Futuristic Sci-Fi movies often have a mashup of dystopian elements that include elements of Chinese culture, marketing and technology. Today we experienced a couple examples of pervasive (and invasive) marketing while flying from Guilin to Hefei. On the flight, a young male flight attendant stood at the front of the aisle and proceed to do a extensive sales pitch for several seemingly unrelated items, speaking in a very loud voice that was supposed to reach everyone on the plane but with no microphone. We were in the third row so it was right in our face. He was hawking a large metal airplane model, a pink kids backpack, a blue…

Bathrooms in China can be a challenging topic for Western Women. Along with this topic comes the topic of washing out ‘smalls’ along the way. We have found just a few places with clean well-stocked ladies rooms on this trip, but we’ve also experienced some appalling bathrooms where we had to change our clothes as soon as we got back to the hotel after having to use these stinky dirty bathrooms. So even if I brought one pair of underwear per day for this 15 day trip, it would not be enough. Every few days I send out a couple pairs of pants and a shirt to be laundered. However…

We met our local guide Yvonne in the lobby and proceeded to our flight from Guilin to Hefei, in the Anhui Province. We are now traveling to Hefei where we first met Sophie, and then to AnQing to visit Sophie’s orphanage, and hopefully her Finding Place. (The place she was found when she was 2 days old.) When we arrived in Hefei, our local guide Mr Ding met us at the airport, and we had a car and driver to take us to our hotel. He explained about what to expect tomorrow when we visit the AnQing orphanage, which has moved to a new building. These days there are about…

We started the day at our Green Lotus Hotel in YangShuo, and the kids had a Tai Chi lesson in the hotel. Then we checked out and loaded up the bus to head back to Guilin. Since we took the boat cruise on the Li River to YangShua, coming back on the highway was a different view of the karst mountains. Just outside of YangShuo we stopped at the “Pearl Museum” which was just another shopping stop. We were led into a large room with chairs around a runway, and we were treated to a ‘fashion show’ with young ladies in gowns, wearing ensembles of pearl jewelry, walking up and…

We started the day in Xian, packed up and checked out of our hotel. We headed out on the bus to the Terracotta Warriors site. It was 16 degrees this morning…7 with wind chill. Ouch! The Xian hotel was probably our least favorite. The water smelled like burnt gas or some chemical. The food was not that great either. We did however see a wedding party in the lobby as we were leaving. It was the groom, holding a bouquet of red roses, making his way down the marble staircase to the decorated Maserati out front. Evidently the tradition is that he goes to pick up the bride and then…

Today we got up early and took a bullet train from Chengdu to Xian. There was some excitement at the Chengdu Train Station, trying to find a toilet. While waiting in a long restroom line, the woman in front of us did a long loud hawk and spit on the floor. Sophie just looked at me with big eyes. We’ve found that often the easiest Western toilet in a public place is the handicap toilet, but this one had a smelly flood all over the floor. So we stood in the long line, only to find at the front of the long line that the 20+ stalls (in a huge…

The big event today was visiting the Panda Park. It is one of the Chengdu area research centers where they raise Panda babies. From the 6 original pandas rescued from the wild, they now have 146 pandas at this center. There are about 1600 pandas in the wild, and 200 in captivity. They live in the mountains of Central China, and 99% of their diet is bamboo. They eat 20-30 lbs of bamboo shoots a day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_panda Pandas that go to zoos like San Diego and Washington DC are rented out but still belong to the Chinese government. If the rented bears give birth, the cubs also belong to China,…

This morning we checked out of our hotel and headed to the Beijing Airport. We flew on China South Airlines from Beijing to Chengdu which is the capitol of the Sichuan province. I watched ‘The Wife’ and ‘Journey’s End’ on the flight. Our flight was delayed one hour, sitting on the tarmac. About 30 minutes before landing there was a strong smell of burning plastic or burning electrical throughout the plane which was…concerning. But we landed ok so I guess it was not a fatal event. However I did have a brief paranoid fantasy of the cabin filling with burnt-plastic smoke… Chengdu sits in a valley surrounded by mountains. 85%…

Great Wall,  Jade Factory, Cloisonné Factory, Olympic Village. Today was our 2nd full day in Beijing. Yesterday we visited the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. Today our big destination was The Great Wall. But first…we had to stop at the government-owned “Jade Factory” which is a huge retail complex that sells all kinds of jade products. Everything is “On Sale” in fact they claimed they had an extra discount for Christmas. The prices still seemed high on most items. We visited a very steep section of the Great Wall, different from the one I visited many years ago. We were able to talk right up to the entrance to the…

Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Hutong Rickshaw tour & home lunch, Hutong artist home visit. Tonight I am writing to you from Beijing China. Sophie and I spent our first full day here in China, and she is having a great time with the other adopted girls.  We started the day at the Tiananmen Square and then Forbidden City. Like so many other great tourist destinations around the world, security has tightened and there are less viewing options available than in the past. I have been here 4 times over many decades, and it was a different experience this time. Tiananmen square is fenced off and you need to go in…