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.