It is hard to believe this is it! We are leaving. DiDi will drive us to St. Louis Tuesday (10/19) after class. We will fly out early morning on 10/20 for Shanghai. These past two weeks were a flurry of activities, I was involved with the “One Sky, One World” Kite Festival because Columbia Friends of China sponsored Kite Masters Qian Jiankuo and his wife from the famous Weifang International Kite Museum in Shandong. Mr. Qian’s specialty is that he can not only fly a kite outdoors with wind, but also indoors without wind. He dazzled the Columbia students by flying an eagle in their school gyms and it looked exactly like a real bird. We tried to fly this 50 meter long morning glory kite on Sunday (10/10/2010) – the day when kites are flown worldwide for peace. Although the weather was beautiful and sunny, Mother Nature did not provide much wind to speak off and Mr. Qian was only able to get the long kite off the ground for about 2 minutes. It still was a BEAUTIFUL sight! Grace and Ray surprised me by bringing a birthday cake for me to share with everyone in Bethel Park. If you are interested in seeing Mr. Qian’s performance, check out this YouTube clip
Ray took Grandma and her little dog Murphy to Dayton, Ohio on 10/16. Grandma will be staying with his sister Cheryl and her husband Sixto in Rochester, NY during the time we are away. I started to clean up the gardens and yards. It is hard to chop down elephant ears when they are so lusciously green right now. Neither the elephant ears nor the cannas will survive Missouri winter, and have to be replanted every spring. Ray finished insulating our sunroom, and I brought in about 50 potted plants. The room has a skylight and lots of south-facing windows. I think my houseplants will do well in this room this winter. I am double- and triple-checking all the flights and hotels for our 3-month-long trip. I can’t believe I made all the reservationsonlinee! It was a lot of work and Ray assures me that something will go wrong somewhere along the way. Well, I guess that is why we call this an adventure tour. Shiqui Sun and Xiujin Qiu, my two good friends from Beijing, decide to join us for Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia portions of our trip. It will be quite a sight seeing Ray escorting 3 Chinese ladies – he may think he is reincarnation of one of the Chinese emperors but he will find out soon how many pieces of luggage 3 women can bring. I will talk to you soon from Shanghai!