School for Judy over these two day is pretty smooth and normal.  Not much “exciting” is happening.  I spend most of my time sitting in my chair, computer in my lap, working on arranging a piece of music for the BHSFIC orchestra.  I’m getting faster, but that’s not saying much.

The big news for me is THE WET MARKET IS CLOSED!  It is shut down!  I guess there were signs up about it closing, but I couldn’t read them.  Supposedly it’s going to move to a site closer to our apartment, but I don’t see any land anywhere around where it would fit.  I’m really disappointed!  I enjoyed wandering through, picking up fruits and vegetables.  There were a lot of shops I hadn’t even discovered yet.  It’s been fun improving my understanding of “market” Mandarin.  I don’t speak it any better, but I’m understanding it much better.

I went over around 7:00 am this morning (Wednesday) to get a few things, and the gates were locked tight.  I didn’t know it was closing permanently, so I decided to wait a few minutes for it to open.  There were street vendors with stuff spread all over the sidewalk, clothes, food, basically everything.  All of a sudden, there was a scramble, everyone started packing up their stuff, and one minute later, the sidewalks were empty, and the vendors were all strolling around like they were out for a morning walk.  A police vehicle drove up, and an officer got out and started walking up and down the sidewalk, clearing people out.  After 15 minutes, the officer left, and the vendors suddenly appeared again.  2 minutes later, it was business as usual.

After Judy got home, we met Deb and Graham (Aussies), and James and Erica (Canadian and Korean) at the subway station.  We traveled to Lily’s.  The restaurant specializes in American food.  The burgers were great (jalapenos on my “Texas Burger”), and Judy had a salad like she hadn’t had since we left the states.  On our way back to the station, we walked through the same outdoor plaza area we discovered in August on “Burger Contest” night.  That was a Saturday, and it was full of dancers, skaters, and singers.  It’s Wednesday night, and it’s full of dancers, skaters, and singers.  This must happen every night of the week.  What a blast to watch!

Judy gets some bad news at BISS today.  They informed the faculty that Corey, the second-grade teacher, had sent in his resignation, effective immediately.  He had returned to the US during the long holiday last week due to a death in the family.  Apparently his wife was so distraught over the death, they had made the tough decision to stay in the US.  He’ll have to come back to Beijing and pack everything up, and get it shipped home.  I can’t imagine the work that lies ahead of them as they try to get moved and settled back in the US.  They have a 2-year old son.  Judy loved working with Corey.  He loved his students, and was great with them.  She’ll miss his energy and smile.

I spend the day working on my music project, with some success.  I’m beginning to understand how to maneuver around the programs.  Like anything else, the more you work with it, the faster you get.

I visited the market for our weekly supply of fresh fruits and vegetables.  It’s cool today.  We were lucky to receive our Texas shipment when we did.  We packed for the move, planning for the shipment to arrive in middle-to-late September.  All of our “fall/winter” wear was included.  Beijing weather info we read indicated that October was a good month in Beijing, but November can begin to get really cold.  We haven’t needed jackets at all, until today.  Judy actually got cold working in her room after school today.  Tomorrow’s weather forecast is for a low of 36° F.

I’ve been wearing shorts and polos everywhere except to work.  I was beginning to get a few “looks” from the locals on the cooler days.  Judy was drawing stares in her flip-flops.  Everyone seemed to be wearing jackets.  It hasn’t seemed necessary, yet, but the weather is definitely evolving.

A clear day in Beijing, from our apartment

While I’m on the weather……this seems like a good time to discuss the pollution issue.  We check our “China Air Quality Index App” most days (it’s a free app).  There are two Beijing readings, the government reading, and the US Embassy reading.  The US reading is always higher than the government reading.  We don’t really have to see the app to know what’s happening, though.  The view out our apartment window tells us everything we need to know.  On the good days, we can see forever.  On the bad days, buildings only six blocks away are difficult to see.  The highest US Embassy reading we’ve seen is 317.  The lowest we’ve seen is 54.  We’re told that last year, there were several days when the reading was over 700.  It can change in a hurry.  Last week, I headed to school and the reading was 275, with the wind blowing pretty hard.  When I came out of the subway an hour later, everything seemed clear, and the reading had changed to 77.  It literally “blew away”.  It was weird!  Many challenges with weather and pollution are no doubt ahead of us, but we have our masks, and we’re as ready as anybody else.  I’ll keep you updated!

