Out of Office O^3: June 2015

Tuesday, 30 June 2015

Look - a mop

And those are Heidi's feet on the bus stairs

"Maybe the best way that I can illustrate this gap in development is walking down the street in downtown Beijing and seeing parked Lambos, Ferraris, Porches, and then a horse drawing a wagon with a farmer selling apples out of it. The farmer comes into the city with his crops and sells at higher prices. He makes a killing (from his perspective) and probably doesn't even understand that the machines he's standing next to are worth more apples than he could grow in a lifetime.‎"

Hourly update

Just hit traffic- checked the map and yup we're in Shanghai

Progress

Progress is slow

An hour later and we're still in hangzhou

Heading home: step 1 and 2

Traveling here, to me, feels like we are in a TV show like The Amazin‎g Race or a treasure hunt with clues that lead to other clues, and always hidden easter eggs, to surprise us.

It's pouring rain, the puddles are wide and deep, we are completely soaked, but we made the airport bus and are on our way to PVG.

Magically a taxi came to the campus gate just as we started looking! We didn't expect that, and now we are on the 7:30am instead of the 8:30am bus.

Our good friend Tang Juan came with us to the bus station, and helped us to communicate with the taxi driver, bus ticket counter‎, bus security, and bus driver. We had planned an hour to negotiate all these "check points" but with her help it seemed to take negative time.

I am sad to say good bye to good friends here, and at the same time looking forward to going home.

Heidi and Tang Yuan walking to the bus terminal

We were so early for the 8:30 bus we caught the 7:30 bus!

Home again home again...

We woke up to find that it was pouring out! So much for plan B of walking to the airport bus if we can't get a taxi.
To our surprise we got a taxi. What luck. Someone was getting out just as we got to the gate

Monday, 29 June 2015

We're ready to see sunrise... but is the sun ready for us?

A beautiful evening too

Beautiful day at Huangshan!

Huangshan

7000 steps. 6km. 600m ascent.
Being the younger sister I can't even use age as an excuse! That was hard and I'm tired. Meanwhile the students have gone on to do another 9km circuit.
I did not lug my computer up so the non smart phone photos will come later.