ivman's blague

We are enjoying having a nest of Carolina chickadees in our bird house out back so much that we decided to share the experience on our blog. I'm going to post several times to catch up on documenting the adventure. First, for the sake of those who don't know what a Carolina chickadee looks like, below is a picture of one - it's not ours, though. My photographic skills aren't that good, and our pair of chickadees don't sit still long enough for me to get a picture of them!

I will post more pictures soon, once I figure out the "new, improved" Word Press program through which I put out the blog. The version of WordPress my blog was using last summer made adding pictures much easier.

Monday morning, 1 August, we flew from Haikou to Hong Kong where we had reservations for a hotel in the Kowloon part of town. We were very glad that our teacher friend James went as far through airport checkin as possible since we hit a few snags with people who did not speak English. After taking care of several things at the Hong Kong airport, which bills itself as the "Best Airport in the World" and, from what we saw, it deserves that title, we took the fast train into the city, then a shuttle bus to very near our hotel. Below is a picture of the street where we descended from the shuttle bus.

After freshening up in our room, we set off to visit some of the city. As we strolled to the subway station, we spotted another street sign that reminded us that where we were now was very different from where we had been.

We took the subway just one stop away to stroll through Hong Kong Park. It was a beautiful area, full of free things to visit and enjoy. The park is apparently a popular place for weddings. Here's a bride we saw posing for some pictures.

We saw many more birds here. Below is the picture of one funny looking bird.

We saw some interesting trees and couldn't tell if it was all one tree or several grown together.

And there were several ponds with fish, turtles, and a variety of different lily pads. Below is a beautiful shot of some water plants.

A short walk from Hong Kong Park was the Peak Tram. The trip up and later back down was really neat and afforded some great views of the city. Below are two shots - one from inside the tram showing the angle at which we were climbing and one of the city from "up there."

After we were back down, we took a bus to ride the ferry back to the Kowloon district. Here's a beautiful sunset scene from the ferry.

In the afternoon as we walked to our hotel, we saw a restaurant where some young men were making "pulled noodles" in the front window. We decided then that, unless we saw something more interesting, we'd eat our last dinner in China in that restaurant. Below is a picture of the noodle pulling process.

Below is a picture of the noodles we enjoyed - noodles and pork meatballs with the first cheese we had been served during our entire time in China.

I will leave the "Asia" category "out there" for people to enjoy, but I foresee no updates until we go to Asia again. I'll let people know of any further updates to that category through my weekly iv's.

Thanks for your interest!

BTW, if you'd like to see it, I've put a video clip from a taxi ride out on my website. It's found at http://www.ivman.com/taxiride.html

Yesterday was our last day of class. Becka and I combined our classes for the last two hours so that we could do some things together. Becka dictated ten questions to the students in English. After writing them down, they had to answer them according to their lives and preferences. Then we set them about the task of finding other students who had the same answer for a question. The winner was the first one to have ten names written down - a different name by each question. At first the students were quite timid, but by the end they were mixing well and it was difficult to get their attention to end the game. Below is a picture of the students playing our game.

After the game we sang several American folk songs, several French folk songs, and one final song in English, French, and Chinese - Silent Night. Earlier this week we had both talked about holidays and their origins, and so singing this song was quite natural and thoroughly enjoyed by the students. The final hour was spent in a room with a ping pong table that was perfect for enjoying the cookies and Coca Cola we had brought for the students. They did not seem to know quite how to respond since they are not used to teachers doing nice or special things for them. We had a good opportunity to talk to some of them one on one. Many expressed appreciation for our teaching and several were interested in things that are vitally important to us.

After classes were over, we were treated to lunch at a fine restaurant in town. This special meal was going to be breakfast on Sunday, but for some reason it was moved to Friday noon, which was just fine with us. Almost all the same people present had been there in the same room for our welcome dinner three weeks earlier. Below is a picture of the dean and her husband.

On the menu was a special cold soup called YinYan Soup. This must be a challenge to make! In the plate to the right of the soup is something called "fish lungs."

This morning (Saturday) we were treated to breakfast by the parents of Ruth's helper, Carter - the little boy whom I mentioned in several earlier blog entries. The restaurant where we had breakfast was huge and there were hundreds of people having breakfast there early on a Saturday morning. Carter's parents have been wonderfully kind to us during our time here. Below is their picture.

Many of the items were wheeled by the little room where we were eating, and our hosts chose items for our breakfast. Below is a picture of Carter's father checking out the food "Ã la carte."

