Home Again

I'm back home after a very long day.  I guess the 24 hour day turned into 39 hours.  I've eaten a lot of meals for one day.  It was so much fun to be home and give all the presents from the market.  Everyone was so excited.  Here are my girls in their dresses and John with his dragon.  I gave Morgan a chess set.  Thanks for reading.  See you next time some major thing happens!

What a crazy day!  That market is insane!  We spent four hours on different floors of a huge building buying, saying “No” to everybody, bargaining, and getting the best price.  When they start at 400 Yuan, you can usually get the item for at least as low as 50.  We had fun seeing who could get the best deal.  When you try to leave, they block your way and grab onto your arm.  We saw one man dragging the merchant because he would not let go.  I had to pull pretty hard sometimes even when I had no interest in the store and had not even spoken to the person.  I did get a great price on an Armani suit though.  I also bought a lot for my family.  Bargaining at the silk store took about 30 minutes.  They have a bunch of lines they’ve memorized and use a lot.  At the silk store, she told me:

1)       I’m losing money if I give it to you for that price.

2)      I cannot buy it for that much.

3)      This is below my brother’s price.  I cannot sell it to him for that.

4)      You’re killing me!

And a whole bunch of other lines.  After all that, I still wouldn’t budge and she finally gave me the price that lost her money, broke the relationship with her brother, and killed her.  It’s quite a system they’ve got.

It was really fun to get everything for good prices, but it sure was tiring. 

The skies have been quite clear the last two days.  There was a strong north wind yesterday that sent the pollution back to where it came from.  My run this morning was great with the clean sea-level air.

The people here have been so good to us.  They’ve paid for everything (even tickets to the sites we’ve gone to, all our food, taxis, subway, etc).  Michael, the student helping us get around, has been wonderful and is really fun to be with.

Tonight, we’re off for Peking duck, then back home in the morning.  I’m excited to get back for Meghan’s birthday.

The Great Wall

We have a student here showing us around named Michael.  We’ve been so impressed with how much he knows about all the sites.  After the Summer Palace, we asked him if he learned all of the history of China in his schooling.  He said, “No.  Wikipedia!”  He is with us today on the way to the Great Wall.  I’ll add to this on the way back (Hopefully with some good photos).

 

We’re on the way to the University now.  The wall was great, but there is still a lot of pollution so the photography was difficult to do well.  We took a ski lift to get up to the wall and were going to take a toboggan ride down.  When we were ready to come down, it was raining so the toboggan was closed and we had to take the lift down instead.  The wall is huge.  It’s 5000 km long and very wide and tall.  It’s amazing to think of how the built it.  The group in the photo is Mike Young (the shot put presenter), Rolf (a German coach and discus Olympian), me (the good looking one with the BYU shirt), and Steve Leigh (a PhD student at UNC that presented on the javelin).  There are a lot of people on the way to and from the wall trying to sell t-shirts and other souvenirs.  It’s kind of tiring telling them no all those times.  We’re waiting for Friday to do out market shopping.

 

After the wall, we went out to the Fishing Village for lunch.  It was very good.  The catch the fish in a pond next to the dining area (it’s all outside), chop it up and cook it.  I’ve never had fish so fresh.  I asked Michael (our guide for the week) if a certain dish really was dove.  He said, “Yes”.  Next thing I knew, it was on the table (the entire dove minus the feathers).  I didn’t really want that, but had to try it.  It was kind of like chicken, but tougher.

Table tennis was so much fun!  The guy that taught us (Jack is his English name) was amazing.  It was Mike (he came to present on shot put), Steve (he presented on javelin), Michael (a student that has been showing us around), Jack, and me.  I learned that I’ve always used a completely wrong swing.  After a short lesson from Jack, I got a feel for it.  We even had a few very fast rallies (relatively speaking).  If any of my track ping pong buddies are reading this, “Be scared! Be very scared!”

Today, I wanted to try something other than the canal path for my run.  So, I got on Google Maps and looked for directions and how far it is to a place called “Olympic Park”.  It worked great on the first try, but the output looked like this.  That wasn’t much help to me and there were too many turns to memorize the map, so I did the canal path again.

 

After lunch, we went to the Bird’s Nest, Water Cube, and other Olympic sites.  The water cube has been turned into a place to sell Olympic memorabilia.  There is a concert planned for the Bird’s Nest, but not much else going on.  They are looking for a company to buy the Bird’s Nest and maintain it.  For now, it still looks fine, but no one is taking care of maintenance.  Notice how there are no shadows?  The forecast was for clear skies and it was 3:00 pm.  The shadows don’t exist due to the pollution.  You can look right at the sun and all you can see is a fuzzy circle with a glow around it.  I loved seeing the sites.  There is still a feeling of amazement remembering all that went on there.  The pool was fun to see.  I kept remembering the relay where Phelps just outreached the other team for the gold.  The bird’s nest is incredible.  It is so big and has so many seats.  It was fun to imagine the feelings someone would have being on the track about to compete with that view all around.  I also enjoyed looking at the tunnel the marathoners came through.  The Romanian woman that won the gold must have been so relieved to make it through the tunnel knowing she had won.

 

Now, I’m off to play table tennis with someone that is completing a master’s degree majoring in table tennis!  I didn’t know that was a possibility.  Anyway, I guess I’ll be well-trained after tonight.  I might even stay up until 9:00 pm (my latest so far is being asleep at 8:30).

 

Every time I go on a run, the young children love to say, “Hello” in English.  It’s kind of funny because after a while, I started adding, “Hello, how are you?”  Then, they just look at me with a blank stare not knowing what to say next.  It’s fun though because they get so excited to try out their English whenever they see a white man.

I finished my presentation.  It went great, but it is difficult to think about what to say when there is someone translating that you have to wait for.  Everyone seemed to like it though.

After that, we went to the Summer Palace.  It is a famous group of buildings with a large lake and garden.  An emperor built it for his mother.  It took 15 years to complete.  I guess I’ve got some work to do for my mother.

They have been treating us really well here.  We finished the day with a banquet.  The group of us presenting were the guests of honor, so we had the head table and all the people here for the conference coming over to clank glasses and drink.  It’s a good think I don’t drink alcohol or I might not be able to get up tomorrow.  The two German coaches at our table would drink an entire glass of beer every time a group came to our table.  We had lots of choices on our food.  There were a couple of things I stayed away from, but everything I tried was really good.

I woke up very early, got back to sleep, then woke up at 4:30am for good.  So, I went on a run.  It was funny to see how many people were up and busy.  The tennis courts were half full, the three tracks all had people running, a group doing Tai Chi, and out on the canal trail there were a lot of bikes, walkers, and runners.  I’m not sure why, but a lot of walkers walk backwards.  I’m sure they have a good reason, but I’m not sure what that might be.  I’d like to ask them, but most don’t speak a lot of English and I only know how to ask, “Hello.  How much is it?  Thank you. I have to go to the bathroom.”  There are three outdoor tracks and two indoor tracks.  Here is a photo outside of one of the indoor track facilities.

I’m off to do my presentation now, then I just enjoy tours for the rest of the week.