The day was supposed to start with a bang….…well, it did…fireworks in the parking lot at 6 a.m. Good thing I was already up, but a lot of people didn’t appreciate that kind of excitement so early in the morning. Over here, weddings are celebrated with a lot of fireworks. Today, we had 3 weddings taking place at our hotel. Before the bride and groom arrive, long strips of fire-crackers are laid down the driveway and lit up and boxes of Roman candles are lit up nearer to the hotel entrance. The wedding party then drives in through the smoke and the carpet of red paper from the fire-crackers. The first wedding party drove in with red Audi’s, the bride and groom arriving first in a red convertible. A big red inflated arch adorned the front of the hotel and 6 golden cannons are parked along the route. They go all out here for weddings. Red is a color for good luck.
Well, if that wasn ’t enough excitement, our plans changed dramatically because we got word at 10:00 a.m. that the bus from the orphanage was broken down and wouldn’t be coming to pick us up. First gear was sounding a bit rough the last few trips and I did mention that it might not last. Well, it didn’t. The other option was to take 5 taxis to the subway and travel at least an hour to the end of the second leg of the MTR, again catch 5 taxis to an undisclosed location. Most of the group concurred that it was too tiring to do that twice today and didn’t want to run the “Amazing Race” gauntlet for our last day with the group separated twice into 5 taxis, likely going in different directions. Instead, we proceeded to a nearby mall about a kilometer away, browsed and re-convened at the hotel in Room 930 for a group meeting. There we listened to Jo’s amazing story for 2 hours and then prayed with her…well, we got carried away until 15 minutes before supper time. 15 people crammed into a room felt like a house church meeting. In fact, one of our group had at one time experienced arrest and interrogation but been miraculously delivered by God. One day, we will get to share the details.
The last supper for our team was at a very nice Chinese restaurant with a private dining room and we were treated to Peking duck. Before the duck came onto the great round lazy Susan, there was a host of other platters including jelly fish, veggies, potato noodles, dumplings and then the duck which is prepared in a variety of ways. One is with a thin flour patty, like a tortilla but much thinner, and you add the duck, some onion and vegetables plus a drizzle of sauce and rolled up like a burrito. It was very tasty. The other plate of duck was a hacked up bird, deep-fried and no part was identifiable. Come to think of it, I remember seeing a street vendor cutting up duck necks into 1” segments for a customer with a meat cleaver. Not much meat on the neck, so you must have to suck all the goodness off the bones.
After supper, Matthew and I decided to walk back to our hotel, got disoriented, and had to show our hotel key envelope to a few people to get some directions. We decided it was all part of the adventure and actually approached our hotel from the backside. Don’t know how that happened, but everyone we talked to seemed to have a different direction to go in. It was fun. A couple of guys followed us on their bikes to make sure we got to our destination. Very nice of them. We often find people to be very helpful indeed. Some just want to practice their English. Others are curious, and yes, we have been followed, at times apparently by as many as 3 UC’s.
Back at home base we need to start thinking about packing up everything for a 9 a.m. escape from the hotel to an undisclosed location downtown for a breakfast with some of the directors of the orphanage, then off to international church and then head for West Beijing Railway Station and our 20 hour rail adventure to Guangzhou. I booked our hotel room there online but without my glasses it was too difficult to copy the Chinese characters for hotel name and address. !!!Bright idea! Take a photo of the web page close up with my phone. Viola! I showed it to our interpreter and she could read it, so I have the instructions on my phone if I need to give a cab driver directions. That was easier than I thought. Will have to use that more often and save the hassle of charades and our limited Chinese. I don’t know why Chinese people have to always be shouting, but it seems normal now, and we get into the cultural spirit of it all and do our own shouting. Now we are heading into an area where Cantonese is predominant. Learn all that Mandarin for what, eh?
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