Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Beijing, China


April 24-25,2018

Tuesday and Wednesday were days of stark contrast as we visited The Great Wall, Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City. All three were spectacular edifices that caused various emotional responses. 

Tuesday morning we were bused about 30 miles outside of Beijing to a region of mountains where we spent two hours walking a very small section of the Wall. This was a well preserved portion of the Wall which attracted many visitors. Walking the Wall was challenging because of the steepness of the Wall as it winds up and down the mountains. The weather was spectacular and the views were picture postcard worthy. Lynda walked just a small portion while Tim took on the challenge of joining others in our group in climbing up the steeper inclines. One of our compatriots had an app on his cell phone that measures gradation and told us that the grade of the Wall at times was 50 to 60 degrees. We all agreed that climbing up the walkway on the Wall was just as difficult as walking up the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. This was an exhilarating experience for both of us as we added another one of the Seven Wonders of the World to our list of places visited.
Wednesday morning was another Chamber of Commerce morning weather-wise as we visited Tienanmen Square, probably best known to our readers as the site of the student protests in 1989.  This is where the iconic picture of the single student standing defiantly in front of a Chinese Army tank was taken. This square is several hundred acres large, overwhelming in its size. There was a line of thousands of people that snaked throughout the square waiting to walk past Chairman Mao’s tomb which didn’t even have his remains in it. We found this to be a bit disturbing. There was really nothing else to see in the square other then the large buildings that surrounded it.


The final stop on Wednesday was the Forbidden City, built between 1406-1420, and  home to the Emperors of China. It is now a museum of sorts although we went inside only one of the buildings which contained an ugly throne made with deer antlers, a couple of rifles, several bow and arrows, and some Chinese calligraphy. There must have been 40 or 50 particularly large buildings (we lost count) that stood on multiple large courtyards, just one building after another and one huge courtyard after another, all looking alike.  The sheer size of each of the buildings ended up dulling our senses. Had we been Chinese or had we studied Chinese history and understood the significance of each building, we probably would have appreciated the Forbidden City more.






The other attraction in Beijing that should be noted was the dinner we had at the top Peking Duck restaurant in Beijing, which has hosted several U.S. Presidents. Like practically all of the places we ate in China we sat at large round tables for 8-10 people with a lazy Susan in the middle where the different dishes of food were placed. There is strict protocol to the preparation of Peking Duck. Air is blown into the duck to separate the skin from the meat and then the duck is hung to dry for several days before being roasted. In the restaurant in which we ate a chef carved the duck on a cart next to our table. Eating the duck was almost like eating a taco. We took a very thin, almost translucent, pancake, spread a bit of hoisin sauce on the pancake, added pieces of the duck including the skin and then finished with various toppings such as slivers of onion, celery, beet, mushrooms, red cabbage, etc. The pancake is rolled over the top of all of this and eaten like a soft shell taco. Delicious. This meal was particularly enjoyable because, for the first time since leaving our boat, there was unlimited complimentary wine, and our tour guide was not rushing us to our next stop. We have enjoyed wonderful conversations covering a wide array of topics with all of the people on our bus at all of our meals.

This brings us to the end of another wonderful trip. We are both looking forward to going home but it won’t be long before we start planning our next adventure - stay tuned! 

Monday, April 23, 2018

Xi'an, China


April 22, 2018

Xi’an is the home of the Terra Cotta Warriors, over 6600 life size soldiers and horses made of Terra Cotta. These warriors were created by the first Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, to protect the Emperor in the after life. They were discovered in 1974 by a farmer drilling for water. True story. This is now both a major visitors attraction as well as an ongoing archaeological endeavor.  Most of the warriors were broken apart during the process of being buried and archaeologists are doing the painstaking work of putting them back together. This work occurs at night so that neither the visitors nor archaeologists are disturbed by the other. We saw the Terra Cotta Warriors 9 years ago on our National Geographic Expedition and were looking forward to seeing them again. We were not disappointed. The attention to detail on both the figures and the features on the heads is incredible.  The rank of each warrior is determined by the knot of hair on top of his head and the division of the army is shown in the differing detail of the warriors uniforms. In the ensuing 9 years there have been obvious changes. The areas where archaeologists were at work were made clear by the presence of desks, file cabinets, etc. We could also see individual warriors that were in the assembly process with different numbers attached to various parts of the figures by the scientists. Unfortunately, the attraction has been “Disneyfied” by the addition of a long pedestrian-only street leading up to the exhibit containing restaurants, fast food joints, gift shops and souvenir shops where one can purchase an array of warrior related tchotchkes. We understand that the Terra Cotta Warriors now attract over 80,000 visitors a day so all these new additions should not be surprising.





