Travel Journal 8

February 10, 2013  -  Sunday

Fireworks started up vigorously at 6:00 AM – made it hard to sleep!  It’s unbelievable and hard to describe, but they’re constant!  And loud!

I got up and washed then helped make a new batch of dumplings for breakfast!  When Deb got up, we ate breakfast:  dumplings with carrot and cucumber strips!  Then we made nice phone calls to Liz Sargent and Rhoda Swartz.  It was so nice to hear familiar, English-speaking voices.

It’s a strange Sunday morning for us.  There are no English worship opportunities in this city since there are so few ex-patriots here.  Randy and Jessica are focused on family time, so we’re having our own time for worship.  I’m going to go out for a long walk later and do some talking with God.  We’re missing the kind of rich fellowship that we’ve been accustomed to all our lives! 

It was a lazy day.  I wrote our 25^th support team letter and managed to get it sent by 6:00 PM.  The internet seemed a bit crowded today.  We had a lovely dinner with many of the same dishes but this meal included small, breaded pieces of fish – very good!  Debbie and I have each volunteered to do the dishes several times.  Everyone pitches in with preparation and clean-up of meals.  Everyone at one time or another sweeps the floor.  It’s a communal culture!  J

We’re both reading now.

February 12, 2013  -  Tuesday

We were all up a little earlier today since it’s our departing day.  Apparently the Chinese tradition is to have jiauzi when company arrives and also when they depart!  So, R was up at 3:00 AM starting the filling.  I got up at 6:00 AM along with Randy to help actually make the dumplings.  R’s husband and Jessica were also involved.  Many hands make light work! 

Then, of course, we had a huge breakfast of dumplings!  Oh my!  So good!  We had all packed at that point and the picture taking began!  Lots of pictures and expressions of affection were exchanged.  R presented us with a container of walnuts that she had cleaned the night before! 

                       Lao, R, Samson (Panda Pan), Peter (Pan), and Evalene

         

                                                         All the men  

                                                          

All the women

 R and Lao accompanied us by bus to the train station and then said a tearful farewell – especially between R and Jessica!  Jessica shared her faith vigorously with R again during this visit.  She holds loosely to Buddhism, but we are praying that she will – in time – turn to Christ!

Samson and Evalene are also Buddhist, but they seem interested in reading the Bible.  Debbie had them read a portion of the love chapter and they were very impressed with it!  We’re praying for them.  

We had an hour to wait at the train station.  That’s where we gave Hannah her red envelope for Chinese New Year’s!  She was very excited when she discovered the contents!  She’s a wonderful little girl and we were pleased to make her day!  She felt significantly ignored for the last two weeks with Peter getting most of the attention!

We boarded the bullet train for an eight hour ride to Guanzhou, which would have been a 24-hour trip by regular train!  Still, eight hours was a long trip!  We all had weary behinds by the time we arrived.  The train was hot.  The cool evening air of Guanzhou was refreshing.  We rode two subways for a total of forty-five minutes.  Then, our host loaded us in his car and brought us to his apartment where we met his wife and eleven-year-old daughter!  They shared refreshments with us and he led us in a Chinese Tea Ceremony that was quite interesting!  After that we went to bed. 

 

Part of their Spring Festival tradition is to have a mandarin orange tree.  

                 Another southern tradition is to decorate the home with sugarcane.

Debbie and I have a lovely bedroom with a very firm bed.  We are assigned a bathroom on the veranda with a squatty potty and a shower, but no sink.  In China, we’re finding that the shower is often the whole bathroom, rather than a designated space like we’re accustomed to in America.  It works!  Unfortunately, we have not been given any towels, so we haven’t enjoyed a shower yet!  It seems that’s something we should have brought with us;  they were scarce at R’s place, too!

This man is near retirement and is selling off three businesses that he has owned;  so, I think they must be pretty wealthy.  They have a really nice golden retriever.  When I got up at 1:00 AM to go to the bathroom he thought I was an intruder and began to bark loudly and aggressively.  I was not afraid, but I was embarrassed.  Of course the whole household woke up!  Then - our bathroom being on the veranda - when I turned on the light, another dog (outside) also began to bark aggressively, waking up the whole neighborhood!  When I crawled back into bed, I whispered to Debbie:  "Well, that went well!"  We laid there and quietly laughed for a long time!  Oh boy!

In the morning we had a nice breakfast together!  It included a bowl of rice porridge (with little bits of pork) and she had made a round loaf of sweet-bread that was delicious.  They put a jar of peanut butter out, but only Debbie used it.  They also poured several saucers of condensed, sweetened milk to use as a dip for the bread.  Oh my!  It was a treat. 

After breakfast we walked through a local market to buy vegetables and supplies for our stay.  We were amazed at the beautiful vegetables available here due to the warmer climate!  It was apparent that only a portion of the regular number of vendors were open for business;  this would be because we are still in the Spring Festival Days! 

         

Guanzhou is about an hour from Hong Kong.  Our hosts live in a seventh floor apartment that is very nice!  We took a long walk Wednesday morning to see a rose garden.  The owner gave Debbie a bouquet of a dozen beautiful fresh-cut roses!   

We walked through a large, irrigated, farm area and saw leachy trees growing;  they produce the fruit we’ve come to know as ‘dragon eyes’.  We also saw huge fields of strawberries;  we stopped and picked some.  The girls also found some wild elderberries and picked them.  We also saw broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, lettuce, cabbage, onions, kale, and red cabbage.  Along the way we saw small areas along the road where people were growing peas and beans.  We saw several small trees that were loaded with papaya.  We also saw an orchard of pomegranate trees. 

When we returned from our walk, they served us some light refreshments and he performed the tea ceremony again!  We had home-made fortune cookies, a sugared-dried-vegetable treat, prepackaged cookies and candy, and left-over bread from breakfast.  Very nice!  We're going to work together in an hour to make dumplings for our supper!  Been eating a lot of them lately.  I'm getting pretty good at making them!  :-)  I LOVE them;  it's usually the only thing on the table! 

Our host, his daughter, Randy, Jessica, and Deb and I played Uno all evening.  They have some unique rules.  Almost every round we would learn a new rule.  It was fun! 

Although outside temperatures were warm today, the house is quite cold!  We slept under the quilt all night!