Peaches in the Park

WOW...Did I sleep good last night!

Jenny called me up yesterday and asked if I wanted to go pick peaches today. I knew it would be hot out but I'm not gonna let a little China heat keep me from having a new experience here in China.
So 8 o'clock rolls around and the bus pulls up.
I thought it was going to be like the country road trip...Just a few of us in the country.
Boy was I wrong. The bus seats about 10 people. As I stepped on I noticed kids stacked two deep.
This was field trip for Bills school. I had been Shanghaied in Changxing! Too late to back out, the kids made room for me.






So it's me, Jenny, the driver and 15 teenagers....AND HOT!


First thing I asked Jenny was "How long of a drive will it be?"

She didn't know...I just prayed it wasn't long.

Maybe 10 minutes later...We were there...Thank Buddha!

O.K. I thought the ride there was hot...Now came the hot part...Fighting my way through the peach trees....Without getting lost.

It was crazy hot but we had a good time anyway!


I hung out with the girls for a few minutes and hung out with the boys long enough for a few pictures and then I saw Jenny sitting in the shade...So I joined her.


I asked her how we were supposed to tell if a peach was ready to eat. They all had little paper bags wrapped around them? She said first you check to make sure it is big enough then feel it to see if it was a little soft, then you can take off the paper and look to see if has some redness to it.



I'm a little color blind so I just left it up to an expert...This lovely woman was picking the peaches and filling baskets with them. She piled a bunch into my basket and let me take her picture.


Forty five minutes later we all headed back to the bus. This woman wasn't with our group but her and her son were picking peaches too.



I also saw this little old man who worked at the farm...He was fertilizing some plants with what I can only guess was water buffalo poop.



As we got to the road the nice little peach lady began weighing our peaches and taking our money. No digital scales here!


The bus showed up and we all piled in and went to a nearby park to relax in the shade and eat some peaches. Here is our driver Fan.



So off to the park we went. This was a beautiful park with a huge mountain like structure that has a waterfall...But no water today.

This is our group and another group from the Rainbow school.

The guys wanted a picture with just...The Guys.



As you can see in this picture...My shirt is soaking wet...No, I wasn't playing in the water...All sweat.


As we took pictures I was noticing that the whole thing that looked like stone was just fabricated...Fake mountain...Go figure!


We all hung out and took pictures by the water and then sat in the shade and waited for the bus to arrive...We also ran into another group from the rainbow school. My friend Julin was in charge of that group.


So after eating some peaches in the shade the oven bus showed up again and took the kids back to the school and then me home....Mmm...Air-conditioning...And a nice soft bed!!

The nap would have to wait...I had an appointment to have lunch with a new Chinese friend at Liu's place...I took him some peaches.

Heck...I took everybody peaches yesterday.
Kevins grandma...The teachers at the school...Even my friend that works at the ice cream stand.

I like peaches but these were kind of like a cross between a peach and an apple. They were o.k. but I prefer a good old American peach.

I'll put some video clips of the days events on the video section if you want to check them out.


See you next time.

Jim