We get up fairly early (sixish), and take care of several odd jobs around the apartment.  We’re expecting the Ikea delivery between 9 & 12.  In the US, that usually means closer to 12, than 9.  Judy heads to the shower around 8:30, and three minutes later, the doorbell rings.  Ikea has arrived.  One guy shows up with all the stuff and his tools, and goes to work.  He’s finished and gone with all the extraneous cardboard & packing by 10:30.  Now it’s our turn (or in reality, Judy’s turn).  She knows where she wants it all, and spends the rest of the day, placing and adjusting all our stuff.  Usually, my biggest contribution is staying out of her way.  It looks great when she’s finished!

new storage area for misc. everything that won’t go anywhere else.

This is mostly my shirts/sweaters, and all our coats.

Ikea chest, jammed full of Judy’s clothes

I mostly fiddle around with my computer, trying to figure out how to expand an instrumental quartet into an arrangement for the BHSFIC “orchestra”.  I’ve got “Finale”, and “Photoscore”, two programs that should make it easier, if I can figure them out.  Theoretically, I should be able to import a PDF copy of the music I want to use into Photoscore.  Out of Photoscore, I can save it to a file that Finale can read.  After I upload that new file into Finale, I should be able to make a score, transpose and copy parts, and get them ready to pass out to the students.  This should keep me from having to manually write out 10 different parts.

Late in the afternoon, I decide to walk over to Metro for our weekly Diet Coke cache.  It’s really cheap and it’s a 2-liter 12-pack.  Metro also has grated cheese, and tortillas (Mission brand).  When I’m eating at home, I love my comfort foods.  When I get home, we cook up some chicken breasts, and make chicken/vegetable soup.  It’s great!!!!  We enjoy it while we watch the BBC “Sherlock Holmes” on Hulu.

FRIDAY, 10/11/13

Friday is “Assembly Day” at BISS.  All the elementary classes present the iMovie of their “on the road” adventures.  They spend the morning putting it together, and then everyone presents at the assembly.  Judy says they’re really cute, and all but grades 1&2 create their own iMovie.  After school, Judy has musical rehearsal at the end of school, so her day runs pretty long.

Check out the window washers, about halfway up the building. No scaffolding,

My day is finished by 12:30. I have two classes, lunch, and then guitar club, and it’s back to the apartment for me.  I catch up on a few loose ends, and then take a really long nap.  This is a rough life!  Judy comes home and we plan for the weekend.

SATURDAY, 10/12/13

I can’t believe it, but we’re going to Ikea.  There’s no way all our stuff is going to fit in the current storage areas we have.  We’re going to have to buy some shelving and wire drawers to get everything put away.  Saturday is different than the Sundays we’ve visited Ikea.  The crowd isn’t too bad.  We arrive early, and find everything we need.  We schedule shipping for tomorrow, and they’ll assemble as well.  It’s a relief to know I won’t have to be crawling around on the floor, reading assembly instructions in Chinese.

The rest of the day is spent putting things away and preparing for our delivery tomorrow.  I finish up with a walk over to the grocery for some essentials, and a stop by KFC on the way home.  It’s a really good “spicy chicken sandwich”.

The second graders traveled to the Olympic grounds, just north of the school, for fun and games.  If you know Judy, you know how much she was looking forward to outdoor games on a field.  She survived!  They had a fun time, and the weather was comfortable, although the wind was blowing more than usual.

I had classes today, so I have to finalize my planning and begin the commute.  At this time of the morning (10:00 am), the trains are not too bad.  I arrive at BHSFIC in plenty of time to find my room for the week and get it unlocked.  I eat a quick lunch and meet with the “Guitar Club”.  They’re working on “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day.  Only one of the five students is self-taught.  The others have teachers or have taken lessons previously.  They read music a little, so progress is pretty good.  The biggest problem is that we meet for ½ hour on Thursday and Friday.  By the time we get the guitars tuned, our club time is finished.

My music classes go well, and the orchestra club gets going.  I audition the pianists to get an idea of their ability.  They all three seem to play fairly well.  One of the pianists’ was actually pretty amazing.  I had been told last year in my interviews that there would be a good pianist here this year.  He apparently won a big-time Beijing piano competition.  He is “for real”.   One of the violinist brings in an Elgar solo w/piano accompaniment, so I leave the two of them to work on it while I head back down to work with the remaining orchestra members.

I give each of the orchestra members a chance to talk about what they want to accomplish with their club.  The most common reply is that they want to work up some music to play for poor migrant school children in a nearby school.  Each student gets a chance to perform for the group individually.  I’m trying to assess their level so I can find resources to suit them.  We finish our session listening to the progress of the violin/piano duo.  They sound great and we’re all inspired.