This was the only tour we took in Xi’an. There was an optional tour in the evening that included dinner and a Tang Dynasty show that we had seen on our previous visit. Instead, we visited the mall across the street from our hotel and found a pizzeria that was a welcome change from all the Chinese food we have been eating.

Monday morning we flew to Beijing and were bused directly to “Old Beijing”  where we took an hour long Rickshaw ride that included a half hour visit with a local family similar to the visit we made in Tibet. This was followed by a “tea tasting.” Tomorrow, Tuesday, we visit the Great Wall and enjoy, we hope, a Peking Duck dinner in the evening. Wednesday we go to the Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square before flying home on Thursday. Our last blog posting may not happen until we get home.

Old Beijing

Local Home Visit
Tea Tasting
Several other random observations. Each one of our hotels has had two gas masks in the closet!  While traffic laws in Italy tend to be suggestions, the Chinese have taken this to a new level. We have watched our bus driver make a left hand turn as soon as the light turned green directly in front of oncoming traffic. Likewise, our bus drivers don’t wait for a break in traffic before turning right on a red light. Unlike the rest of the civilized world where pedestrians have the right of way, in China you take your life in your own hands even when crossing the street in a clearly marked crosswalk.  Finally, motorbikes are everywhere and they don’t make any noise. Tim took a walk one morning in Shanghai while Lynda was getting ready and was on a quiet side street when about 10-12 motorbikes went by. It was like someone had hit the “mute” button as they went by.

As always, we hope you have enjoyed following along on our adventures and appreciate the interest that you show in our travels.  We look forward to seeing you all when we get home and don’t forget that you are suppose to have spring in place for us.

Sunday, April 22, 2018

Lhasa, Tibet


April 18-20, 2018

Wednesday morning, we left the boat at 6:30 to visit the panda bears at the Chongqing Zoo on our way to the airport to catch our flight to Lhasa, Tibet. Pandas are beautiful, fun creatures to watch and we always enjoy seeing them but we were more intrigued by the fact that this zoo was more then just a zoo. We watched several groups of people doing Tai Chi together and in another area of the zoo people were playing badminton. The zoo seemed to be a meeting place for all sorts of activities. 

Tai Chi at the zoo
Lhasa, Tibet is a city of half a million people situated in the mountains at 12,000 feet. Having experienced a similar altitude on our trip to Cusco, Peru we came prepared with medicine prescribed by our doctor. Or so we thought. Upon deplaning, Tim grabbed our carry on bag and quickly moved down the aisle to the gangway. Once on the gangway he needed to stop because he was so out of breath. We both needed to stop several times to catch our breath before we arrived in the baggage claim area. The same thing happened once we reached our hotel. The simple task of unpacking a suitcase had us both winded. Everyone we talked to at dinner was experiencing the same thing, many were having worse problems then us, including headaches and dizziness. After dinner we both went straight to bed and slept fitfully until morning.

Thursday morning’s tour was suppose to start at the Jokhang Temple but the line to enter the temple was so long that our guide decided to take us to the Barkhor Market first. We took a narrow pedestrian street towards the market where we passed through an area where over 100 people sat, spinning prayer wheels while Buddhist chants were being played over speakers. 
Group prayer - notice individual prayer wheels
We also passed several small buildings that had a row of cylinders in the wall of the building. These were also called prayer wheels that people would spin as they passed, presumably saying a brief prayer as they did so. 
Prayer Wheels
Once we arrived at the main street of the market, again pedestrian only, we witnessed people walking down the street several steps, prostrating themselves on the street, crawling a few feet and then getting back up, taking several steps and repeating the whole thing over and over again.

Praying in the street
Our guide took us to a shop where he recommended we do our shopping saying that this was a government owned store, thus guaranteeing high quality goods. We discovered they were also higher priced. We were given time to shop so we did. Tim bought an authentic Tibetan trumpet for 63 US dollars. This was half of what the shop owner wanted for said trumpet. Probably not authentic. What we did buy that was authentic was a painting for the dinning room signed by the artist. We are looking forward to having it framed and hung.

