Other things have happened here too

A couple of weeks ago after church a crowd of Matt and Laura's friends and Patt and I went to a nearby park for a picnic.  Included were, no surprise here, a host of children. And it was a very nice park and a hot sunny day.

Ages from not sure on upper end 12? to infant on lower end, and Patt and I somehow ended up going on a walk with these three on their scooters. Now I know I may have suggested our grandchildren had a fairly high degree of skill and ability on a scooter (justifiably so I may add).

Well I am here to announce that I have seen the future -  some day this little girl will be on an Olympic medal stand with snowboards or at a State Fair riding a motor cycle in a Thriller-Dome!  Awesome.  Smoked our two grandsons. Swirled and swooped - put on a show and did not even look over her shoulder.

We did find about ¾ mile away a very interesting diversion from our ride down a greenway away from the park.  Gave us a chance to catch up and turn the trio around too.

Shopping malls here have large lavish kids entertainment centers of various types.  These cater to individuals or to birthday parties. Our three bigs were invited to a birthday party at an "obstacle course jungle gym" what do you call it amazing thing in a shopping mall. Here Lydia is navigating on the lower level which includes balance beams, cables, hang on things. The kids are harnessed in as Lydia illustrates.

and here Isaac is stepping between unstable cabled posts hanging on to other cables and his harness is dragging behind. It really is quite a challenge, especially on the upper level.

We left there and just outside the mall is a series of fountains, and as it was a hot day. The kids had been working hard, were hot and sweaty, and there was an opportunity for fun, well Matt said kids, take off your shoes.

the water was a little cool and it took a minute or two to get full into the swing of things but

 they got the idea

and Isaac found the sun shine quite to his liking too.

A few days ago, Thing One and Thing Two made a mountain in the living room.  Took all the couch and chair cushions, throw pillows, soft play animals, their bedroom blankets and pillows, and then finally Luke's mattress!

Matt emerged from somewhere and a full scale wrestling match ensued. Mountain erosion was one result.  It will not be many more years until Matt gives up on this activity. Those guys are getting larger and stronger.

Yangshuo: post 3-and last one

some last photos from the Yangshuo trip

We really did enjoy seeing the country side and there definitely were some country towns. The one lane concrete road, and farm land and little community were interesting to see. The few hours after waking up on the sleeper provided better view than the speeding bullet train.

Double click or something on this photo and look at it closely. It is really interesting, there is a freight train coming out of a tunnel in the background, an interstate highway being built - note the concrete erosion control devices being built into the hillside.  I doubt if the highway will have an exit for the town though there are at least two cars there and a guy working a garden next to the river.  Of course he could be associated with the construction crew and the town virtually abandoned.  It would not be the first abandoned town we saw.

Nor was this the first overloaded auto delivery truck we saw.  I just hope the NC legislature does not find out this is even possible because they surely will provide for it on NC highways ASAP.  Those are delivery vans and Buick minivans on top.

This is what it looks like from the road.  We passed it on the interstate while in a bus/van going from Yangshuo to Guilin.

This is the bus/van we were in.  John Paul and I were on the back seat. A wafting scent of passed gas came by me and John Paul and I had the following conversation.
Grandaddy:  I think I smell passed gas.
John Paul:  (looking me full in the face hopefully-in a questioning voice rising toward the end of the sentence)  Was it you?
Grandaddy:  (slowly) Nooo, not me.
John Paul: (looking down, slowly, voice deepening sadly on the last word) It. Was. Meeee.  

We had a great ride!  There was room for us all— and the interstate was in great condition.  China is building highways!!

In one of the train stations, as we were moving through one of the long hallways the kids "freight trained" behind Laura.  Coming at you.

 and going away.  

and from the cave, the entrance sign greeting visitors.  As are most efforts at direct translation- something invariably gets a little stilted.  Especially check out 5 and 6.

Yangshuo trip post # 2

This is what makes Yangshuo famous, the Karst Mountains along the Li River. A scene from here is on the back of the 20RMB bill - look it up on the google. It looks sorta nice like a calendar picture from the river too.  The boats are small four passenger things that make stops going down river.

It was not the prettiest of days and did rain a bit from time to time but we had fun and did not get too wet despite proximity to the water.

Julianna rode with friends on another boat being the big girl in the family which she is fast becoming.

Another sightseeing activity that is quite popular in the area is bicycle riding which we did. Here we got sidetracked by watching a man fishing from a bamboo raft in a road side canal. He was sneaking up on a catfish looking fish and slapping the water over the fish with a stick and apparently stunning the fish, successful about 30% of the time I reckon. The canal was a tangle of sunken bamboo but surprisingly somewhat clear.

 Laura had Luke as a bicycling partner.

and Matt had John Paul and Isaac.

Julianna and Patt rode solo

and Lydia and I were partners, and obviously not all riding was country road.

This being a tourist town there was the proverbial night market done up nicely with all sorts of opportunities for souvenirs, street food, ethnic (German, Mexican, Italian and so on included).

One evening Patt and I and the "Big Three"- Julianna, Lydia, and Isaac - went alone to the night market. Well, as Grandmama was carrying some money, and I think I mentioned there were opportunities, and she did have grandchildren with her and there were some pretty dresses, and well — what do ya think?  yeah we thought so too.  Julianna now has this dress and Lydia a different style but from the same vendor.  Buy two and the price comes down. We had stopped at numerous of these stalls and had pretty well established the going price.  

Isaac and I had meanwhile pretty well tried out all the sound making devices available and settled on a wooden frog.

While Matt and Laura and their friends were doing stuff, Patt and I and another person were taking care of a bunch of kids. Much of the time it involved little more than an occasional separation of lego players which when you have a box full of legos is not hard to do.

