Day 10 - Traveling to Chengdu

A couple of items I left off of previous posts
Hanzhang has only 1.6 million, not 3. It's a fairly poor city, Tuesday morning when we were searching for coffee we passed by a woman brushing her teeth in front of a store, spitting into a basin on the sidewalk. Joanna said she probably lives on top of the store and they don't have running water. Dental health is horrible here, very obvious in the orphanage, even if they brush their teeth they still have terrible decay.

It was interesting talking to the Chinese students at the university. There was a group of 4 students that surrounded me and wanted to know about Vanguard and America. What was different about the cultures (where do you start?), what about the economic disaster, what did I think of Hanzhang, how did I like the food? I kind of felt like they were given an assignment to find out this information, they sounded like questions on a test.

Outside of the city it's beautiful and green, very agricultural. We do pass quite a few large construction projects of bridges and roads. The trip is only supposed to take about 4.5 hours, but at about 2 (4 hours into the trip) we stopped at a rest stop no where close to Chengdu. At 5:30 we stopped again to meet up with one of our sponsors in Chengdu and used the restrooms. I finally got to use a trough potty; in the ladies room are four porcelain tile stalls with no doors. The floor is also porcelain tile with an opening about 5 - 6 inches wide and about 2 feet below is a trough with a little bit of water running through it. If you are "downstream" everything that is upstream runs beneath you. My first thought is "I need hand sanitizer." As I'm getting on the bus, I hear Lane say "I need hand sanitizer." An interesting experience.

A few days ago Clinton asked about how I met my husband when I told him online, he joked about it. I made some comment about I knew about others that met people online, but didn't stay married. Later that evening he apologized profusely and commented about how he couldn't believe I wasn't married, etc. Today he came to me and asked if I would tell him my story, so I did. And in case you are wondering, Clinton is his mother's maiden name, it has nothing to do with Bill and Hillary. He then told me his story. He is quite a kid, although he's a vocal performance major I am quite certain he'll be a pastor.

About half way to Chengdu Dustin Ginn and Clinton got up in front of the bus and led us in worship and prayer. We got into small groups to pray. I am so impressed with this group, there are a number of natural leaders, I wish I could hire some of them - not that I have open positions or would they necessarily do well in IT, but in the right job, watch out world.

We finally arrived in Chnegdu about 6 pm (8 hours after we started). It's a large city and a lot wealthier than Hanzhang. Our hotel is close to a school and the school is getting out, so there are parent's picking up their children in cars, students leaving on bikes and people driving and biking wherever they want to . It's amazing. it took us 1/2 hour to go about 1/4 mile. I have to tell you though, I was having a great time just watching the movement.

After a banquet in our honor with the governor of foreign affairs for Chengdu, we went 2 or 3 store fronts down the street for a massage. A 1 hour full body massage is 30 Yuan (a little over $4) Teresa and I are in one room, Tyler and Cory in the next. We were talking back and forth, not your typical American massage experience, not your typical American massage price either. Afterwards we walked up to People's Square and got an ice cream at McDonalds and met some tourists from Israel.