ready?........AND............. ACTION PLAN!

 

The Mid-Autumn moon festival delivered a bright full moon and several moon cakes.  Although I did not try the traditional pickled egg moon cake, I sampled a lotus moon cake, fig moon cake, and goose liver moon cake.  The savory cakes are generally favored over the sweet ones.  Some moon cakes cost only a few RMB while others cost hundreds.  My taste for moon cake is not mature enough to appreciate the expensive ones. 

My translator Ted spent the day with his family and attempted to arrange our trip to the Northwestern area of Hubei province.  The national holiday of China is from October 1-7.  Most people take this time to travel.  There are many beautiful parts to this area, but we are most interested in the lake area of Dajiuhu.  He and his family expressed concerns over the idea of traveling without the use of a travel agency.  In China, most people travel for this break time and the touristic areas are packed with visitors.  Supposedly if you don’t have an agency, it will be difficult to arrange travel and accommodations. 

Ted and his family have never traveled without the use of a travel agency.  They are quite apprehensive.  “This is just crazy!”  “How will you eat?”  “How will you drink water?”  Although we are not leaving the province and Ted can communicate with anyone here, Ted and his family have feared the worst.  Even after booking the train tickets on Thursday Ted was not sold.  Before picking up the tickets on Friday morning he mentioned several times how much better it will be if we use an agency.  “Everything looks expensive right now if we go on our own”  “With an agency you don’t have to worry about anything”  “They do everything for you”. 

That is the part that I don’t understand.  Most agencies will take you to shopping areas where the visitors feel obliged to buy souvenirs.  Knick knacks are not my forte. I enjoy picking my own place to eat and not being forced to travel from one place to another like herded cattle.  In order to appease Ted’s concerns we went to a travel agency.  The only deals they had for this time were unattractive and without meals.  It seemed like trying it on our own would be the way to go.  We booked a hotel and next Monday-Wednesday we will be taking out lives into our own hands and attempting travel without an agency!

The rest of the weekend was full of explorations in Wuhan’s botanical garden, and a Kenny G concert.  The concert was a gift from the department of international affairs.  The other foreign language teachers and I were whisked away by a night of smooth jazz with a few funky variations to keep the audience from falling asleep.  In China, Kenny G has quite a following.  He won them over by ending the night with an instrumental version of “My Heart Will Go On”.  As enjoyable as it was, I preferred the day at the botanical gardens.  They have many beautiful lotus areas and the largest area of kiwi fruit research in the world.  Membership looks like a good way to spend my weekends here for the next nine months. 

Speaking of which, this Monday marks my first month here in China.  Before the National Holiday I will present an action plan for the rest of the school year.  This will give the school greater clarity about the direction of its Montessori program and the development of its curriculum.  I look forward to seeing the changes throughout this year.