Trip to China

 

 This is quick- just to share something interesting that David had the opportunity to recently experience.  He visited Sanya Bay, China toward the beginning of this month.  It only took him more than 24 hours of travel to get there (fly Denver to Chicago, and then from Chicago over the Arctic and down to Shanghai, China; from Shanghai to Haikou- and then a three and a-half hour taxi ride to Sanya Bay).  If the flight time wasn't painful enough, the taxi ride with Chinese road rules (or lack thereof) and no seatbelts was probably worse.

Once in Sanya Bay, he and a co-worker helped to hook up a full-motion flight simulator with cables they had made in the shop here in Greeley.  The simulator had recently been moved there from England by Boeing.  The three simulators in the picture were located at a College for Leisure Management (do we have such a thing in the US?), and are used for training by Hainan Airlines. 

A few other interesting facts from his trip:

• Water: non-potable (even at the Holiday Inn Resort where David stayed); the sign over the sink in the bathroom stated: "Cold water is not potable without boiling.  Hot water is not suitable for drink as it is spring water."  Guess signs in each room plus two bottles of water per day is cheaper than a whole-system water filter.  Hurray for the water bottle with filter we bought right before his trip!
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• Raw seafood: they were treated to dinner out at a Japanese restaurant (yes- even the Chinese enjoy Japanese cuisine); dinner included raw tuna, salmon, octopus, yellowtail, shellfish, shrimp, and two nameless varieties, as well as cooked squid, and boring old chicken, rice and egg rolls.  Apparently, sake (rice wine) is meant to be served very warm.  Whereas you might get your wine in an ice bucket in the US, to be sipped out of finely crafted goblets, your sake (sa-kee) will come in a hot water bucket to be served in little handle-less tea cups!  Oh yes- let us not forget that this is an ALL YOU CAN EAT restaurant.  We are known for our wastefulness here in the US.  To prevent a similar phenomenon from occurring in this particular restaurant, policy is for one person at the table to sign a pre-eating agreement to eat everything brought out to the table!  The consequences for not eating everything you order?  Well, speculate all you want, but David's group put forth their best efforts and managed to polish it all off- including the second dish of squid.

• Climate: very tropical, with palm trees everywhere and little lizards that die in an attempt to escape through a hole in the railing of your hotel balcony.  Trees around the hotel had small mangoes growing on them.  Temperatures averaged in the low 70's with a LOT of humidity!
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• Driving: very scary!  The taxi ride from the Crowne Plaza Hotel where the Japanese restaurant was located should have taken 30-45 minutes.  They made it back in 20 minutes!  Posted speed limit was 60 km/h; speedometer reading averaged a solid 100 km/h, with maximum speeds of 110 km/h.  Posted speed limits are mere suggestions.  Lines on the road are for decoration only.  Common practice is to pack as many people or as large of a load as possible onto your motorbike.  If you are a taxi driver, your vehicle is an older blue and white VW Jetta with no seatbelt receptacles in the back seat, and you need to have at least one finger nail on each hand (preferably thumb and/or pinkie finger) that meets or exceeds one inch in length.  One taxi driver in particular stands out in David's mind: all ten of his nails were longer than an inch.  Status symbol?  Hmmm...  Oddly enough, despite the scary driving (which included police driving against traffic, motorbikes going wherever, whenever, and dodge-the-pedestrian), David observed no accidents and no road rage.  Oh yes, if you are a courteous driver, you use your horn frequently.  Check out these YouTube links for clips of the driving in China (not taken by David, but they make a fair and accurate representation of what he observed): "Driving in China" and "Shanghai traffic."

• Time travel: Sanya Bay was 14 hours ahead of our time here in Colorado.  David flew into the future, and then back into the past when he came home.  Talk about time warp!  We were glad for the nifty little Magic Jack phone device he bought before he traveled.  We were able to talk twice a day with no long-distance charges, as this handy little device simply plugged into his internet-connected computer.  There was some interruption here and there, and it did drop our call one time, but otherwise worked pretty well.
  

David and his coworker were glad to take a fast train back to the airport.  Total time was about 1-1/2 hrs to the airport, with several stops along the way.  They observed rice paddies along with small villages and other agricultural efforts.  The train's maximum speed was 250 km/h (about 150 mph).  They flew back to Shanghai, and across the Pacific to LAX (Los Angeles, CA), and back into Denver at midnight.  Two and a-half hours later he was home and in his bed again!

 

 

We'll just say that Mommy and the kids were glad to have him home again.  And we were doubly glad when his trip to Seattle (originally scheduled to leave slightly over 24-hours later) was postponed to June!  We prayed very much for his safety and health- especially after learning more about the driving!