Other times it was intensive and involved playing Uno with multiple languages and in Luke's case skill level (good thing he liked being a partner most of the time).

in the afternoon we went outside and Patt did a super job organizing a tug of war between two groups of the kids.  There were seven per team. Our grandkids were heavily invested in one of them.

The kids loved it and wanted to do it again and again. Staff at the hotel and other guests stopped what they were doing and watched. The kids appeared oblivious and were intense in competing. Though tiring, Patt and I had a grand time.

and since it was there and we were there and the weather called for rain, like it had every day we were there, and since we like adventure, off we went to a rather famous cave.  Stalactites, and stalagmites abound, colored lights and we have showtime.  Extensive caves, sometimes narrow passages, and sometimes a little low it made for close walking.  also a few big grand rooms.

Off one passage way was a series of springs that had been separated into various pools and streams.  There were various hot springs - some too hot to enter, some quiet comfortably warm, others cool or outright cold.

Deeper into the cave past more creeks and walking through water, was a large mud bath. As it has a bit of a unique odor, the kids were not much enamored of it.

Also a little dark, and after the warm springs, a little cool so they were less than enthusiastic about entering. Matt and I however did the full deal. Floating and swimming was a hoot due to the thickness of the mud/water, you are actually about half out of the water/mud.

and Matt and I did get full benefit of the medicinal effect of a total mud bath.

trip to Yangshuo post number one.

It has been a long time, yes, getting a working web site, and the time has been a challenge, especially the former. My computer too has been a challenge pretty much the entire trip. Time for a new one.

To the trip: trains, boats, buses, taxis, bicycles, and uber too, but no airplanes. The trains involved fancy pants bullet trains like the ones below. We were even in car # 8 which happened to be number one in line behind the engine of front car since there does not seem to be an engine. However, what ever magic these use, they do go fast and smooth. And above ground. Elevated tracks nearly always unless in a tunnel which is also pretty standard in the mountains. That is us plus a friend below.

We actually rode in two trains. One a bullet train, the other an overnight sleeper which was a "traditional" old train replete with bumps, clickety clacks, rattles, shakes, jerks and all kinds of noises. Here a clump of us are looking out the window opposite the six stacked by threes beds in the "hard sleeper" that part of us had on the outbound trip. (See Laura's blog for more photos of the hard sleeper).

and here is Lydia in the top bunk of the soft sleeper that we all had on the return. Patt and I had a soft on the outbound trip too.

Reading, playing cards, eating, looking out the windows and talking did not take up all the time.  Getting in an occasional nap was a good thing to do on the bullet train too.  As did Patt and John Paul.

Notice the electronic message board at the back of the car behind Laura in the bullet train. It is keeping track of the speed. 246 KM per hour for those keeping track.  

The waiting room for the sleeper. The train stations are HUGE.  In fact China does HUGE well.  some of the newer train stations we were in are seemingly miles long and wide — no exaggeration - seriously no exaggeration.  Ginormously large.  

This was taken quickly (well what did you expect ) from the bullet train window as we went through / over a small town.  Note the "interstate" is doing the same thing.  Note the tunnel through the mountain.  Note the old train tracks and trains in the lower portion of the photo.  There is a lot here.  In most towns there is building of overhead trains or highways.  Concrete overhead transportation structures are under construction most everywhere you would happen to look.

and one of the prettier farm scenes.  There was a lot of farm/agriculture too, just most not as well tended.  Apparently the rural communities are becoming depopulated of young worker age people leaving the elderly and children as the worker age go to the cities for opportunities.  Can't say I blame them as the farmers I saw were pretty much working alone in a field and bent over at the waste in some form of what looked like pretty hard labor.

More on the Yangshuo trip to come in future posts.

Patt's birthday —days two and three.

The continuing celebration of Patt's birthday drifted over to her actual birthday which was the 28th when we had the cake baking the previous day. Big deal blowing out candles and singing happy birthday in a couple of languages and posing for pictures. There were some eager candle blowers and some poaching of the blowing going on— two guesses as to who and they will both be right.

On the 30th we continued the celebration with this view from the 37th floor of the Ritz Carlton Hotel downtown. Yes indeedee! The RITZ ! From our full floor to ceiling wall to wall windows this was the view to the south. Down in the green square if you look closely at the lower edge, there is a statute to a famous leader and author of a Little Red Book, who would probably be a bit uneasy with some of the changes that have occurred here in the last year or two.

Especially with the light shows that go on at night. The buildings put on amazing light shows.  "Running" lights, changing patterns, shapes, blinks, colors that move and shift and from a recent visit I know there is western music too. We are talking uptown. Oh yeah, we stayed at the Carlton, as we called it, for the night, enjoyed the spa, the dining, and we are talking just a bit of luxury. Open the door to the room — the curtains opened. Press a bedside button— they closed. It was a tough evening  though - 45 channels and no ESPN.

As part of the birthday celebration, Patt gave the kids gifts — to the three boys, European soccer/football team uniforms. We took the kids to school the next day and here is bashful, reluctant student (not a chance) John Paul with his Barcelona uniform with his teacher — who loves him - and he her.

and a little less enthusiastic Luke with his Arsenal uniform heading with some serious encouragement toward his classroom. He too is loved by and loves his teacher, but is less visible in showing it.

Isaac with his Manchester United uniform and neighbor/friend on way to Tai Quan Do lesson pausing to look tough(?).  I took the two boys on a local bus on about a 30 minute ride /walk from our apartment complex to their lesson site.

and on occasion the little two do get quiet and like for me or Grandmama to read to them. They do listen well. And bring piles of books.