Our guide was correct in going to the market first. When we got back to the temple the line was considerably shorter. The Jokhang Temple is the 1,300 year old spiritual center of Tibet. The Buddha  in this temple is said to be the first one in Tibet. The crush of people trying to bow before this Buddha reminded us of the similar chaos we experienced at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.  An interesting side note. Many of you are familiar with the practice of lighting votive candles in churches. In Lhasa temples there are large containers containing melted Yak butter that have several wicks in the container. Instead of lighting a candle one adds a small quantity of Yak butter to the container. While in line outside the temple many people tried to sell us Yak butter for this purpose.

Inside Jokhang Temple
After lunch at a local restaurant we were taken to a private home to see how a typical Tibetan lives.  We were welcomed with yak butter tea, don’t ask, whole roasted barley, and fried bread. We saw three rooms: the lounge, kitchen and a prayer room where several monks were meditating.
Lounge in typical Tibetan home
The last stop of the day was the Sera Monastery, the second largest monastery in Tibet housing 600 monks. While we were unable to see one of the monks' rooms we did see the Grand Assembly Hall.  The highlight of the visit was the debating yard where the monks gather each day except Sunday from 3:00 to 5:00 to debate. Lynda did not go into the Monastery because of the long uphill climb.  Tim assumed that the debate would be a very civilized discussion of a particular topic between a few people representing each side of a topic. Nothing could be further from the truth. The debating yard was just what the name implies. It was held in a large outdoor area where over a hundred monks  were paired off in groups of two. One monk would sit on the ground and the other would stand in front of the seated monk. The standing monk would start by expressing his point of view on the agreed upon subject. When he had made his point he would clap his hands and the seated monk would respond. This would continue for an hour whereupon the monks would trade places. The monks were debating with varying degrees of intensity. Some had very angry looks on their faces and there was even a pair smiling as they debated. At the back of the yard was where the older monks were located. Our guide told us that these monks had been doing this for 20 or 30 years so they took a much more leisurely approach to the whole business. There were also 6 monks sitting by themselves off to the side reading. There was no indication what they were reading. Probably not the latest John Grisham.

Debating Courtyard at Sera Monastery
The day concluded, after a 2 hour break back at the hotel, with a short trip to a dinner theater. The dinner was a buffet supposedly of Tibetan dishes although we don’t think French fries count as Tibetan cuisine. Dinner was followed by a show of typical Tibetan songs and dances, featuring traditional Tibetan costumes. The dinner was mediocre at best, the recorded music for the show was over amplified on a poor system, and the Yak Dance was the only portion of the presentation that held our interest.
Yak dance. Not an actual Yak.
The real highlight of the day was returning to our hotel, going to the bar on the top floor and having a drink while looking at the Potala Palace, the former home of the Dalai Lama, all lit up.

