Yangzhou!!

So new day! Our last in Yangzhou! Tuesday we taxied to the Shanghai Railway (we concluded that with our luggage, it’s easier to taxi than struggle with all the metro steps!). The station has changed SOOO much since 5 years ago. Every train has their own waiting section clearly marked. The announcements are also in English. What ease!

The bullet train was sleek and quick – about 2 hours to ZhenJiang on the south side of the Yangtze where Liu Ren Jie (Danny) was going to pick us up for the drive to Yangzhou. Joyce befriend a Chinese businessman going to Z. with a cell phone who contacted Danny as we neared the station. He escorted us to the center of the station, with a confusing number of exits, and kept calling Danny until we finally met up. Such helpful and gracious Chinese people!

Danny worried we couldn’t fit all our luggage (we each have a backpack and a rolling suitcase – no one had to check any luggage on the plane). But we managed and drove through the fog and construction, over the new (2005) Yangtze River bridge into an every growing Yangzhou. I didn’t recognize anything until we turned onto HuaiHai Lu (Rd.) by the Bank of China (with an ATM). The school has some new buildings and more going up. We crossed the street to the little restaurant where I used to get takeout lunch (because people wouldn’t let me eat there without staring at my left-handed use of chopsticks so I’d take it home and eat in peace!). Upstairs we got a “banquet” room which just means private circular table with our own waiters. He ordered amazingly wonderful food and we wrote down each dish in Mandarin, pinyin (shows the pronunciation in our alphabet) and English. We’re set now when we try to order on our own (I hope) NOT that any of us are going hungry – 4 banquets in the 2 days here and one day to go!

Danny then drove us to Ding Wei Yan and Wei Yuan’s apartment (he was my doctor for knee acupuncture when I worked in Y. and is now studying in Boston for his higher degree in Sports Medicine – living with Jack who also taught here. WY is his wife who moved to her in-law’s apartment nearby for our visit – both incredibly generous to us!). The apartment is lovely with 2 of us in one bedroom and 2 in another (with borrowed mattresses for us for the 2 nights), a lovely central living room, little dining area and kitchen and then bath. 4^th floor up is challenging with the youngest of us being 66 but we’re managing! The tricky part has been the maze getting here and some taxi drivers who don’t really know the way. One night we came home at night in a taxi and we didn’t recognize the area. We were afraid to get out and leave the taxi and be totally lost when up popped “Mama” Ding!! We were never so glad to see anyone!! We think Jacqueline, who has been SOOO helpful in Qin Hong’s absence, must have called her to say we were on our way and she looked out for us, and led us to where we recognized the path.

We meet “BaBa” Ding at 7 a.m. in a nearby park for tai chi – he is a master, Joyce teaches it on the Cape and wanted a session with a master. The other 3 of us kind of fumbled along trying to match. Ding’s parents are so wonderful and helpful and generous with their time for us. As have been every Chinese person we’ve encountered! Which is why it was such a wonderful year for me in 2004-2005! The other 3 women completely understand why I enjoyed it so much when they saw how we’ve been treated! As my friend Mary who is teaching in Beijing and we will meet up with tomorrow night for Peking Duck dinner said in e-mail, we’ve been treated like Chinese royalty!

Wei Yuan connected by cellphone (neither mine nor Marilynn’s is working, or we can’t figure them out!) with Lily Chen, a teacher from a technical college here who is the mother of Cecily, my Chinese daughter, former student, now a grad student in communications in Beijing – hopefully we’ll meet up with her this weekend. Lily had scheduled tickets for us at Slender West Lake, the local tourist attraction, a beautiful spot modeled after West Lake in Hangzhou, but ours is long and skinny! We wandered through various pavilions and garden scenes. She then took us to meet up with Mama and Baba Ding (what we call Ding’s parents!) for a banquet lunch – more wonderful food and gracious hospitality!!! We were given directions by Lily to go for our foot massage – an hour and a half of being molded, rubbed, pressure points, lotioned!! Pure heaven! In a very elegant salon with CCTV in ENGLISH! I forgot to mention the day before Jacqueline had taken us for our banana facials! She first stopped to purchase milk and bananas which at the salon were mixed up for our facial mask. Lovely massages, pressure points, rubbings and an hour later we all looked gorgeous and years younger! Qin Hong had asked me before I came what things I wanted to do here and those two were DEFINITELY on my list.

Massage was followed by a trip to Yangzhou Middle School for the end of a student run talent show that the Senior 2s had worked hard on – a couple of singers, singing groups, a little skit of course all in Chinese that I was able to figure out the tragic scenario, my favorite – a girl and guy, sword, dancing, lovely! Across the street to a restaurant where Margaret (who had been to Westport and Cape Cod and showed Kerry around when she was here so always asks about her and Jackson and Sarah!) and Edmund her husband hosted us for another banquet. Sunny and Charlie attended, two teachers I had banqueted with 5 years ago. Can’t remember if I mentioned Jack, the vice principal now but a teacher and exchange teacher in Westport when I was there, hosted our first evening banquet where Madame Hong, and Nan Xing’s wife also attended.

I’m going to send and post this as I’m late for tai chi and our final day. More to finish up later! One week past – so much done!