We were *finally* able to try Hainan noodles, one of the regional specialties that, for the entire three weeks of our classes, our students had been telling us about and asking us if we'd tried. Here's a picture of the famed Hainan noodles:

One of the items on our menu today was the seemingly ubiquitous chicken feet. Becka and I somehow artfully dodged them, but I was able to snap a picture of Carter's mother's plate with an uneaten chicken foot and the remains of the ones she had already enjoyed. I have become shamelessly adept at making it look like I'm photographing one thing when I am actually taking a picture of something else. On to the picture of the chicken feet...

After breakfast we did some grocery shopping to get the final ingredients for dinner at our place this evening. We are having our closest associates and friends here in for a meal together before our departure on Monday. The shopping trip was capped off with a trip home in one of the other type of taxis I showed you in a previous post. I would post a picture, but our driver would not allow me to photograph her and, at my most devious, I had no way of doing so clandestinely. Once again, the mind's images can be even more vivid....

Tomorrow if I am able to, I hope to post some final random pictures. If I'm not able to, I'm sure everyone will understand. Please remember us as we begin our trip home Monday morning. For those of you in the good ole USA, that will be Sunday evening your time. We will spend Monday in Hong Kong, before taking the long flight home on Tuesday. I don't know how I'll continue a blog after we're home. Our daily lives there are so drab in comparison to the colorful life we've lived this past month! But then, our experiences have been the result of our time here being a special event - the university officials and Ruth and some of her friends wanted us to experience as much as possible during our visit. Ruth's normal life here is nothing like what we have experienced, and we could not last for long if we lived year round the way we've lived this month!

Last evening (Wednesday) we were invited to a special farewell barbeque by Mr. Chen, the man who runs the student canteen where we eat lunch each class day. He moved several tables out on to a balcony, and we enjoyed a relaxing, delicious meal under a beautiful sky. The temperature was quite pleasant thanks to heavy rain earlier in the day. As our evening drew to a close, we were treated to a beautiful sunset. Below is a picture of most of the group present and a picture of Mr. and Mrs. Chen, our gracious hosts.

Our final day of classes is tomorrow (Friday), and as I look over the blog, I realize that I have not posted any pictures of our students. Below is one picture from each of our classes....

Here are some of Becka's students working on a project:

Here are some of my students listening to me drone on:

As we end our teaching time here, we are realizing how much we are going to miss these dear young people. They have welcomed us so warmly, and now they are showering us with gifts, cards, and emails expressing their appreciation for our classes. I must tell you something that we have been laughing about all day, me more so than Becka. One of my students wrote an email to thank me for my teaching, and in his note he made the following comment, "You are a very good person. Your wife is very graceful indeed, despite her great age. You are very humerous . You can make us happy in your class." (And yes, she knows I'm posting this!)

On a little grocery shopping excursion this afternoon, I captured a few now familiar sights close to our apartment. These are scenes that we will miss.

a woman carrying her wares to the her "shop" on the sidewalk...

a shop where you can buy all sorts of household necessities...

a row of shoe repair shops on the sidewalk...

and another type of taxi available almost anywhere...

In case you're wondering what her face looks like...

And why on earth these women who "drive" these taxis all dress like this in 100 degree weather I will never understand - but they *do*!

weekend of tourism

Well, two weeks of classes down, one to go. We are getting to know our students better and are going to miss them very much when we return to the USA. This weekend, once again, the officials of the university here insisted that they treat us to some more discovery of their island. They have been extremely generous on these trips, paying for everything but any souvenirs that we might purchase.

I used the term "sensory overload" concerning last week's tourism. Last week's "overload" pales in comparison to this week's! This week we experienced more than I could ever, in good conscience, relate in the blog - neither you nor I have the time to write or read it all, and you folks with slower connections will have enough trouble loading all the pictures I'm putting out today! We saw the extremes of wealth and poverty, luxury and simplicity, beauty and ugliness.

We left Friday afternoon at about 2:00 and headed south to go to the southernmost tip of the island. This area is the touristic choice of many nationals and foreigners, although at this time of year there aren't many vacationers due to the intense heat. On the way south, we took a small detour to visit Boao, the site of the annual meeting of the Asian Forum. Below are several shots from there...

From Boao we drove to Sanya City to dine in a restaurant that specializes in spicy food. And it *had* to happen at some point - one of the items on our meal menu was chicken feet. Alice already knew she loved them, and so she enjoyed them immensely. Becka made it look like she was tearing into one, then hid it in her one bowl. Try as I might, I wasn't able to get even 1 gram of meat from mine. I then followed Becka's lead, hiding the remains of mine under some other stuff on my plate. I'll spare you a picture - sometimes mental images are more vivid.

