Tues, June 17, 2008

I slept in til 8:30 and was ready for the bus at 9:30 (too bad the busses were LATE … which made some leaders frustrated). We had wanted to take another trip to the shops, but were told we couldn’t change the schedule of the busses, then the busses are 30min late! Who wouldn’t be frustrated? Anyways, we are driving to Yantai, which is a four hour drive. Two busses are crammed full with dancers and bags. I had no seat buddy, but that means I have more room to stretch. I slept through the first half, but when we stopped for a restroom break we also bought a whole bunch of snacks. I didn’t feel like it – specially since I missed lunch and needed more then sweets – but it’s funny to see what dancers have bought. Some spent way too much!

Anyways, we passed into northern china and it is beautiful country. Brent decided to give us another cultural lesson. People in northern china are taller then those in southern china. Also, rice is grown in the south while wheat is grown in the north. Cars are a relatively new thing here in China – only about a decade. Beijing has very strict traffic laws, but other places are still progressing towards that part. With following rules, one phrase they say is “The mountains are tall and the Emperor is far away”, similar to our phrase, “When the cats are away, the mice will play.” We talked about how that also relates to videotaping at our shows. There was no way of stopping it for as soon as the ushers left, they’d take them out again.

Apparently, our bus driver is crazy and we are all worried of our lives or the lives of people on the road. He hits on the brakes sending all of us forward, he almost hit someone earlier, and cuts it really close with cars. Hopefully we make it to Yantai in one piece …

Well, we arrived at the hotel and had a few hour rest before a fancy reception dinner with honored guests from Yantai. It really was amazing! Dish after dish at least twenty times, with food like sea cucumber, peaking duck, several kinds of fish, fruit & vegetables, noodles, chocolate rice, etc. Delicious! Personally, I liked the sea cucumber, but the girls couldn’t stand the texture. I am really enjoying the food here and will miss it when I leave. Just the way we are served food and eating it with chopsticks, just everything is great!

After spending almost two hours at dinner, we had the night to ourselves. It’ll be fun to be together with different people of the group! Tour just keeps getting better and better!

One member of the tour, Nick, is now a father!! His wife, Carisa, was my spot op buddy last year. She couldn’t go on tour this year because she got pregnant, and now she is a mother of a 5lb 8oz girl named Cicily! So cute!! He'll be flying home in two days. We'll miss him, but will survive as he goes home to his new daughter ... awwww ...