Potala Palace

 All of my Tibet posts were removed from my blog sometime in 2013 - but I was lucky enough to have found my drafts in my old files. I will probably edit them a little differently - but at least they will be in my blog 

 Potala Palace - that climb was way more challenging than the lighthouse. I had started taking my altitude pills a couple of days before but it was really, really hard - But I MADE it. Beautiful and worth it.  Never knew that besides all the monks that live there there are lots of monks buried there - the tombs are unbelievable - the 5th thru the 13th head guys are entombed with lots of jewels and gold decorating their tombs.

Tibet & Military Presence

Arriving in the city center the first thing I noticed was the heavy military present. Soldiers were stationed on top of the buildings with cameras and telescopes. There was a soldier stationed at the corner of our hotel's street and we saw many more during our 4 days. It is rare to see a gun in China. Even at NUDT there were few guns visible. China always made me feel a little paranoid but this cranked up my paranoia a couple of notches. American Tourists were scarce- mostly European or Asian.

Our Lhasa Arrival

After my visa had been carefully checked at least 7 times we finally arrived at the Tibetan airport and could not find our guide. We waited about 30 minutes and finally figured out that quides are not allowed to come into the building. They are required to stay across the street (which the view of them was blocked by the city buses) during one of our trips outside to take pictures of the beautiful blue sky, mountain and clouds, I spotted lots of people across the street with Chinese signs. Cynthia went across the street to read them and found our guide and driver. The guide gave us both silk scarfs as a welcoming gift. It was a 40 minute ride into Lhasa and the scenery looked a lot like New Mexico - outcrop rocks and dry. The barley fields and blue blue sky were picture worthy.

Back in Changsha

I am back in Changsha - I had a great time at home, ate all my favorite American foods and saw most of the important people in my life. So with a jet lagged brain I am now getting ready for our big trip.

We accomplished a lot of our "trip chores" today. Cynthia helped me move my extra luggage over to my old apartment and up the 4 flights of stairs (rumor has it – that we will move to the new apartment sometime before the 15^th) (NUDT told us when we left that they would have already moved us BEFORE we got back- obviously not the case) I repacked my carryon for our 2 week adventure and then to the bank. That was the interesting part...

I needed to exchange dollars to Yuan so we actually did it with an illegal street deal with a 'Huang Niu Dang' person (word to word translation is Yellow Cow party - sort of like ticket scalpers) - We got a slightly better rate than what the bank was offering (12 Yuan - about 2 dollars extra for a 4000 dollar transaction) but the best part being that we didn't have to wait in a very long line, show lots of ID, fill out forms or pay any fee. The only negative was having to walk about 4 blocks to Cynthia's bank so that her bank could check out the Yuan in their fancy counter machines to make sure they were not counterfeit. It is strange how some things work here and even though the businesses are illegal they are fairly safe and widely used (The Huang Niu Dong people were boldly sitting on a ledge right in front of the bank with no one stopping them ) This same day we also encouraged another illegal activity. We used a Hei Che today - Hei Che translates to black car- which is an unlicensed cab. You agree on a price before hand and they take you where you need to go. If I am alone I can't use the "hei che" due to lack of language abilities. Of course there are many more – the DVD stores, knock off markets, and of course the well publicized “Apple Stores”.

Its Friday morning now - 4 am -- wide awake as per my usual "jet lag" symptoms- so that is why I am answering and writing emails at this time of the day. Today we are finishing packing and recharging all our electronic stuff. We need to head to town to shop in Watsons - sort of a version of a drug store without the drugs - mostly shampoos, facial masks, soaps, etc - I need to purchase some of my favorite travel size Japanese shampoo and conditioner- then we will lunch at Cynthia's parents house. We leave Changsha at 8 this evening. Sometime today when non-jet lagged Cynthia wakes up at a normal time - I will get her to translate our itinerary into English so I can send it to you - We stayed in an airport hotel before our flight to Tibet. We had to ration the toilet paper.