After dinner we headed out of town to visit Deer Turn, a park high above Sanya City. According to legend, a handsome young hunter was chasing a deer that we was going to kill for food. After a long chase, the deer turned around towards the young man and turned into a beautiful girl. They fell madly in love and married. From the park there was a spectacular view of the city lights below. My camera could not adequately capture the beauty of the lights, but I at least took a picture of the statue at Deer Turn.

From there we made our way to our hotel. Part of the trip to the hotel was over some pretty rough road along which were the homes and fields of many peasants. Our rooms for the night were in a modern 5 star hotel in the Nanshan Buddhism Culture Park. The hotel was unbelievably luxurious. The rooms were huge and luxurious, with a king-size bed, TV, AC, and spacious bathroom. We were surprised to find the words "American Standard" on the bathroom fixtures! And "American Standard" they were - unlike many that we've seen in other places!

After a good night's rest, we awoke to thunder and a light rain, which continued all morning. This was actually a blessing in disguise because the temperature was much cooler than it would have been otherwise, and the cloud cover diminished the normal harshness of the sun. We all had breakfast together in the hotel restaurant, and our breakfast can best be described as "East meets West." Below is a picture of our table once most of the food had been delivered. Our little group all enjoyed trying each other's breakfast items. The eastern breakfast included hard-boiled eggs, rice porridge, Hainan noodles, JiaoZi, and some kind of pickled vegetables. The western breakfast included Rice Krispies, several breads, lemon juice, and fried eggs and sausage garnished with cucumber slices. (The sausages looked like hotdogs, but they really *were*!)

After breakfast we walked around the cultural center to see the beautiful gardens and ornate temples. Below are pictures of one of the temples and some of the idols inside.

On the way out of the park, our hosts asked our driver to stop so that they could show us the world's largest Buddha. The statue was visible from many places in the park, including from our hotel window. Our host James (seen in the bottom right-hand corner of the picture above) told us that normally visitors can go inside and go to the top of the statue, but unfortunately the elevator was broken. I asked him, "So Buddha's elevator does not go all the way to the top floor?" to which he replied, "That's right." I just smiled. Reflecting on this since then, I've thought how blessed I am to know and adore the One who has no "top floor" - the One who is infinite. Anyway, here's the giant Buddha statue....

After visiting the culture park, we left to go to the "End of the World" - a very famous place along the seashore. In the early Qing dynasty, the characters "Tianya Haijiao" - the Edge of Heaven, Corner of the Seas - were inscribed on rocks there, marking this place as the south-eastern extent of the Chinese empire. Below is a picture of one of the two famous rocks.

On our hike to the rock pictured above, we saw some other "Kodak Moments"...

...a bush trimmed and decorated to look like a fish...

...and a great view of the beautiful scenery in that area...

After visiting the End of the World, we headed to Sanya City for lunch. We went to a place that was well off the beaten path. One of our university hosts, Judy, knew of a restaurant where the locals enjoy fresh things from the sea, without a lot of tourists present. Boy, did heads turn when we walked in! They must have known we were from the northern tip of the island!

It's hard to believe that from a kitchen like this (notice the blocks for cutting the meat)...

...you could get a lunch like this...

In case you cannot tell from the photo - in addition to the two different vegetables, we had squid, shrimp, and what we *think* was red snapper.

After lunch, we took off for Yalong Bay National Resort. Along the way, our driver gladly stopped for us to take pictures of one of the many water buffalos we saw and one of the many peasants working in his rice paddy.

We were astonished at the oppulence and beauty that awaited us at Yalong Bay! Our driver pulled up in front of the large Sheraton 5 star hotel to let us out. We followed our hosts inside and walked around as if we were paying guests. They led us through the hotel, past the pool behind it, to the magnificent beach. We had not come prepared to take a dip in the South China Sea, but we waded and enjoyed the beauty surrounding us. Below is a picture of our little group - James, Judy, Becka, Rob, and Alice.

By then the rain had stopped and the sun was more intense. Not wanting to spend too long in the sun, we took advantage of the chairs under the umbrellas for about two hours to snooze, enjoy the scenery, snooze some more, enjoy the scenery, and snooze ... you've got the picture. Here's the gorgeous place where we were "beach bums"...

After that, we started the drive back to Haikou. What a wonderfully tiring trip!