Standing Room Only

Oh why thank you, a hundred dollar bonus to enjoy the holiday with, why you shouldn’t have. May 1st to the 7th is China’s National Labor Day Holiday and a way of expressing the schools gratitude toward the teachers they have them each a hundred RMB. It took a bit of work to arrange our travel plans and to buy tickets but we finally have a destination. Just like we have business class and economy class the Chinese have their own way to distinguish between the different compartments on the train. There are 4 main sections the hard seat, soft seat, hard bed, and soft bed with each compartment increasing with comfort and with price. Oh, and there is a standing section, which was the only section that still had room by the time we decided where we wanted to go but that was definitely out of the question because I couldn’t imagine standing on a train for 25 hours to go on vacation. So, Deanna and I will be flying on Saturday to Yunnan Province, 2 ½ hours away, and will be visiting Lijiang, a world heritage site know as the Venice of the East. We plan to visit many of there national parks, pagodas, and museums. We may even join a two day hiking and camping trip in the mountains. I hope this time we will have fewer encounters with cockroaches, all bugs for that matter.