Spring Break is over and it\u2019s back to work at BISS for Judy.\u00a0 Most of our year has been a series of work weeks, spaced between travel.\u00a0 We don’t have anything scheduled now until school ends.\u00a0 We might make a weekend trip on a train somewhere close by, but no serious thought or planning has been applied yet.<\/p>\n
I make a trip to Metro for groceries.\u00a0 When Lilly arrives around 1:00 pm, I travel to the Marriott for swim time.\u00a0 I\u2019m hoping there isn\u2019t a crowd at the pool.\u00a0 Today is the last day of the official government holiday called the Qingming Festival.\u00a0 Saturday and Sunday were also part of the holiday.\u00a0 The common term for the holiday is the tomb-sweeping holiday.\u00a0 Families are supposed to visit gravesites of relatives and clean them and deliver flowers.\u00a0 Traffic is greatly reduced, as most businesses are closed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There is only one other person at the pool when I arrive.\u00a0 It\u2019s a huge relief, because when I arrived, there were 12 coach buses in the street in front of the hotel.\u00a0 After swimming, I came downstairs and it was full of people wearing red windbreakers touting \u201cJackie Chan\u2019s Peace, Friendship, and Love International Fan Tour.\u201d\u00a0 I googled the phrase and found a lot of info about a celebration and charity concert for Jackie Chan\u2019s 60<\/span>th<\/sup> birthday.\u00a0 I\u2019ve attached the pdf flyer with a schedule of activities.\u00a0 The people in the lobby were winners of a drawing from among 5000 applications submitted to the Jackie Chan Fan Club to participate in the tour.\u00a0 Many of the voices I hear around the hotel lobby seem to be from the US.<\/span><\/p>\n Schedule_English_2014<\/a><\/p>\n I walk over to the nearby Flower Market to explore.\u00a0 Leaving the Marriott, I notice police vehicles, and police officers standing around in the street, as well as a police wrecker designed to tow a vehicle.\u00a0 As I walk by, they begin stopping traffic, including bicycles, apparently blocking the road and clearing an exit out of a gated area.\u00a0 On the map, it shows there is a hospital in the area, as well as the embassy of Turkmenistan.\u00a0 Several more heavily armed officers get out of police vans, and start walking the intersection moving people back.\u00a0 2 minutes later, a convoy of vehicles roll out of the gated area.\u00a0 It includes 8 to 10 black Audi sedans with blacked out windows, two mid-size coach busses full of people, two huge limos with flags flying on the front (I didn\u2019t recognize the flags), several black SUVs full of security guys, and two Mercedes police vehicles with lights.\u00a0 I wish I knew what that was all about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Spring Break is over and it\u2019s back to work at BISS for Judy.\u00a0 Most of our year has been a series of work weeks, spaced between travel.\u00a0 We don’t have anything scheduled now until school ends.\u00a0 We might make a … Continue reading