Xi'an, China

We've had a chance to do our sight-seeing here while waiting for the semester to start (March 2).

Here are some observations: It isn't sunny here. The 4 major reasons are coal mining & power production, dirt blown in from the Gobi Desert, construction dust (booming city) and cars. We can see the sun, but it & everything else is in a haze. We've had rain on & off the last few days & we were hoping it would clear things up, but I guess we need more rain.

Don has his teaching schedule (mostly what he expected) and will see his classrooms today. He is assigned a multimedia room for each class so students will be able to see as well as listen to him in hopes of maximizing their understanding. They're all English majors, but English skills vary. He has a lot of handouts, too. Meeting with each group for only 8 or 10 hours requires all possible strategies for maximizing good communications while covering Western history & its effects on US economics!

I will hopefully get my schedule today. It's my understanding that I will work with 1) 100 English teachers on methods & US education system and 2) students for conversational English. Neither will be graded.

The Terra Cotta Warriors were very interesting and just like the pictures we've seen. There is a LOT of work to do yet. On another day, we rented a bike & rode all around the Old City Wall. It's about 40' wide and just under 9 miles long. The south wall has interesting things to see, but the other 3 walls were more ho-hum. We've also seen the Drum Tower, Bell Tower, Great Mosque & Muslim Quarter, Great Wild Goose Pagoda Complex and the accompanying fountain park and the province's history museum (very nicely done). We've eaten at a very good Indian restaurant, had pizza at Baskin Robbins (!), tried the local Western restaurant here at the university & patronized some other restaurants whose names we recognized. We're trying our first Chinese meal tonight. We didn't eat any of the foods we saw on the street in the Muslim Quarter. Oh, my! There are a few outlying towns on our list to visit, but we need to meet some of the faculty now as they return and hear their recommendations first.

All's well; we're adjusting well & anxious to get busy. We hope you're doing well, too. Unless students know some tricks, it seems we won't be able to post any pictures or videos on this blog. Sorry.



Riding on Xi'an City Wall



Terra Cotta Warriors

Bell Tower, Old City, Xi'an



Our Apartment Bldg & University Hotel



Old City Wall from East End

Old City Center Building on Sunniest Day in First Week

Fountains at Big Wild Goose Pagoda

Tang Dynasty Park

Tang Dynasty Park

Xingquing Palace Park

Old City Wall and Moat



Xi'an International University Building #1



Terra Cotta Warriors

Halong Bay & Xi'an University

We'll send some more photos via email from Halong Bay & our meeting with some university VIPs today, but here is a little more background information on what we're doing.

Halong Bay: We spent part of Monday, all of Tuesday and part of Wednesday last week on a junk in the bay which is a tourist area because of the hundreds of small karsts/islands in the bay. Our weather wasn't sunny like the postcards, but we were able to see many, many islands, several fishing villages and had a chance to get off the boat four times to explore a large cave, climb one of the islands, go for a small boat ride through a fishing village and another boat ride under a low arch into a little lagoon which had a lot of monkeys climbing on the rocks looking for food. We left the bay on February 16 and saw on the news that one junk (out of hundreds) sunk on February 17.

Teaching at Xi'an International University: We were originally scheduled to being teaching on February 21. But we learned in mid-January that the semester start date was changed to March 2. There are 30,000 students here and it's a cultural experience to have such a last-minute change. We offered some alternative ways to make up the class time because we had all the arrangements for our 10 weeks abroad set, as well as our kids' plans to join us for the last week on a whirlwind tour of Xi'an, Beijing, Hong Kong and Macau. The university was very flexible and we'll teach for only 5 weeks instead of 6. Our last class day is April 1. Our kids & spouses will arrive April 2 and after seeing a few highlights of Xi'an and its Terra Cotta Warriors, we'll be on our way. Don is teaching a course to 8 different groups of students (30 English major students/class) on Western/American culture and its impact on US economics. He will cover all of this in 10 hours of instruction with each group! I'll work with the 100 teachers in their English Department on teaching methods and the US education system and I'll be working with students on conversational English.

