were singing in Chinese, and it was clear what they were singing!  Great job, BYU!! 

 

They divided the program into seven different sections and each one had a different Chinese character associated with it.  I was wishing for English subtitles in it, but the program wasn't for us, it was for the Chinese people.

Getting on stage for the grand finale.

We met many of the teachers from the CTP there as well as Aaron Tran and Nancy Rounds. Gilbert and Lulu were concerned about us getting around in Beijing, so they hired a taxi for us for eight hours to use to get us to our hotel, to the performance, and then back to the hotel after the performance.

Sunday morning, we met Gilbert and Lulu at a restaurant famous for its Chinese breakfasts.  We weren’t sure that it was really much different from many of the other Chinese breakfasts that we had had, but we know that Gilbert and Lulu know good food places, so we went there for breakfast.  

While we were eating, it started to rain.  It was pretty light until we decided to leave the restaurant and go down an old street to see the drum and bell towers.  Then the heavens let loose and anyone who was still outside, whether they had an umbrella or not became drenched.  We quickly saw the bell tower and the drum tower, and then Gilbert suggested that an ancient lake that the emperors used was close by, so even in the rain, we walked to that.  We were already wet, so what was a little more rain?

Our rainy picture at the bell tower.  The bell tower is at one end of the square.  They say that the bell tower rings to call in the new day.  The drum tower is at the other end of the square (we were facing it) and the drum call the end of the day and brings in the night.

 We got to a place where we could see about ten feet of the lake, but I needed to find a bathroom.  The closest one was down the alley that led to the lake, so I took off to find it.  The alley opened up to a larger view of the lake and then rain started to let up at little while we were there, so we could get a better view of the lake.  

Our rainy picture at the lake.  

At this time, it was getting close to the time to head to the train station, so we went to wait for the taxi under the shelter of a large eave of a bank building.  We all rode in the taxi to the train station, and while we were on the way, it finally dawned on Gilbert and Lulu that this would be the last adventure in China, unless we make our way back there for a visit, or they come to the US!  It really seemed to hit them hard.  It hit us hard too, but we already knew this was the last time, so we were more prepared for it.  When we arrived at the train station, Lulu stayed in the taxi, so that they would be able to use it to go back to their home.  Gilbert walked us into the station until the place where we had to show our tickets.  He stood there for a long time after we had hugged and went through the gates looking at us with such sadness.  This is the first of many sad goodbyes for us.