China Trip, Day 1 - July 24-25 2007

The trip got off to a dubious start, with our flight out of San Francisco delayed by two hours. Gordon, Aisling, Siegrid and I had lunch with Dara and Mike Sinatra. We ate the most American food we could find - Lori's Diner! Lots of pancakes, BLTs etc. We went to the gate, chatted to some of our fellow travelers and waited for the flight. The plane was a combo passenger/cargo plane, very strange. The flight took off two hours late, but was uneventful. We arrived in Beijing, landing at about 8. We got off the plane on a tarmac, and got a shuttle to the terminal, which gave us an opportunity to experience the heat and humidity in Beijing, which is comparable to what I experienced living 13 years in St. Louis. When we picked up our luggage, we cleared customs and immigration and went out to meet our Bus Captain, Angie Wang. Angie took us to a restaurant for dinner. On the way, we got a full taste of the frenetic pace of construction in Beijing. Even though it was after 9 or so at night, there were still crews working. We got our first view of the Beijing Olympic stadium, currently under construction, which is designed to look like a birds nest. Angie told us that the airport currently has two terminals but that they are adding a third for the Olympics, as they expect to have 60 million visitors next year. They'll depend heavily on the public transportation/subway system to move people around. We arrived at the restaurant, which was very attractive, and the food was very nice, although not that different to what we might experience at a Chinese restaurant in California. Drinks, however, were served in a very non-American style, we were allowed to have one glass of a soft drink. Soft drinks included sodas (no diet), beer and water. We chatted and began to get to know each other at dinner (through my blog I'll just mention people's names, rather than do introductions). Angie also made us laugh back on the bus when she told us it would be very hot tomorrow, so we should dress accordingly, suggesting that the men wear "wife beaters". We then went back to our hotel, the Loong Palace hotel, which Angie indicated is "out in the suburbs". Beijing has five "ring roads" with a sixth coming for the Olympics, and the Loong Place is on the fourth ring, meaning it's pretty far out there. The hotel was very nice, the rooms were beautiful. I fell asleep at midnight about 9 am California time, and while my sleep was a little broken up, I felt good about getting any sleep at all.

More Health Drama

Well, everyone had to hear the story of Aisling's broken foot several times. Maybe I can start boring people with the story of how I passed out while on the tour of the labor ward at the hospital with Dara! Yes, I was in a room with ten pregnant women and a little girl on crutches and I simply passed out and keeled over. I've no idea what happened, all I remember was telling Aisling that I wasn't feeling well, and the next thing I knew one of the expectant fathers was picking me up while three nurses made a fuss over me. How embarrassing!

Aisling's injury

Okay. This is Aisling (Helen's daughter) and my mom can hardly ever get the story of my injury straight so for those of you who want to know this is the story. I was at an overnight summer camp in Soda Springs and it was day five out of eight days at camp and one morning it was breakfast. The dining hall was about 50 feet away from the restrooms which I was at when the injury occurred. So there was a white SUV driving by very slowly and inside it was the maintenance guy who was paying no attention to the road and was talking to the camp director. When I thought the SUV had gone by me I walked behind the back wheel. then the truck kind of swerved and ran over my foot and I started crying. The SUV kept driving and when I told the camp director she said "stop making jokes." I told her I was serious and went to the health center she called my mom and my mom wanted me to go to the nearest emergency room to get X-rayed and the camp director went up to me and called me a liar and since I had a headache the first day she said that she thought that this was an attempt to get out of camp, or as she said "I was looking for a way out." She said if the x-rays proved she was wrong then she would apologize to me". Anyhow, the xrays showed that I had broken bones in my foot, and the nurse called my Mom and she had to come get me the next day. The camp director still didn't apologize to me even though the xray proved I was right.

My mom and fuzzers were worried that the injury was so bad that it would mess up our trip to China. My regular doctor told fuzzers to take me to an orthpedist, who did a special xray called a CT scan so he could see better. He was worried that I might need surgery which would really have messed up our trip to China. Anyhow, I don't need surgery, just a big cast. Then I get to go back the day before our trip and get a lighter cast. There's a picture of my cast up above.