Leaving for Daton

I learned a new phrase yesterday from my friend Mary who has been teaching here in Beijing for about 5 years - TIC - This Is China!.  This is to express your frustration when things go in circles and don't seem to go anywhere! We have spent many hours and yesterday about 8 wasted hours when we could be seeing sites here dealing with Ctrip.com the website where we have been booking our tickets for internal flights. We went to their office yesterday, riding the subway and then wandering. After asking a parking lot attendant for directions, Sam showed up, speaking English and leaving his job to walk us to first one building where we found out Ctrip had MOVED. Then he took us to the other one, only to find out the FLIGHT portion of Ctrip wasin a different building. We said we wouldn't leave unless they sent one of them with us to the new building, which they did. Only to find out that the office girls were doing all the bookings through Shanghai offices by phone! After much, much frustration, we think we are all set! To reward ourselves, we took a taxi to SanLiTan Rd. area nearby which is the bar street. We had hazelnut hot chocolate and shared a piece of Black Forest cake!!! All before dinner (there WAS no lunch!). We taxied back to the Poly Theater where we met my friends Mary and her husband Tom who live here, she teaching literature at a college and he working on a book (he is retired head of Engineering dept. at Penn State). They took us to the most popular and best Chinese food place (based on local ex-Pats), very elegant, for Peking Duck and other dishes for dinner. It was delicious and sliced up right at our table. Again after much wandering around led by the doorman at the duck place looking for a taxi - 2 drivers refused to take us! we think because we didn't look like we were big tippers OR he didn't like the area we were going to by Tianamen Square, we opted for for the easy and smooth system of the metro back home. Couldn't get any hot water so opted for sleep! This morning I can relax because we have a taxi at 5 a.m. to the airport where we will join the China Culture Club (check out their website for a description of our tour - to Datong, Hanging Monastery, Buddhist caves - and let them take over for 2 days. We will fly about an hour north, almost to Inner Mongolia, stay one night and train back. We opted to pay for our rooms here tonight to leave all our stuff and insure we get these lovely rooms tomorrow night. I don't think I finished writing about our Yangzhou visit where we were treated like visiting royalty. Since Qin Hong, my friend from 6 years ago, was on a school business trip to Guilin, her friend and colleague Jacqueline filled in. She took us to the most amazing foot massage place for an hour and a half of pure pleasure and relaxation, where we got to see a little bit of CCTV, the only English TV station in China, so we could see what people on the east coast were dealing with! Unbelievable for October! On Thursday early we had our second tai Qi session with Baba Ding, and Wei Yuan helping out by translating. A photographer, we think from a local paper, turned up in the park and posed us for pictures in tai Qi postions so maybe we'll make the local paper!! Back at the apartment we were all packed up and presented Mama and Baba Ding and Wei Yuan with our present bags we had prepared! After saying goodbye, we met Qin Hong at the same restaurant (3rd time in 2 days) for an amazing breakfast that everyone loved! It was so wonderful to see her again! She took us to her office (she's now promoted and has a beautiful office ) to call Ctrip (frustration!). Then we were off again for a Hot Pot banquet, where boiling broth with seasonings is in front of each of us, and an array of beef, muttong, fish balls, chicken balls, and vegetables were there to be popped into the broth for cooking. this dish comes from Mongolia, I had heard, where you need to keep warm! I was sweating and bright red from the spices by the end! We visited 2 different classes each to introduce ourselves and answer questions - these were Senior 2 students, 11th graders - same level that I taught when here. There are 800+ students in each grade level at YMS. All were very polite and interested. It did not seem like it had been 6 years since I had been teaching here. We taxied with Qin Hong to Ge Gardens, a beautiful estate from a rich 1700 merchant that he filled with various bamboo plants. It was lovely and peaceful. Lily Chen, mother of a former student, showed up again to walk with us and present me with special teas to take home. It will go with the beautiful teapot and bowls Qin Hong presented to me. We ran across an area in the garden where a movie was being shot and watched for awhile while the beautiful actress played a musical instrument (or pretended to). Leo, Qh'S husband met us and drove us back to pick up our luggage. More later, taxi arrived!