Blogs from Henan, China, Asia - page 8

Gotcha day was yesterday. It is amazing how it has transformed the trip. It was almost surreal prior to yesterday. Now I am looking at a small wonder sleeping in a crib next to me and having a hard time remembering two days ago. The day started early, as they often do. We all woke up at 4am wide-eyed with anticipation. Years of paperwork, waiting, more paperwork, more waiting, reading newsgroups, more waiting, fretting, more waiting...well you get the picture. All of that final reached the goal. It seems that this would be the culmination of the journey and yet the journey seemed to reset itself at a new beginning. Yet another leg in the Great Multi-Cathlon of life. But this leg started with more awe and joyful tears than any other leg. Our group was ... read more

Got a question and answer sheet today. Lots of really good information. I am including the text from it below. Be advised that translating Mandrin to English is sometimes awkward. It is an emotional day as I prepare to meet Kaixin for the first time. One of our tour guides, Rita, looks like I picture Kaixin will look when she is older. I could not look at her without tearing up. It was really tough, I have not yet met Kaixin, but my mind is looking into the future for her as if we have known each other for 25 years. I am deeply humbled by the idea of being able to give my love to this precious gift. She will be loved by our family and will teach us so much as we seek to ... read more

Hi all! I made it here safely. The flights weren't as bad as I thought. The longest of the four was 16 hours but with a combination of hours-long catnaps, word searches, light reading, and mealtimes, it was manageable (with special thanks to Koral's neck pillow!! Thank you :-D ). I had a little bit of baggage drama once I landed in Zhengzhou. I was told in Tampa that my bags would be transferred all the way to my final destination. However, after landing in Shanghai for my final layover, I was informed that I was supposed to pick up my bags, take them through Customs, and check them back in before I took off for ZZ (Zhengzhou). I was told all of this about 45 minutes before departure (i.e. not enough time to do it ... read more

Hi All, So it's good-bye Zhengzhou, sob, and hello Shaoyang, hurrah!! Mixed emotions for us both here as we're packing to leave, well Dany is packing I'm skivving doing this. Yeah we went to the supermarket for the last time and been to the hutong market for the last time. We've grown to like it here. Anyway we're just as excited about moving on, well I say we Perry is looking slightly worried!! From what I can gather he will travel in the luggage van and not with us. It's an 8-9 hour train journey of around 900 kms. I want to get us seats but all the seats had been sold out so we've got beds instead in a soft sleeper cabin. Tickets have cost 313 RMB each which is around 32 pounds or 35 ... read more

Hi All, The weather is still really warm here considering we're now into December must of been touching 18 degrees today, not so warm at night though! So with the weather so nice we went to visit a cemetery on the southern outskirts of the city. Why visit a cemetery? Well we've been to a few places here now and we've never seen a cemetery, not like in a European city where seeing church graveyards and cemeteries is fairly normal. So I asked some of my students where the cemetery was, they thought I was being a bit wierd wanting to visit a cemetery, and they gave me an address. Google maps only showed this war cemetery so we went for a visit. As ever stepping into the grounds and you're hit by peace and quiet. ... read more