Clarks: Weekend Trip

Hello everyone! We are so excited to be able to see the blog for ourselves! Let's pray that it remains visable to us -- it certainly makes it more fun when we can see our finished product.

So, we went out of town this weekend with Wei and her family. Wei ["Way"] is the mom; she takes yoga from Cec here at the house; she is also our landlady. Zhou ["Joe"] is the dad; he teaches and does computer tech service for a big university (same place that Wei teaches business, actually); he's nice but quiet, a loving and playful dad. Meng-meng [meaning, "Dream-dream"] is their 4-yr-old daughter; she is well-behaved and very clever; she really likes Cec & I a lot.

The trip was billed as us going to somewhere called Huzhou (a lake resort town?) and seeing alligators, 1000-yr-old gingko trees, and... well, I can't remember what else; but, we never actually made it to Huzhou, instead spending our time in and around a dusty little town called Changxing.

Also, the alligators never quite materialized; although, we did see a billboard advertising that there were some alligators somewhere; and of course, there's that statue over there:

We ended up going to a geological park and viewing dinosaur remains and a 4-D movie.

[Yes, in China we have a whole other dimension: the theater seats wiggle, spray water on your head, and poke you in the back with a hard, plastic nail!]

Also, we got to spend a lot of quality time with Wei and her family, seeing this and that in the surrounding countryside. We took everything at a relaxed pace and just enjoyed the people and the scenes. People collecting and preparing gingko berries... Loofa gourds [from whence loofa sponges are born] hanging in the vines along the roadsides...

I even had time to play a game of Chinese chess with Meng-meng: She had to remind me of some of the rules, and give me advice before I made any foolish moves. Still, despite her coaching, I lost. [Yes, I was mentally out-manuvered by a four-year-old.]

She was a kind winner, though, telling Cec that "we are pretty well matched; he plays on my level."