Potala Palace from our hotel
For almost 1300 years the Dalai Lama was both the political and religious leader of Tibet. The Chinese government has long thought that Tibet was rightly part of China. In 1959 the Dalai Lama was exiled and the Chinese took political control of the country. Our guides have assured us that Tibet has an autonomous government under the auspices of China. However, the flag of China flies everywhere, pictures of Chairman Mao along with the present Chairman are prominently displayed, and the military we have seen are all Chinese soldiers. Also until 1959, the Potala Palace was the home of the Dalai Lama. The palace has 1000 rooms and sits on top of a hill with a commanding view overlooking Lhasa. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 
Outside the Potala Palace
The Potala Palace was also the first stop of the day Friday morning. Visitors must climb over 300 steps to reach the entrance to the Dalai’s quarters and the other rooms of religious significance.  Lynda knew this would be impossible for her so Tim made the trek alone. There were many people besides Lynda who opted out of this tour. It was an arduous climb. Fortunately our guides made frequent stops on our way up for us to catch our breath. Photography was only allowed in the outdoor portions of the palace which left out all of the really good stuff and all of the really good stuff is beyond description. A couple of highlights: we saw the cave that served as the first temple for the Dalai Lama 1300 years ago and around which the rest of the palace was constructed. This cave also contained the original Buddha. The second highlight was the room that contained the tombs of the 3rd, 5th, and 11th Dalai Lamas. For some reason the 5th Dalai Lama was the most important of all of the Dalai Lamas and his tomb was the largest.All three tombs were made of gold. The 5th Dalai Lama’s tomb also contained over 1000 gems and a small piece of the brain of an elephant.The reason behind this was unclear. Surprisingly, there were not many monks around.  In the Dalai Lama’s meditation room and in his private room there were monks quietly chanting as we passed through. There was universal agreement among the people Tim was with that it was worth the awful climb.  Finally, in the spirit of full disclosure,  Tim must admit that he could not help thinking about the wonderful scene from the movie “Caddyshack” where Bill Murray describes his experience caddying for the Dalai Lama.
Courtyard at the top of the Potala Palace. The gold balcony in the middle is where the Dalai Lama would sit.
The final stop of the day was at a Buddhist Nunnery.  We did not know that there were nuns in Buddhism but Tim can testify to their existence. They dress in the same robes as the monks and have their heads shaved just as the monks do. We were fortunate enough to visit the small temple at the nunnery while a group of the nuns were chanting. They seemed to chant with more enthusiasm then the monks. Earlier in this post we mentioned prayer wheels. Inside these wheels are rolled up sections of scripture. In an adjoining  work room we saw another group of nuns rolling up these portions of scripture to be placed in the prayer wheels. The last highlight of visiting the nunnery was the fact that we had to take streets to get there that contained shops that the locals actually shopped in. Not a sign of a souvenir anywhere.
Nunnery Temple
This was our last day in Lhasa, a city we have thoroughly enjoyed. Tomorrow we fly to Xi’an where we look forward to once again visiting the Terra Cotta Warriors.

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Three Gorges & a Pagoda

April 15-17. 2018

As boring as the first two days on the Yangtze River had been, Sunday we woke up to fabulously beautiful scenery. 

Our only stop on this day was at the Three Gorges Dam. In addition to information previously published (maybe you need to go back and reread the previous post?) it took 17 years to build the dam and, amazingly, traffic on the river was shut down for only 40 days. There are 4 locks at the dam that took us 3 hours to navigate and raised the boat a total of 135 meters.  That is approximately 400 feet. The dam has 32 turbines that generate 1.8 billion kilowatts of electricity a year. It is 2.3 kilometers, about 1.2 miles, across the top of the dam. Needless to say it was an impressive thing to see.

Three Gorges Damn
We spent about 2 hours touring the dam before returning to our boat and continuing our cruise.  As previously mentioned, there was a lot of commercial traffic on the Yangtze River before we entered the first lock on Friday. Partly that was because the first lock was so small many commercial boats would not have fit in the lock. Our boat only had about a foot of clearance on each side when we were in the lock and we determined that we were raised about 75 feet.  We have been in many locks, from the Soo Locks to the locks on the Danube River, but have never experienced anything like going through this first lock. The boat passed through the 4 locks at the dam while we were at dinner so we did not pay much attention.  The other reason there was less commercial traffic above the dam was fewer towns, meaning less manufacturing. The scenery after the dams was incredible rugged with very little sign of life.

Monday morning we docked at a little village, no name that we know of, in the middle of nowhere.  We left our boat, walking down the pier several hundred yards where we boarded Sampans for an hour and half cruise on a tributary of the Yangtze called the Goddess Stream.  At points on this Sampan cruise the stream could not have been more then 50 feet wide with the mountain rising straight up from the stream.  All of the fellow passengers we talked with were, like us, in awe of what we had seen.  Monday, as we cruised further up river, the topography on each side of the river became less rugged and we saw more villages and other signs of life along the river.

The Goddess Stream by sampan
Tuesday morning we awoke to find the boat already dock at Shibaozhai, China.  Our tour today was a walking tour to the Shibaozhai Temple and Pagoda.  We enjoyed(?) a 30 minute walk through the town that led to a bridge that connected to the island where the Temple and Pagoda were located. The bridge is known as the “drunken bridge” because the bridge deck is supported by cables so that it moves up and down as you walk across it. Needless to say, a person’s balance is a bit disoriented as you traverse the bridge.  
The "drunken bridge"
The Pagoda was moved to this island in the 1950’s after a flood damaged the first level. The island now has a retaining wall around it to protect the Pagoda. At over 160 feet in height, the Pagoda is the tallest wood constructed Pagoda in China.  Amazingly no nails were used in its construction.  It is 12 stories tall but we only went to the 9th story. 

