China Road Trip

Hello all...

I hope everyone is enjoying my China adventure as much as I am.

This has been an unbelievable experience !!

Jeff called me yesterday and invited me to have lunch with himself and some of his teachers.
He said they had pizza at this place....PIZZA??? I'm there!!

We met up at KFC and went to this restaurant...Very upscale place.
Ella, Angela, Julin and Fan...He works at the school but speaks NO English.

Jeff and I ordered a small cheese pizza and big deluxe.
There wasn't room at the table for everyone so we split up into two groups.

When the pizza arrived we dug right in...Fan was at our table and eating the usual fish heads or something with rice. After a few minutes he turned a little green and I asked one of the girls if he was ok?
She said the pizza was grossing him out...That's how I felt about what he was eating!

During lunch Ella asked me what I was doing tomorrow.
I said I was free until 6pm.
So she invited me to join them on a trip to the country.
Have I said no to anybody yet?....Nope!

So 9am sharp they show up in their school bus and we headed out.
It was on the way to the Mei Shan school that I was teaching earlier this week.
Ella grew up in a town called Fang Yi Cun and her parents still lived there.

Kind of like a version of the little town I grew up in Maxwell, Indiana.

We walked around a bit and saw a Ginkgo tree park.

And man-o-man was it hot out. Every time I leave my apartment there are two things I never leave home without. Ice water and my umbrella. Umbrella because the weather here changes here as fast as back in Indiana. One minute sunny and the next a downpour.




We walked around some paths and some of these building were so old..I felt like I was walking back in time.


I watched mom fix up lunch. Rice,(of course) pork, bamboo (tastes like asparagus) fried chicken(just as good as my mom fixes...Sorry mom) duck, potatoes with plums and of course a few other thing that can't be translated into English.

Ella helped out in the kitchen a bit...I don't know how to cook rice, so I left it to a pro.




While they fixed lunch.
I hung out with Ella's father. He has never met a foreigner before.
He seemed very excited about me sitting down with him for a smoke. Angela did some translating for us and we had a great chat.

Another incredible meal!!




After lunch we lounged for a bit to let the duck settle. Then we took a country drive. As we crossed a small bridge everybody (except Jeff and I) got all excited!

It seems we were going to hunt for crabs...That's a quote.

What they meant was we were going crayfish hunting.

I have some video of this and some of the trip on my video clips post if you would like to check it out.

The current was pretty strong and I was just waiting for someone to fall in.

That's Lui Liang, a friend of Ella's about to take a dive.

I also saw a fellow fishing with a cane pole. (or should I say...Bamboo Pole)

He was catching some very small fish. I asked one of the girls what he was going to do with them...Eat them? She said he was just playing around. Thank God...It would take a ton of them to make a meal!

By the way...We didn't catch a single crawdad.

After that we went to visit Ella's aunt. They were building a new house. These guys...And gals were busting their butts...Did I mention it was hot out?

She fixed us some watermelon while she prepared for tonight's dinner.

After that we were all spent and ready to go home and take a nap.

I talked with Angela on the way home about planning a trip to Xi'an to see the terra cotta soldiers. I think it's about a 2 day trip by train.

Think about it...2 days on a sleeper train going through the Chinese countryside.

Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.

Jim