Day 8 - Traveling to Xi'an and Hangzhong

I woke before the 4 a.m. wake up call, got down to the lobby about 4:30 and helped Cory and Jeff get instruments and equipment ready to load on the bus. Amazingly we were packed and ready to go at 5 a.m.. The airport counter didn't open for about 1/2 hour after we arrived. We had quite the hassle with the sound equipment and we had to take cables out of cases and put them in separate boxes, we finally finished the checkin process about the time the flight was due to take off. My carry on was searched, they took out my Beijing Starbucks mug, a roll of Saran (for wrapping instrument cases) and travel size tissues and ran everything through again.

The flight to Xi'an was short (1.5 hours to fly, 3 hours in the airport). Right now, we are on a bus to Hangzhuan, driving through the mountains, it's lush and green and steep mountain sides, but we can't see much of it because it's overcast and misty. It did clear up some, but it is overcast.

Hanzhong has about 3 million residents, but is rather poor. We did see horse drawn carts and farmers with the old fashioned plow. The hotel is spacious and clean, but not well maintained. We arrived at the hotel a little after 3 pm, and had to check in and eat all by 4:15. The meal was several courses and DELICIOUS. We're on the border of 2 provinces, so the Sichuan spiciness is an influence.

The concert is at a school, when we arrive, the basketball court is filled and the sides of the court is lined along the streets, there are several thousand people here. They treat everyone like rock stars, they want our picture and to talk to us. When the group is singing, if they like a note or they start to harmonize the crowd cheers mid song. After Kevin Palmer sang a solo, one girl gave Joanna her phone number to give to Kevin. They made it clear before the concert that while they like Vanguard and all they do for the area, they don't want any mention of Jesus and sent communist officials to monitor the concert. After only a couple of songs, it started to rain so we were scrambling for umbrellas and plastic, the people brought out umbrellas and were holding them over instrumentalists and the sound equipment. After a little while someone brought out an easy up and put it over the instrumentalists. Afterwards it was a mob scene again, the kids are great, meeting everyone, I am so proud of them.

Back to the hotel for dinner - another delicious meal.