Friday was an exciting, nerve wrecking, sad day and was also a travel day (or evening as I should say). It began with a nice breakfast downstairs- and a 28 floor elevator ride. Mom and I were picked up at 8:50am and walked about 2 blocks away to the Pediatrics hospital to be given a tour. When we arrived, there was a large banner welcoming mom to the hospital. It was very cool!
Then we were escorted to a special VIP room to wait for the inauguration ceremony to begin. In the room, we met all of the other people in attendance for the occasion. Two of the nurses/translators stayed in the room to watch our bags, while we were then escorted into the large lecture hall that was decorated very formally (compared to yesterday) with red table cloths, flowers and a large table up on the stage where mom and dad were sitting, the president of the hospital, the superintendent of all the hospitals in Chengdu, our guide/translator/doctor from Columbia and someone else whom I don’t remember who he was.
The ceremony began with the Vice President of the hospital saying welcome and thanks for coming and etc all in Chinese. I was sitting in the front row of the hall with other important people whom I did not know. Mom was sitting next to the President of the hospital and Dad was sitting next to the superintendent and our lovely translator. Then he was asked to give his speech and he did really well. It lasted for about 20-25 minutes with the translation. Then the superintendent and the other guy up on the podium said a few speeches that were very short and while they were talking both the president of the hospital and the translator told mom and dad, respectively, what they were saying. They presented dad with the plaque that will be hung for the PD center and presented a few other contracts and things that both he and the President signed. And that was the end of the ceremony. Then many photos were taken under the banner and with the whole Nephrology staff and some other people and then we were done.
We were escorted back to the private room to get our things and then we had to quickly rush back to the hotel and pack up all of our bags in 10 minutes. We accomplished that and all in our fancy clothes! We then packed a second large car with our 6 bags and we got into the first car and drove the 40 minutes outside the city near the airport actually to a beautiful restaurant on a lake to have lunch with the Vice Mayor. It was definitely an experience. He is second in command of the city/province of Chengdu and he does not just invite anyone to lunch. Many of the people there had never met him before. He was very down to earth and was actually a professor of English Literature with a concentration in Shakespeare. Cool!
The lunch was the most ornate we’ve ever had and they even rolled out 2 huge pig legs and the chef came out and carved them in front of us. There were many, many dishes and so many toasts people became very drunk very quickly. They had us try a special very strong alcohol just available in Chengdu and mom said that it tasted a bit like chocolate. Then I tried some and it really did have an end note of a hint of chocolate. Everyone said that mom and I are romantics because we thought it tasted like chocolate. It could be that we haven’t had any chocolate in over a month and we’re craving some?! The alcohol was delicious and we thought about buying a bottle to take home and everyone said they would tell us where to buy, but they never did.
The Vice Mayor invited all of us back to Chengdu whenever we wanted and thanked dad for helping to make his city a better place. He also personally invited the bro and Bren back as well. He also was getting drunk and had meetings all afternoon, but invited mom to come back to the city by herself! It was pretty funny.
After the 2 hour lunch, we left the beautiful place and were then driven really far away to a Jade place, where we spent at least 1 1/2 hours looking at jade and drinking tea in the corner of the store. Everyone was a bit drunk too and so we were very sleepy at the table looking at the jade. It was exhausting, but we did find something that was somewhat affordable. While we were at the Jade place, our translator/guide/doctor helped us by calling the travel company that was supposed to pick us up at the airport later in the evening. We asked the travel agent back in the states to make sure that we had a large vehicle picking us up, but we weren’t so sure she had accomplished that. And boy, am I glad we had her call. They were just going to send a tiny car and they had no idea that we needed a bigger car. She arranged for a 15 person van to pick us up at the airport and for us to use for the entire weekend! Without her calling, we would have been completely screwed.
Then it was time for us to head to the airport. We waited for a bit on the way for the second car with our luggage and then both vehicles went together to the airport. When we arrived, the driver got us some carts and we filled up three of them with mom rolling the carry-ons to check in.
We were flying Premium First class, which we have never flown before... business class was apparently sold out and so they bought mom and dad tickets in this class and then we were able to upgrade me from coach to the Premium Class. We checked all of our bags and still had to pay for overweight bags. Then we went through security, and a woman came running after us. She started talking to us and I vaguely remember meeting her before but I couldn’t remember from where. As it turns out, she was sitting across from us on the bullet train that we took from Chongqing to Chengdu and she recognized mom because she saw her name on the banner at the hospital in Chengdu. She also said that we had seen her at the hospital in Chongqing but we didn’t remember that. What a small world in large China!
As we were about to leave our drivers, suddenly two very large bottles of the rice wine that we thought tasted a bit like chocolate appeared from the second driver’s car. There were each 500ml bottles and huge and we had to figure out in our already stuffed 6 bags, where to pack them!! It was such a nice gift as we really did like that alcohol and certainly a surprise to receive them at the airport. We still do not know who actually got them for us, but we are assuming either the President of the hospital or the Mayor.
We were flying Premium First class, which we have never flown before... business class was apparently sold out and so they bought mom and dad tickets in this class and then we were able to upgrade me from coach to the Premium Class. We checked all of our bags and still had to pay for overweight bags. Then we went through security, and a woman came running after us. She started talking to us and I vaguely remember meeting her before but I couldn’t remember from where. As it turns out, she was sitting across from us on the bullet train that we took from Chongqing to Chengdu and she recognized mom because she saw her name on the banner at the hospital in Chengdu. She also said that we had seen her at the hospital in Chongqing but we didn’t remember that. What a small world in large China!
We then boarded our flight and had a very comfortable 2 hour flight to Beijing. The seats were very nice and the food was okay. They had 6 choices of tea’s- very cool. Also, for the first time ever, there was a video camera on the bottom of the plane that we were able to watch the plane take off and land- it was very freaky, but really neat. I videoed both the take off and landing. When we arrived in Beijing, our luggage was the first to come off the plane and we got all 6 bags easily. Then we exited and saw our tour guide holding a sign that said Welcome. She greeted us with very good English and escorted us to the 15 passenger van that was waiting. YEAH! It took us about 40 minutes to get to our hotel and we were exhausted so we checked in and then went up to the two rooms to see which one mom and I wanted. When we decided which room we wanted we tried to take the elevator up a floor to our room, but we couldn’t figure out how to work the elevator. It was a special elevator that you needed to put your room card into the elevator and then press the button, but it wasn’t working. So after about 5 minutes of trying, we started laughing so hard and then we walked back down the hallway to the stairs and carried our bags up the stairs to the room. It was an exhausting day and it was almost 1am before we went to bed!
No comments:
Post a Comment