The trains are really packed as I head home.  They’re as full as I’ve seen them when I’m riding.  This is when it’s nice to be one of the biggest people on the train.  They can push me, but I don’t necessarily move.  At the apartment, Judy is in the middle of organizing and sorting.  I’m worn out, so it’s off to bed.

Judy is out with the 2^nd graders for “Day 3” of their “BISS on the Road” activities.  Their project is “Community, Past and Present”.  They start off with Kung Fu lessons from a master teacher who comes to the school.  Then they get a calligraphy lesson from a renowned retired artist.  After their morning activities, they board a bus.  They arrive at a park area built near the Olympic sites, celebrating the history and culture of the 56 minorities that populate China.

Judy said it was about the size of the “Countries” area at Epcot.  Each minority had it’s own village/cultural section, and the students spent the afternoon walking through the displays.  Judy was amazed at the size and scope of the park.   Again, it was another case of a really cool area that we’re going back to visit.  We’ve got quite a list developing.

I spend the morning preparing for our shipment of clothes, teaching supplies, and misc. items.  They arrive at 1:00 pm, on schedule.  The movers are very efficient and careful as the boxes come in.  It takes about 40 minutes for everything to be unboxed, the boxes removed, and the movers are out the door.  The rest of the afternoon is spent taking clothes out of bags, and moving them to the room where I think they’ll end up.  Until we see everything we have, we can’t make decisions on where it will end up.

Judy gets home, and after a short recovery from a day of walking with students, she begins sorting and pushing.  It seems like half of what we brought was bottles of bathroom stuff.  We were told we would have problems finding our favorite shampoos, etc., so bring extras.  We did!  We timed it pretty well, because we were beginning to get near the end of our original supplies, hauled to Beijing in our suitcases in July.  We get enough sorted to find our bed and allow Lillie to clean around it all tomorrow.  Probably the only sights we’ll see this weekend will be closets and drawers.  Since Judy has 7 plastic totes full of teaching supplies, we’ll be spending time at BISS, too, unpacking whatever we can transport in a few taxi rides.  This is definitely a time when having our own car would be convenient.

It’s Judy’s second day out with the 2^nd graders on “BISS on the Road”.  They start off with a visit to the “Women and Children’s Museum”.  It’s a very modern, high-tech museum with lots of interactive displays.  Their next stop was the Drum Tower.  It’s one of the first sites Judy and visited back in August.  They watch a drum performance, and enjoy the view.  The final stop of the day is a museum with lots of dinosaur displays.  Although the museum is a little “worse for wear”, the kids have a blast checking out all the dinosaurs.

Descending the Bell Tower Stairs

2nd graders viewing Beijing from the Bell Tower

Nothing gets a 2nd grader’s blood pumping like dinosaurs

My day is spent planning for BHSFIC orchestra, and the music classes.  I also emailed back and forth with our moving company about delivery of our July shipment.  The wire transfer cleared and they received their money.  FINALLY!  Now they’re scheduled for delivery tomorrow at 1:00 pm.  There’s no telling how long it will take Judy and I to put it all away.  I think there are 23 boxes?

They also told me the import tax on my golf clubs was $150!!!!  You’re allowed to bring in 10 clubs, but anything over 10 costs $50 each.  I had 13 clubs in the bag.  Ouch!  I have several clubs that cause me more grief than success, and I would have happily left them at home.

Judy is out with 2^nd graders for the next four days.  It’s “BISS on the Road”, chapter 2.  The group visits a park less than 5 minutes from the school.  Judy said it was beautiful.  It was full of seniors, exercising, doing Tai Chi, playing table tennis, and ballroom dancing.  The students’ IB project is “Community” so they’re checking out local activities, parks, and events.  There was a small stage and a group of retired musicians were performing excerpts from famous Chinese Opera on traditional instruments.  It’s not planned or scheduled.  They just get together and play for their own entertainment.

BISS 2nd graders, “On the Road”, with two of their teachers, Roger (US), and Summer (China).

Art project in the park

Retired musicians performing in a local park.

Next, the group takes a bus over to the “Lama Temple”.  Judy says it has the biggest Buddha she’s seen since we’ve been here (no pictures allowed).  The students observe visitors burning incense and praying.  They finish the day seated out front, drawing the temple.

Confucius statue, gifts hanging on fence in front

Incense burning and prayers outside the Lama Temple

A gate outside the Lama Temple

My day is spent planning for the BHSFIC “orchestra” club.  It’s tough finding something for a group like this to work on.  The performance levels are so varied.  I’m looking for music to challenge the better musicians, but not scare off the weaker musicians.

