The great wall? Who needs a picture and found the roller skate!
Well, I hate to say this but this is going to have to be short post for the second day. I’ve spent most of the morning packing to leave for Changsha, the capital of Hunan, our baby’s province. So the status on finding London in china is going to be tomorrow, not today. This is a slight let down but maybe I can finish some of the missing stories.
On a more serious note, I have to admit I’m really going to miss the two couples we were fortunate enough to meet here. The ironic twist is that they’re both from KC. It was really quite by accident. None of us knew each other prior to Beijing. Nonetheless, the ‘KC Crew’ as it were will be split in 2/3rds to Nanning and Christe and I are off to Changsha. I only wish them the best of luck and good fortune on their trip. Their daughters are very fortunate to have been matched with them. They will be part of a really great family.
As for yesterday, the entire days photos are less than spectacular. Rain was a constant throughout each of our jaunts. Tienamin Square, The Forbidden City, and The Great Wall were the scheduled attractions of the scheduled tour. We stopped to have, as our guide Grace put it, “very famous, Peking Duck, delicious, very delicious”.
I hope to take some time later to expound on the magnitude of the sights we saw yesterday but I can not, as I’m just now getting over my taxi roller-skate issue of the previous day.
As I mentioned earlier there are six in our crew and each couple takes it’s turn at being split up when two taxi’s can be hired. So for 45+ minutes poor Cami was in a Taxi with Christe and I and had no idea where the other three were. We had no idea if they made it to there destination safely or if her husband was desperate to find his wife safe and sound.
Cami and Christe were in the back seat of a small Citroen (latterly this car looks like a 1986 hundai accent hatchback. All the taxis I’ve been in are manual transmissions. So as the girls had plenty of talk time in the back I was forced to stare at the hairy right ear of our driver. I was pushed close to the window trying to keep my knee out of his shifting pattern. I listened to more bad Chinese talk radio than I ever want to hear. I tried several times to strike up a rousing conversation of, “Hey, whatcha doin’ there?”, “So you come hear often?”, “You really think those bead things make that seat more comfortable?”, to no avail.
Now if I haven’t explained Beijing driving yet, I will say that New York City is a rural two car cow-town compared to the crazy-ass no lane, take no prisoners style we’ve have here. I’ve seen no less than 4 wrecks in the probably 2 hours I’ve spent in vehicles.
I have a pretty calm stomack for this kind of driving so I’ve been riding shot-gun a lot, but I have to tell you at one point I shouted. We were trucking right a long and out of nowhere a roller-skate came flying out of no where and I screamed right into the driver’s hairy ear, “Damn!, you almost got run off the road by a roller skate.” He turned to me with eyes wide open and said, “Yeah, Yeah”.
I was fortunate to find the roller skates older brother and I had Christe take a picture of me with him so If I ever find his two door brother, I’ll know ‘em when I see ‘em.
Here’s a picture. Enjoy! Next stop Changsha. One more step to answering the question, where is London?
On a more serious note, I have to admit I’m really going to miss the two couples we were fortunate enough to meet here. The ironic twist is that they’re both from KC. It was really quite by accident. None of us knew each other prior to Beijing. Nonetheless, the ‘KC Crew’ as it were will be split in 2/3rds to Nanning and Christe and I are off to Changsha. I only wish them the best of luck and good fortune on their trip. Their daughters are very fortunate to have been matched with them. They will be part of a really great family.
As for yesterday, the entire days photos are less than spectacular. Rain was a constant throughout each of our jaunts. Tienamin Square, The Forbidden City, and The Great Wall were the scheduled attractions of the scheduled tour. We stopped to have, as our guide Grace put it, “very famous, Peking Duck, delicious, very delicious”.
I hope to take some time later to expound on the magnitude of the sights we saw yesterday but I can not, as I’m just now getting over my taxi roller-skate issue of the previous day.
As I mentioned earlier there are six in our crew and each couple takes it’s turn at being split up when two taxi’s can be hired. So for 45+ minutes poor Cami was in a Taxi with Christe and I and had no idea where the other three were. We had no idea if they made it to there destination safely or if her husband was desperate to find his wife safe and sound.
Cami and Christe were in the back seat of a small Citroen (latterly this car looks like a 1986 hundai accent hatchback. All the taxis I’ve been in are manual transmissions. So as the girls had plenty of talk time in the back I was forced to stare at the hairy right ear of our driver. I was pushed close to the window trying to keep my knee out of his shifting pattern. I listened to more bad Chinese talk radio than I ever want to hear. I tried several times to strike up a rousing conversation of, “Hey, whatcha doin’ there?”, “So you come hear often?”, “You really think those bead things make that seat more comfortable?”, to no avail.
Now if I haven’t explained Beijing driving yet, I will say that New York City is a rural two car cow-town compared to the crazy-ass no lane, take no prisoners style we’ve have here. I’ve seen no less than 4 wrecks in the probably 2 hours I’ve spent in vehicles.
I have a pretty calm stomack for this kind of driving so I’ve been riding shot-gun a lot, but I have to tell you at one point I shouted. We were trucking right a long and out of nowhere a roller-skate came flying out of no where and I screamed right into the driver’s hairy ear, “Damn!, you almost got run off the road by a roller skate.” He turned to me with eyes wide open and said, “Yeah, Yeah”.
I was fortunate to find the roller skates older brother and I had Christe take a picture of me with him so If I ever find his two door brother, I’ll know ‘em when I see ‘em.
Here’s a picture. Enjoy! Next stop Changsha. One more step to answering the question, where is London?
Comments
That car is so cool we might have to have it shipped to the US. Just Kidding, but anyway it was nice to hear from you today!! Miss ya and love ya tons!!!!!! XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
Do me a flavor and check your e-mail.
Glad to see you're getting over your Honda fetish. Cars really are nicer over in China.
S