Team Journal, October 13

Wednesday, October 13, 2010--K.C.

Thought of the Day: "Never underestimate the ability of a small group of individuals to change the world." Margaret Mead

Started to school 10 minutes earlier to try and beat the traffic. After some hair-raising encounters with cement trucks, public buses, private buses, little school children walking alone, big school children walking in packs, bicyclists carrying huge bundles, mopeds darting in front of us at the last second and various and sundry other means of human conveyance we made it to Hi-Tech College only 10 minutes late for our first class instead of our usual half hour late appearance. I remarked to Fred and Ginny that Xi'an traffic looked like an enormous game of chicken. The wonder is that more accidents don't happen. Fred said that he saw the remnants of one the other day, but I haven't seen any (kena hora).

My first class was new and I told them about my life in Bellingham, Washington and showed them pictures of me and my son in Washington DC, Disneyworld, and Bellingham. They responded well and the time passed quickly.

I was worried about my next class. I had already met with them at the beginning of the week and they had been absolutely silent. Lei Shuya had to come into the room and speak to them in Chinese before they responded at all. This would be our second meeting and I didn't have much planned. To my surprise and delight, they talked quite freely and even asked me some questions about the United States. I was relieved to find that the period ended while we were still actively discussing things.

After lunch, Fred and I went to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda to see the water show. Place was spectacular and well worth the visit even though there was no water show this afternoon. We were early when we got back to the hotel and decided to wander about the back alleys. We passed some wonderful outdoor food markets and I found a bakery that I'd been looking for since I got to Xi'an. Unfortunately, we also got hopelessly lost and had to get a taxi back to the hotel even though it was only 3 blocks away.

The evening ended with a delicious dinner at a nearby restaurant where the food was completely different from what we've been having at the hotel.