Arrived in China!

I arrived, along with a lot of rain (“Typhoon Higos,” according to my hotel’s CCTV9) early afternoon Friday. By the time Venes and June, young kdgn teachers, took me to late lunch and translated through three hotel room changes and a trip to see a terra cotta warrior display at the local library, I was ready for bed in broad daylight day. The rain stopped this morning. A walk around the neighborhood, worse for the wear since I was last here, and finishing Janet Peery’s What the Thunder Said filled in between snoozes today. Benes and I are going to the beach in a few minutes. 

 I’ve learned that China’s milk is completely restored in her consumer’s eyes, President Bush signed the bailout bill, Biden and Palin mostly attacked their opponents’ running mates, and a few new words in Mandarin–thanks to the one English station throughout China. Via Venes, I learned that she didn’t hear a word about the milk problem until she got word from her Philippine family. Now I’m wonderin, what my friends and family are hearing about the typhoon (grave warnings on TV forecast it to be here three tempestous days); All’s well! Helen is in her hometown, Hangzhou, for holiday, so I haven’t seen inside the fence surrounding Golden Sun Kindergarten. and Great Wall Hotel is undergoing remodeling, so it’s noisy, long on mess and dirt, short on services.

Glad to be off that plane!