3rd time ? Probably Not.

Age has finally caught up – this time the trip was too much for my pitifully old body. I did fine with the 20 hours of flights, but the 9 hour land part of the trip may have finally tipped the scales as to whether I would ever do this again. Shanghai is ONLY 2 hours from Hangzhou but without speaking the language and no one at the school willing to meet me or find me a driver (that I would have GLADLY paid for), this gig might just be for the young. It is so much cheaper and easier to fly into Shanghai – but unless you have a driver to meet you (as I WAS provided with in 2006) You have to lug your suitcases up 2 flights of stairs to get to the bus station and purchase your ticket for the next available seat. I had to wait 3 and a half hours in the very small crowded station with my 3 bags (one being 62 pounds) to catch the next available downtown Hangzhou bus. Here again, I was hoping to have some help from the school, which I didn’t get, by having a driver pick me up at the Hangzhou drop off point. Sometimes there are taxi drivers that don’t want to drive the 40 minutes to Xiasha. I was lucky and quickly found a taxi driver that was willing to take me. I remembered to charge my Chinese cell phone so I got Aime to give directions to the driver for the last leg of the trip. I arrived in Shanghai at 1:30 and got to my apartment after 10 pm. Definitely too long, too tiring and too painful for a 60 yr old.

I am sorry about writing a “pity me blog” but I had to vent and I wanted someone to hear. Before the trip I sort of threw my back out and after many visits to my favorite chiropractor that “creepy-keep-you-awake” sciatica nerve thing was becoming much better. This harder than necessary trip and the lugging the suitcases up the 2 flights of stairs sort of put me back to square one again. So I am a little cranky and angry for the lack of help. Cynthia and I are going to have a body massage this Monday and if that doesn’t work I am going to have to get the school to help me find an acupuncturist.

Marigold Court Block Party

A lot of people in our neighborhood or friends that we include in our neighbor “HOOD” have birthdays in the month of August. To reduce the number of hangovers and cleanup mess we consolidate and have a neighborhood Birthday party for all the Leos celebrating. This year there were a couple of milestone birthdays: 2 people hit the dreaded number of 50, I hit 60, and Larry hit the big Social Security paycheck number of 62.

Rosie and Larry provided the backyard and the low country boil (shrimp, corn, sausage, potatoes, and lots of spices) and the guests supplied the rest of the delicious dishes. Good music, good food, and good friends – it couldn’t get better than that.