Side note I did get a great massage yesterday after a great lunch. Both were in a 5 star hotel. The lunch was what they called buffet style - but to me it was more 'cafeteria style' --you walked around looking at the sample displays of food and gave them your card with your table number on it - You picked what you wanted - they recorded it on the card, cooked it and then brought it to the table. There were four of us Cynthia and Cynthia's dad along with one of his PHd students (who treated us all) and myself. We ate most of 15 different dishes they brought ( How come they are all so thin and small...not fair...). Anyway we had fish, crab, beef, pork, 2 types of tofu, a mushroom salad, green beans, a really big white bean (looked like a lima bean on steroids), another vegatable dish, spicy noodles, one of my favorite pumpkin things, a "vegetable rollup", pear soup-like dish, a pineapple flavored pastry and of course they brought fruit for dessert. I feel full just listing it all - we both skipped dinner.

Typical China

Lack of proper prior planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine" Old English Proverb

Unfortunately China seems to be under the assumption that it DOES…. I got a phone call this morning (July 8^th the day before I depart for the US) from my boss. She asked me to stay another month because there was more of the web page stuff to do.

My apartment is all packed in boxes because they are moving us sometime this month and I am all packed for my trip home TOMORROW.

The call shocked me because I had FINISHED all the 200 plus pages of web page editing they had given me by the end of April. Since then I have been inventing jobs to do to make sure I didn’t go crazy. I helped tutor some of Andrew’s and Marian’s students, I taught the second half of some of Amy’s classes, and helped Cynthia with editing some students’ (really technical) papers that were going to be published. It filled maybe 2-3 hours a day. Not enough to really keep me busy but enough to get me out of bed and keep me semi-productive. The FAO had sent me a few other documents to edit and revise as well as weekly speeches to evaluate but generally I have been duty free for 2 months.

About an hour after the first phone call I got another call saying that I would be terminated if I did not stay for the month of July. Being almost 63 and never having been fired – it sort of shocked me. I started by having a few tears, then frantic worrying about having to repack (because I was leaving a lot of my stuff here for the summer). I finally calmed down, talked/SKYPED with the other foreign teachers (here and home) and decided that whatever decision they made I would deal. I sat down at the computer and emailed them 3 options to pick from

1. I go home and they terminate me
2. I go home and they pay me for July and they email the documents for me to revise
3. I go home and then come back in August as planned

They said they would settle for number 2

Last minute changes are VERY typical of China. The first year I taught in China it really frustrated and bothered me, but I have grown accustomed to it by now and will usually adjust my schedule accordingly. BUT NOT TODAY! I will be home on the island and in MY SOFT bed (if all goes according to plan) Sunday night- the 10^th.

Exciting Seven Hours

I am still not sure if I will be paid for this extra month of work – but I am happy that I am coming home and not having to repack. Oh and I still have to leave a note with the guards saying that I am gone and will be responsible for my own actions while away from NUDT

Side Note: As of July 31st - I still haven't gotten any pay or documents sent to me ... go figure (and never did)

Mosquito Tennis

This is a “tennis” racket that I bought at the Hypermart. You plug it in, charge it, unplug it, then push a couple of buttons and swing. Mosquitoes are really bad here right now. Yes I am keeping the windows and doors closed but they are so small they can squeeze thru the screens. I’m sure I look ridiculous swinging the racket around in the air but when it finally makes contact it makes a really nice satisfying crzzpp sound. Good exercise too! Notice I couldn’t resist the 1 yuan Panda Flyswatter either.

4th of July Substitute

90^th Birthday of the Communist Party

I rode the bus to meet Cynthia at the other side of the river for dinner and fireworks. We ate at a restaurant called MonaLisa which was decorated sort of in the Hard Rock Café style with American movie posters, fake dinosaurs and big airplane models hanging from the ceiling. They had a Western and Chinese menu but since I will be home in 7 days I figured I could hold out for the real thing and had Chinese – and it was quite good. The riverside was crowded but the fireworks were well worth it. They ran for about 20 minutes and the amount was 4 times what you would see at our St. Simons 4^th of July. Changsha usually has fireworks every Saturday night but because this was the 90th birthday of the Communist Party on July 1st - they were last night - Friday but still close enough to the 4th for me to pretend....