Another morning walk over to McDonalds for breakfast. Gotta have some caffeine. We’ve got plenty of Diet Coke around here for Judy. We did a little more sorting through our suitcases and stacking stuff for our ayi to take home. Many of the small items (pots/pans, etc.) she can use or give to Lilly, her daughter. We also had some misc. bedding, towels, etc. we won’t be carrying back to the US.

She arrived earlier than expected and went to work on the final cleaning. It’s not much out of the ordinary since she’s been cleaning the apartment thoroughly three days a week, anyway. Lisa, our apartment agent (assigned by BISS to arrange housing for many of the school employees) comes by to make her final look at the place and then returns our deposit (basically one month rent). When we first arrived, there was lots of talk about people not getting their deposits returned. We haven’t had any trouble, and it’s very smooth today.

Judy leaves in the middle of all the activity for her final trip to Lily Nails. It’s raining intermittently so there’s no table tennis for me today. I kill time reviewing our finances. I’m trying to decide how much money we’re going to try to transfer back to our US bank from Judy’s account at Bank of China.

We think we have all the necessary paperwork, but exactly how much is a constantly shifting figure. We want to move out as much as we can. There are several more payments from the school coming at the end of June, July, and finally in August. All of the money will have to be withdrawn through ATMs using “Union Pay”. Wells Fargo Bank will accept Union Pay, but of course the fees add up with each withdrawal. Once we leave China, there won’t be any way to access the money, except through the ATM. We do have online access to look at the account, but “looking” is all we can do. There is no way to do bank-to-bank transfers, except in person, in China.

We had dinner with Lynn and her fiancé, John. Lynn is Chinese (from Chongqing), and John is from the US. They are getting married in early October. Lynn was in the room next to Judy at BISS and they were the co-teachers for a daily student “Home Room” last year. She was a huge help to Judy with translations and learning Chinese phrases, etc. Judy would ask her for help, and Lynn would write down the Chinese characters, the Pinyin, and work with her on pronunciation (tone direction, etc.). Judy appreciated and enjoyed her help and friendship during our time here. They took us to a restaurant just outside our apartment complex specializing in food from the Xinjiang region (far west). The food is great, but very different than what we’ve had in the past. There are just too many regions and too many styles of food for us to get to all of them. Let’s face it, China is just too big for a two year visit!