University VIPs: Today we met with officials from the foreign language department, one from housing & logistics and the 4th VIP was sick & had to miss the lunch. They took us to a Brazilian bar-b-que restaurant with German influence (beer). It seemed Chinese to us, but servers brought us multiple skewers with various types of meat throughout the meal which would be the Brazilian touch. The veggies, fruits & desserts were buffet style. The meal included two 3-liter drafts of beer on our table; one dark and one light. There were many toasts with beer and Pepsi (me). We thought the purpose was informational but actually it was more of a welcome ceremony and very generous of them. Communication and expectations continue to be a cultural difference with our direct style of rolling up the sleeves and getting to business with accurate details. They prefer the less direct, let's wait until this is needed approach.

Tomorrow we plan to go to the Terra Cotta Warriors for the first time and follow it with Thursday in the Old City and a bike ride around the Old City Wall. The weather report looks good for time outside: dry & low 60s.

Our Apartment & University in Xi'an, China

We're glad to be back in the blog but now can't add pix. We'll keep working on it and using email in the meantime.

Back from Halong Bay, Goodbye Vietnam, Hello China

Just got back from 3 days, 2 nights cruising in Halong Bay (about 100 miles east of Hanoi).  There was no Interent service on the boat and thus we were out of touch with you and the world.  On board our junk were 10 Germans, 4 Russians, 3 guides, us and the crew.  We'll send pictures from it and an update on China when we have Internet service in China, hopefully Thursday night or sometime on Friday.  We leave Vietnam real early tomorrow (Thursday) morning to finally get to China.  We've been talking about this for so long that we're glad to be one step away.  We know we'll be met by Professor Zhong and we have "two rooms" to live in. 

Videos in Hanoi

The masoleum of Ho Chi Minh - very well guarded - must show utmost respect
Confucius says ......
Hanoi Hilton
Driving in Hanoi -  I have carefully watched the motorcycle drivers - one hand on the throttle, one hand on the brake, one hand on the horn and when on the cell phone, they can still blow their horn!!!

Audience Participation

All of you may enjoy these, but the city planning department can use audience participation to determine which of these might win the Planner's Award.

Notice the nice-looking apartments

Street Scenes in Hanoi

Well, it's a toss-up on which city's streets are more interesting.  Hanoi's population in 2009 was 6.5 million and we saw most of them on motorcycles today!  It's the current capitol of Vietnam & second in size only to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) which is 1090 miles south of Hanoi.  Today's temp was only in the mid-50s, almost 40 degrees cooler than Saigon.

We saw Ho Chi Minh's embalmed body & the Ho Chi Minh complex which included the simple house he lived in as president.  We saw a complex that paid tribute to Confucianism, literature & education next, followed by a quick trip to the single pillar pagoda (to Buddha), the Hanoi Hilton (held US POWs during Vietnam War).  It was a prison built & used by the French when they held Vietnam as a colony.  Next we saw a museum on the history of Vietnam and finally took a walk in the Old Quarter.



Ho Chi Minh's tomb & preserved body



Presidential palace - not used by Ho Chi Minh because it was too large & elegant

Ho Chi Minh's simple home on stilts

One-pillar pagoda

Hanoi Hilton from Vietnam War and earlier French prison for political prisoners = Vietnamese working for independence

The good, the bad and the ugly

Steaming chickens (see next photo)

We believe these are small chickens cleaned & filled with seaweed.  They are steamed in recycled soda cans then added to soup & (get this) consumed!

Street Scenes in Hue

Here are some images from our short walk this morning.  I have succombed to using Colgate toothpaste.  Don said Crest was not worth risking our lives to cross the street.

DT, Another thriving Honda dealership

Engine troubles?

Hue - the Old Imperial City (1800's)

Friday and Saturday we visited Hue (a major battle area in the "American War") - just south of the DMZ.  This is where the Vietnamese declared independence from China and set up an Imperial City in the very early 1800's. There has been some resoration (by UNESCO) in the past decade or so, but much more needs to be done.

Our first Vietnamese pizza

Fishing area in Da Nang; round boats are used to ferry people between the beach & the fishing boats



Entrance to Citadel/Imperial City in Hue, Vietnam; built in very early 1800s



Elephant rides around the Citadel

Two tourists @ Citadel



Altar in front of Holy Buddhist Temple in Citadel



400-year old pagoda now part of Buddhist monastery with 50 monks in residence



Two beers, soda, two great meals for $9 in the DMZ restaurant, Hue; caters to Americans