Thursday August 18 at 8:40 pm Changsha time

We're now half-way through our trip to China. We left last week Wednesday and will return next week Friday. It's gone fast and it's been a very good trip.

One nice thing that happened today is a change in the weather. In Beijing the weather was basically oppressive given the heat and humidity. Changsha is typically supposed to be hotter than Beijing because Changsha is farther south but the weather here has been somewhat cooler, and today in particular the weather was much cooler. My guess is that today's highs were in the high 70s, and so it's been quite a change.

I'm pretty much recovered from being under the weather yesterday (having the chills, etc.). I'm thankful for that. Hopefully Sue isn't coming down with something - she seemed to be maybe fighting something today.

Today was the day that Sue hoped to be able to see the orphanage that Stacie came from. That is in Hengyang, which is a 3 hours drive away. Unfortunately, however, the director of the orphanage would not allow foreigners to visit the orphanage - apparently the director is embarrassed about the condition of the orphanage and he doesn't want foreigners to see it. On the one hand, that's disappointing because Sue would really like to see it. On the other hand, it may be better that she not see it if it is really bad.

Today's trip was a 35 minute bus ride to one of the outer villages in a rural area. We met one of the families, saw their house and met some of the local people. We were told that the family that we met was in the middle in terms of financial status - there are others in the rural area that do better and there are some that do worse. There were some surprises at the family's house that we visited, including a flat screen TV and a quite nice bedroom for the family's son and new bride. On the other hand, some areas of the home were quite crude and the neighborhood had a lot of trash on the ground.

In the rural areas, as well as in the urban areas, there are a lot of men in particular that just seem to be hanging around or riding motorcycles. Not sure what they do for a living.

Speaking of motorcycles, I haven't mentioned yet that there appear to be no rules of the road for drivers in China. I don't know how many "near misses" there have been with the bus we've been in and other cars, bikes, motorcycles, etc. It's just amazing to me that there aren't more accidents.

After visiting the rural area - which by the way involved traveling on one lane dirt roads, getting involved in a traffic jam on of those roads, etc. - we returned back to the hotel and went to Pizza Hut for lunch (we've already gone to McDonald's and KFC as well). Yes, the pizza tastes pretty much the same as in the U.S.

Later in the afternoon, we did some shopping for a a couple of hours. The concierge at the hotel volunteered to go along with us to show us the places to shop and so we took her up on her offer. As I mentioned, the service here is truly superior - the people are very nice and they are willing to do basically whatever you want them to do. The service is way beyond anything I have experienced at any other hotel.

It's getting late and I've gotta run . . . The picture attached is Sarah giving out candy to some children in the rural area that we visited this morning.

Gord