August 30th

We are getting ready to fly to Guangzhou in a few hours. Yesterday we had a 'free' day. We went to Damming Park, which is a huge park with a lake, classical pagoda and a few small islands. There have been several famous poets who stayed there and considered it one of the most beautiful places in China. We took the boat tour. It was a lot like Wakulla Springs without alligators. Karwen spent the afternoon trying to teach Keely's mom Chinese. There was a lot of laughing about mixing up the Chinese words for splash and frog which sound very similar. Actually, there was a ton of laughter yesterday. She got a kick out of swimming and splashing at the same time the big kids jumped into the pool. Keely had a classic outing to the police station, complete with a jam-packed bus, pushy man with a suitcase, rain and rush hour traffic. By the way, traffic in Jinan makes any other city we have been in look like a small jaunt. Absolute madness is the word that leaps out. I saved the guide from being smashed by a scooter going on the sidewalk around a bus going the wrong way to avoid the taxi that stopped in the middle of the street. Cars driving on the sidewalk are definitely something that we are not used to looking out for. I did see one parking ticket though! We have an enormous trek ahead - the mountain of luggage is still a mountain, but we do have helpers. We have been in China now for about sixteen years and only have a dozen or so left... so it is nice to see the end of the tunnel. Since the emailing/blogging stuff has been weird, if anyone would like off the email list just let me know. Also, if you all could look through the list above and if we missed anyone (how could we miss something in all this chaos?) please let me know. We have a few more days here. Love to all! P.S. The picture of KG with the corn ice cream is for the Churchills. It was pretty good. They also had pea and red bean flavors. We did not get those yet.