The Shibaozhai Pagoda
At the different levels of the Pagoda there were various signs and statues that we could touch. For example, there was a statue of a woman holding a baby. Should a woman touch this statue once she would have one baby, twice, two babies. Another example would be touch a sign representing “good luck” in order to have good luck.  

Inside the Shibaozhai Pagoda
Exiting the 9th story, a walk led to the Temple where there were three shrines, two with male statues and one a female statue. These were all Taoist shrines and, while our guide explained what we were seeing, it was a bit confusing and we don’t remember everything said. There were other statues in each shrine that represented such things as good luck, wealth, etc.  Luckily there were lots of market stalls on the way to the Pagoda that Lynda enjoyed.

Taoist shrine in the Shibaozhai Temple
We disembark our boat tomorrow morning in Chongquing where we take a bus to the airport to fly to Lhasa, Tibet.  We will report from Lhasa in three days.

Sunset on the Three Gorges

Sunday, April 15, 2018

Wuhan, China


April 14-15, 2018

The drive Thursday night from the airport to Wuhan was very interesting.  Wuhan is the 5th largest city in China with a population of 13 million people, yet we had never heard of this city before. In 1927 three separate municipalities combined to create Wuhan which encompasses 3000 square miles. Wuhan’s main claim to fame is that one of the three municipalities had an uprising in 1911 that resulted in the overthrow of the last dynasty leading to the formation of the Republic of China. As the bus took us into Wuhan we passed mile after mile of 30/40 story high-rise apartments either completed, under construction or standing partially constructed with no work going on. Our guide told us that 10% of the apartment buildings under construction in China have been abandoned without completion.  Since being on the river we have observed this same phenomena in every city we have passed through.

High Rise Apartments

Friday morning Tim was going to go on a tour that included a bell chime concert performed on 64 bronze bells covering 5 octaves that were replicas of the original bells dating from 475-211 BC. Unfortunately Tim was confused on the meeting time for the tour and missed the bus. Fill in your own joke here.

After the tour buses returned, we began our cruise on the Yangtze River. The Yangtze River is the third longest river in the world and is a major thoroughfare for the transport of goods in China.  As we cruised on Friday and Saturday, there was a steady stream of commercial traffic going in both directions on the river.  Unfortunately, the scenery those two days on the river was pretty bleak. Saturday afternoon we docked in Jingzhou. 

Yangtze River traffic

The Viking Cruise Company is a Norwegian based company that appears to have a conscience. Since 1996 Viking as been providing funds to three schools in China that provide educational services for underprivileged children.  One of those schools is in Jingzhou.  A small group of children from this school came on board our boat and entertained us with song and dance for about 30 minutes. These kids were the reason that professional entertainers have said that you should never try to follow a children’s act on stage.  


Immediately after the children finished we boarded buses for a brief tour of Jingzhou that included a botanic garden of middling interest and the reconstructed wall that surrounded the city.  Each passenger on the cruise has been assigned to the same guide for the entire trip.  Our guide, Joshua, is a very nice person but leaves much to be desired as a guide.  He never stops talking and many times what he is talking about has nothing to do with what we are seeing. For example, today, for the entire 30 minutes it took us to get to the botanical garden, Joshua discussed Tibet included a 15 minute lecture on how Chairman Mao rescued Tibet from the Dali Lama who had turned Tibet into a slave state. We usually end up dining with people from our bus and there seems to be general agreement about Joshua among us all.

It is Sunday as we write this blog.  We just passed through the first lock of our cruise and have entered the first of the three gorges.  The Three Gorges Dam was opened in 2008 and is the largest artificial generator of electric power from a renewable source in the world.  It also controls flooding along this portion of the Yangtze River.  The scenery along the river in the short time we have been in the first gorge is spectacular.  Unfortunately, the construction of the dam displaced over a million people and destroyed significant architectural and archaeological sites.

Three Gorges


Thursday, April 12, 2018

Shanghai

April 10-12, 2018

Shanghai


After an arduous 14 hour non-stop flight that left Detroit at 3:50 on Monday, we arrived in Shanghai at 6:00 on Tuesday evening.  By the time we collected luggage and cleared customs, it was after 8:00 when we checked into our hotel.  The only upside of this situation was the beautiful light display as we came into Shanghai from the airport.  On our previous trip to the Orient two years ago we discovered that the major metropolitan cities had spectacular light displays on many of the skyscrapers in the city.  Shanghai was no different.  It was a nice welcoming sight.