I go out on an errand, looking for a pan to make omelets.  We bought eggs, peppers, tomatoes, and Canadian bacon yesterday.  I just need something to cook it in.  We also need mustard and none of our regular grocery stops have it (yellow mustard that is).  Carrefour is just down the street, but I haven’t been there since early August.  The prices are high and it’s crowded.  When we first moved here, Carrefour seemed a long walk.  I laugh at myself as I walk it today.  My sense of distance has sure adjusted to my situation.  I find a pan that will work great, and also the mustard.  I walk back and get ready for an evening of vegetable prepping, “Hulu”, and “Newsroom”.

We spent Saturday unpacking and recovering from all our cruise “rest and relaxation”.  We went over to the BHG Market in the mall, and found some chicken we can cook up and add to a soup/stew.  We got home and still had time to walk to Metro.  Judy found some shoes, and some CD’s she needed for her choir.  We found our cache of Diet Coke that should last us for at least a week.  The biggest problem with all this shopping is we can only buy what we can carry and will fit in our “Canton” cart.

Sunday, we walked over to the wet market.  It was Judy’s first visit.  Late morning on a Sunday isn’t a good time to arrive at the market.  The crowd was huge.  We made our fruit and vegetable purchases, and headed home.  The rest of the day was spent working on iPhoto.  We’ve taken so many photos, recently, we couldn’t find anything we needed.  Judy had pictures from her iPod at school, and her phone.  We had duplicates of some pictures and others seemed lost.  We finally sat down, and decided how we were going to organize them.

I’m still trying to catch up on blog writing and posting pictures.  Should be caught up by the end of the day.  Judy has most of her sub instructions ready, and is packed for “BISS on the Road” with the 2^nd graders.  She has four days with them this week.  She’ll see some new things in Beijing we haven’t seen before.

We’re up a little earlier than the past few days.  We have an early excursion departure.  We’re going to view the Three Gorges Dam Project.  When we depart the boat, we load buses, and are transported to an area built to look down on the whole area.  The best news for us is that there are escalators taking crowds to the top.  Since the project was completed in 2001 and was 20 years in the planning, the government was able to build a modern facility to show off their success.

This tetrahedron shaped rock was the type used to stop the water flow. The Chinese did a lot of research to figure out the best design and fit for the base of the dam.

Description of the tetrahedron shaped rock

It’s foggy/misty, and we can’t see much in the direction of the reservoir and dam, but the locks area is clear enough to view.  We’re told the Chinese army leveled five mountains to make way for the project.  When the Chinese decide to do something, they have the available manpower to do it.  We arrived fairly early on the site, but the crowds were not far behind.  It begins to resemble Disneyland on Xmas day (although they don’t handle crowds quite as well as Disney).

After our return to the boat, we have time to pack before the cruise enters the Xilong Gorge, the last of the Three Gorges.  We sit on our balcony and take in the view.  The river is much different below the dam.  None of these homes had to relocated so the shoreline is more natural.  There are beach areas that didn’t exist above the dam, and older homes that have been taken care of.

When we dock and disembark, it’s wild!  Our driver comes frantically running on the boat looking for us, obviously in a hurry.  He has a porter ready for our bags, and we hike up the steps to the parking area.  There are cars and buses everywhere, honking and yelling fills the air.  We make our way past numerous taxi drivers, aggressively offering their services.  It’s a relief to finally get to our vehicle.  The driver inches through the traffic, honking and shouting with the rest of them.  The road turns from dirt to paved and gradually widens as we move toward the city.  Forty-five minutes later we’re at the small Yichang airport, checking in.

Our flight gets off 10 minutes early (yes, early).  The flight lands in Beijing at 7:30 pm, almost 30 minutes ahead of schedule.  The airport seems almost empty.  The taxi ride is without incident, and we are home by 8:30.

We had a great trip!  The views on the cruise were dramatic, and our trip relaxing.  We were closely watched everywhere we went on our boat, since there were so few foreigners.  Sometimes we felt like we were in a fishbowl.  We were always the first group off the boat for excursions, since we had to have a special guide that could translate.  We weren’t that impressed with the food.  I’ve had better Chinese food.  Our German shipmates agreed the food quality was lacking, and they’ve lived in China for over 10 years.  The Chinese sure seemed to enjoy it.  We’ll probably try to travel outside China next year on this holiday.  The crowds off the boats were big and tough to negotiate.