Taiyuan August 14, 2010

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Yesterday we left Shilou City. The night before we had gone to a karaoke bar and I stayed up till about 2:30 doing my grades for the semester. I grabbed a nap and then then got up at 6 to finish. I turned in the grades at about 8:30....made the last of my Starbucks coffee, finished packing and was ready.
By 9:00 We were all packed and waiting in the lobby, said goodbyes to the hotel girls and to Mr. Yin, the Education Bureau liaison, and loaded our things and ourselves into the van driven by Mr. Feng. The three Chinese volunteers went in another car to PingYao for a night there on the way back to Beijing. We drove the 5+ hours in the rain...it was miserable weather. Mr. Feng is indeed a good driver. He slowed down because of the weather and was not so daring in terms of passing. I felt safer than on any of the other trips, particularly with the other driver Mr. cheng.

When we arrived at Taiyuan we went directly to the train station to drop off Victoria and Tonya who were taking a train at 2:30. The station was very crowded with people and cars and very little parking. We pulled in, dropped them off, and away we went to find our own hotel, the YuYuan Hotel. It's a 4-star hotel, not something I would usually choose but it has a pool and we decided we would come here because of the pool. I was imagining something like the Radisson where we stayed in Shanghai...that had a glorious pool and glorious showers but no such luck here. The room is nice - the wateris hot in our shower but the pool water was cold...and no sauna...

We went swimming after we had eaten dinner...BUT Im embarrassed to say that the first place we went after we got settled in was to find some Western food...we walked a few blocks in what turned out to be their Fifth Avenue -- a very clean wide street full of Western shops and boutiques....right smack in the middle of one of those blocks was a McDonald's -- I wanted pizza but in the interest of time, we went to McDonalds rather than search further for the pizza. We had McDonald's in China. But I got my first freshly brewed coffee (other than what I had conjured up in my room) and an ice cream cone....I suppose what was most embarrassing was that we were confirming a stereotype of Americans-- here we were in China, a country with a very famous cuisine and good food and we're going Western. But also here was this fat American eating this fattening food.

After that we hopped a taxi and went to the Shanxi Museum. It turns out it's quite a distance from the hotel so we had to take a taxi. I don't quite understand the layout of this city. I know that it's on at least 1 river the Fen River and there is a park that runs along the West side of the river and on the other side of the highway that runs along the river is the museum. Another museum, a new geology museum right next to it, is under construction. The tickets to the Shanxi Museum were free but it closed at 5 pm so we hurried upstairs to the 2nd floor to look at artifacts from the Shanxi province, many of which were from Shilou County...the dynasties date back several thousand years. It turns out there are rich archeological sites, particularlly in LIulin the growing city that we passed through to get to Qikou.

After the museum we walked along the Fen River in the park. In the middle of the river there is a modern yellow dragon statue....it's quite long and colorful. We walked to a bridge that crosses the river -- a huge bike and pedestrian lane -- crossed to the other side and found a building where we thought Judy could sit for a bit....we thought it was a hotel but a woman walked up to us asking if we wereEnglish teachers and were we going to the school? We said we were Englsh teachers but we were visiting....it turned out she was going to one of these cram schools...21edu.com...it's a chain of schools that tutors primary through high schools students after school and on weekends and during vacation. I followed her upstairs and asked if I could tour the school. They couldn't figure out who I was or what I was doing there but they showed me aroudn and a couple of English teachers explained everything to us. Apparently it's quite expensive -- between 100-200 yuan an hour, I think. They were a bit tentative about that price so it's hard to tell if that information is accurate.

We then hopped a cab and came back to the hotel where we had dinner at the restaurant downstairs...it seemed to be a combo Korean,Chinese and Japanese cuisine...I had udon and Judy had oxtail stew. Not that special but a pleasant family-style atmosphere...

We repacked last night...got rid of some extra clothes and a picture frame...gave Judy some books to take back for me and got on the internet. I tried to book a tour for beijing to go to the Great Wall but haven't heard anything from them yet by email. HOpe that that works out.

Judy left at 6 am and I'm here at 9, thinking I've got to get some phrases ready to say when I go downstairs. No one really speaks English here.

Ok..I want to see something else here in Taiyuan and then I have to be back to get to the airport.

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