On The Downhill Slope!

It's hard to believe that I only have four weeks of school and the final week of testing/marking and my year at the Changzhou International will be finished. This past week my dad celebrated his 81st birthday. I am amazed at all the things he keeps on doing...such as things like this!

Dad, sorry I missed your birthday - YOU ARE AWESOME!! (Hey Andy, you look cool on my blog!)
Well, back to China - I am trying to get in as much travel time as possible before the end of term when Jim, Diana and Ron come over. Our school informed us that they were having a new teaher orientation on Saturday (the school term is more than half over - oh well, just go with the flow) and we would not have to teach so yesterday (Saturday) a couple of teachers and I went to Nanjing for the day. We were supposed to take the fast train at 8:03 but when we got to the waiting lounge the leave time was posted for 8:15. Within 5 minutes the time was reposted to 8:38. After about 15 minutes it was reposted again to 8:45. In China passengers are always sent to the dock about 10 minutes before the train is to arrive and finally at 8:42 we were sent to the dock. We had to wait out there for another 20 minutes. Needless to say, we were an hour late leaving Changzhou. We were to meet up with another former colleague from Wuxi in Nanjing. We finally arrived by 10:30 and caught the Metro to the Confucious Temple area and met up with Celia. There was plenty of shopping to do and lovely gardens in the temple area. Janet and I hadn't eaten any breakfast so she grabbed a couple of meat sticks and we ducked in to the one and only (McDonalds) for me to grab a big mac. It sure tasted good since I hadn't had any western food in quite a while. Janet wanted to go through the temple so Celia and I hung out and did some serious window shopping. Ray had gone off on his own. We all met up again at12:30. Celia went back to meet with her colleagues and the three of us caught a taxi to another temple up by the Yangtze River. After we had paid our money and walked through the turnstyle we noticed that some people were just walking up the road and catching the lift to the top (and of course we followed suit) - not sure why we had to pay the 30 quai. At any rate, as soon as we stepped out at the top we were mobbed by hordes of school children all wanting to practice their English. We finally were able to extricate ourselves after one of the children insisted that he wanted to give me a set of wooden clackers (which I graciously accepted). He is the one running up the steps. The view was great from the top and after taking photos we ascended the many many steps to the bottom. We were able to take a couple of photos of part of the old wall that had been rebuilt and also saw the children loading into their buses. They spotted us and all began waving and yelling "Goodbye!" It was a treat for them and us.

Since the day was so hot we decided to go back to the train station and kill time for the last two hours before the train back home. When we arrived we found that straight out from the station was a beautiful lake. So Janet and I rented a motorboat and drove around the lake for an hour. It was wonderful and there was a great breeze. They were building these awesome lanterns like these trees for some upcoming festival. We were both surprised to see an amusement park with a water slide! We both decided that this was the way to wait on a train! This is a picture of the train station from the lake. By the time we got back it was time to go in to catch the train. We rode the new D train back home which only took one hour. It looks like an airplane (on the outside and inside). All in all, it was a great day.