Jim had a wild ride across the tarmac in the wheelchair too

Jim was getting onto the shuttle bus after arriving in Beijing. We were on one of those flights where you had to go out and up the stairs out on the tarmac. He said they took him around planes and all sorts of things on his way to the plane. Thank goodness for the wheelchairs! This trip is still very difficult for him but the wheelchairs have made a huge difference where they have had them.

We had a group dinner here in the hotel tonight and had Peking duck along with jelly fish (no takers there except for the obligatory one bite so we can say we have tried it. We'd tried it before so got to pass tonight!), Chinese dates, a fish (with eyeball looking at us),etc. We all had such a good time talking about our plane flight. Allen wrote a better account of it than I did. I asked Steven if he had ever experienced that before and he said "no, never". We enjoyed teasing him because on the way to the airport he was telling us about how GCT evaluates the program directors. Now they are not just expected to get Excellent ratings about their own performance, but the entire trip evaluation is figured in. He said he is responsible for hotels, rooms, buses, everything including the weather. So we all grinned at him and told him he was responsible for the wild plane ride. He has a great sense of humor. Allen posted a photo of the stewardess on the airlines. They have the most beautiful uniforms and they introduce themselves and bow at the beginning of the flight. We all laughed and said no one stood and said goodbye to us after that wild ride!

On our way back from the dinner, Jim and I tried to go in what we thought was our room and our key kept saying "no". Finally the door opened and a Chinese man looked very confused. But he was not as confused as we were-it was our room number from the last hotel! I had to go back down to the desk and ask what our room number was. The guy at the desk didn't speak English too well and kept saying "what is your room number". I finally held up my name tag and he smiled and typed in my name and wrote down the room number.

By the way, today reminded us all that we need to tell you all that we love you! Can you tell the plane ride really was that bad???