Tuesday morning our first excursion of the day started at 8:00 in the morning.  One of us was not happy! Our first stop was the Yuyuan Jade Garden. Your first thought was probably “how can a gem stone be a garden” which you would be correct in thinking.  However, in China, Jade is also a word that refers to the emotion of happiness and/or tranquility.  Similar to a Japanese garden we visited in Seattle, this garden was a serene combination of flora, fauna, and stone.  We, unfortunately missed the magnolias in full bloom but were thrilled to find the azaleas in their “cacophony of color.”  Hopefully we will be able to post some pictures because we can’t begin to describe the beauty that we saw.

The Yuyuan Jade Garden was situated in Old Shanghai so once we left the garden we were given an hour of free time to wander around Old Shanghai. Old Shanghai consisted of a plethora of shops, mostly jewelry, women’s clothing and souvenir shops. We also happened on a Taoist Temple.  In the courtyard outside the Temple there were several kiosks that contained burning incense.  As people entered this courtyard they were offered sticks, approximately 12 inches long, which they lit at the incense kiosks, and then bowed in all four directions before extinguishing the sticks in a large container of sand.  As this was occurring, there was a women on a balcony overlooking the courtyard singing songs. Because she was singing in Chinese, we have no idea what the lyrics were. The combination of the incense and musical entertainment created quite a unique atmosphere.  From the courtyard we entered the Temple which consisted of an altar surrounded by many statues, some of which were very Buddha-like.  One had to be specifically looking for this temple because it blended very unobtrusively into all of the surrounding shops.

Our third stop was at a silk gallery.  We assumed that we would be seeing garments of varying styles as well as household items; place mats, napkins, runners, etc., made out of silk. This was not the case. There were amazing framed works created with very thin silk thread, some of which looked like photographs on display, and, of course, for sale.  Before walking through the gallery, we were given a short demonstration on how these “paintings” were created.  They really were quite impressive.  Some of the works took 6 to 8 months to complete.  As we walked through the gallery there were many sales people ready to give you the best price on any item in which you may have shown mild interest.  There was, in fact, one picture that piqued our interest but we ultimately decided that we “didn’t HAVE to have it.”

Our last stop was lunch at a restaurant that presented a typical Chinese buffet.  There was dim sum, spring rolls, pot stickers, several different meats, rice and fried noodles.  All of the food was placed on a large lazy Suzan from which we served ourselves.  Many of us thought this relatively “simple” buffet was much better then the dinner we had later in our hotel restaurant.
The last event of the day was an amazing performance in the evening by a troupe of acrobats. The show consisted of one jaw dropping acrobatic number after another.  Several of the individual performances reminded us of acts that we had seen on the old “Ed Sullivan Show.”  Those of you reading this that are our age may remember those acts.
Tuesday morning we spent two hours at the Shanghai Museum containing displays of old Chinese costumes, as well as historical artwork, ceramics, furniture and currency.  The building itself was as impressive architecturally as the items on display inside the building.  From the museum we were bused to the airport for an hour and half flight to Wuhan where we embarked our river boat, the Viking Emerald.  It was 5:30 by the time we boarded the boat which gave us just enough time to unpack our luggage before dinner.
It is Thursday night as we write this blog post.  Several observations.  As we told many of you before the trip, internet access has been difficult as China blocks many sites, all things Google being one of them. Interestingly, we have been able to receive and read gmails, but unable to answer them. Our ability to post pictures on Facebook has also been spotty at best. We thought we would be able to communicate through the application WhatsApp but that has not been the case.  However, we have been able to text via our cell phone.  Our next six days will be on the Yangtze River. Because we are going through some mountains, our ability to use smartphones in any way will be severely limited. That means we have no idea when we will be able to post our next blog.  Before leaving Michigan we encouraged you to leave comments on our blogsite.  Unfortunately, we discovered that we can not access our blog from here in China so we will not be able to read any comments or answer any questions you may have. Finally, we are 12 hours ahead of those of you in Michigan.  Lynda has adjusted quickly to the time change; Tim not so much.
Until next time, goodnight.