We had the guy we hired in Poland in China to learn about things for a week and after a few days we went to Wuhu for a day. We went to the plant.
When you go to Wuhu you fly to Nanjing so the next morning we were up early so we could get him to the airport an hour away so he could catch his 8:30 flight. Our flight back to Zhuhai was not until 4 so we looked for something to do so we settled on the Confucius Temple. The place where all students went to take the big 9 day test. This was standard procedure for hundreds of years in China. The test that determined what they would do in life. So we got on the modern clean train into the city for a half hour ride.
It was on this train that I learned that there is an international symbol for NO Spitting.
Just look at the size of that hocker. It sure makes you wonder what the international symbol for no pooping looks like. It also makes you wonder why you need a no spitting sign on a modern train.
We got to the place and wondered around the neighboring streets and finally got to the temple. Actually most of it was destroyed by the Japanese in WWII (the big one) as Nanjing was the capital of China at that time.
There were little test taking cubical s, statue guys standing around along with a dragon on the wall by the river.
Finally it was time for some world class posing with the Confucius guy.
So as I contemplate the statue of this 2500 year old guy and wonder why I couldn’t find any of his famous quotes like, not peeing into the wind and going to Bangkok, although I did find one that I think translated ” Confucius say: Man who keep feet firmly on ground have trouble putting on pants! “, I recognize that he did have some really good sayings.
It seems that 2 things have happened. I have not updated this since Poland back in February because 1. pretty much nothing has happened except Ashley graduating and 2. just couldn’t get inspired. Us artists are temperamental like that. Since getting back from China in April I’ve been to O’Hare and back 6 times, Been to Muncie, New York and Washington once. Greenville twice and the grocery 10 or 15 times. Mary followed me home after a week and then went back to Poland the same day Ashley’s parents went back to China and came back at the end of the week. Spent about a week and a half here and went back to China just after Memorial day. I’m leaving next Sunday and will be there until about the middle of July. We have replaced our well pump, water heater and pressure tank since I got back and identified that the furnace and A/C should be replaced before winter. None of this lent itself to a Yusmith post. But now I will catch up the Graduation/New York/Washington deal and a couple other items before I leave. Who knows mabe China will be chock full of news items this time although the schedule doesn’t lead me to believe that will be the case. So to hold you over here are some pictures of the bloomin’ peonies that happen every year at this time. And to borrow from Dave Barry, Bloomin’ Peonies would be a great name for a rock band.
An epic journey bordering on the likes of Vasco Da Gama, Magellan, and the movie National Lampoon’s Vacation the first week in May was a celebratory trip celebrating Ashley becoming a graduate of Ball State University. This required her parents to make their first trip out of China, the rental of 2 vans to haul us around, and the taking of probably 2 or 3 thousand pictures combined between all of us. So let’s get this trip on the road.
I picked Mary up in Chicago on Thursday and then the next day, Friday, we both went to Chicago to pick up the arriving parents.
First steps onto US soil, well airport floor stuffFirst of what would be thousands of times posing by our group over the next week
We got home about 10 and had hamburgers and off to bed so we could leave about 5:30 Saturday morning so that we could make the 10am graduation.
The next morning into the van and off to Muncie. We got there and and did some posing.
Yes posed so that the bell tower comes out of Yupings head
We met up with Ashley who was wearing her graduation garb,
The graduation was the usual thing, students slowly waking in, old guys talking and then a big crowd afterwords trying to find your person of interest.In this case this was just the first of 2 ceremonies as the schools did their own “give out the diploma” thing an hour later at various places on campus.
The graduate is located
Some more posing
So off to the next ceremony where more walking in was required.
last official picture as an undergraduate student
Afterwords there was more posing and celebratory stuff.
First official photo as a college graduate
After a very slow lunch at some foreign food place it was about 3pm and time to get on the road for the big New York City. We needed to hurry because we had dinner with Randi and Chris the next evening. We loaded up the van and headed out stopping in West Virgina for the night and continuing on the next morning. We got to the Newark airport late afternoon on Sunday , dropped the car and caught the train into Penn Station. Jumped over to the subway system and that to our hotel in Long Island City, just across the river in Queens. We dumped our suitcases freshened up and got back on the subway to meet up with Randi and Chris in Union Square near her new apartment.
The young metropolitan New Yorkers, although technically Chris is a Seattleatonian
Dinner was at a BarBQ place where you get your food in paper containers and such, was loud and something not found in China. I think everyone enjoyed.
Randi had to go play Doctor the next day and Chris was going back to Seattle so we left them and headed to the Empire State Building to begin our 3 days of extreme tourist activity in New York. Here is an artsy photo from the walk there.
Once we got there and got to the top we had the panoramic views of NYC that everyone has seen.
Looking North to Central park with the GW Bridge way off in the distanceThe lights of Broadway trying to escape the surrounding buildings.The Hudson and New JerseyNew Trade Center building and landing airplanesThe Flatiron Building near where we had dinner
With that completed we called it a day. The next day it was up and to Battery Park to do the Statue of Liberty thing. Standing in line to get tickets you can see the famous NY pigeons.
You can see famous NY pigeons doing pigeon things to famous NY statues.
and finally from the boat the statue draws nearer
On the island it was flowery blossom season for the trees.
There was picture taking
Posing
The statue lady
More posing
Selfies without the stick thing
Must have turned out good
Always one in New York – the pencil thin mustache guy, although admittedly this is more like crayola thin
By this time we had had enough and decided not to do Ellis Island as Ashley and her parents wanted to do shopping so we bid the statue adieu and we had food someplace and did some other stuff although I don’t remember what and Mary and I ultimately ended up back at the hotel asleep while they did crazy shopping stuff.
The next day we spent the day doing the Metropolitan museum. Randi caught up with us and we also saw her new apartment. We did some other things I don’t remember what. Wednesday we got up and checked out of the hotel and caught the subway to Chinatown where we caught the Chinatown express bus to the Washington DC Chinatown. Subwayed out to our hotel near the airport and everyone but me did dinner and shopping. Since we only had one day in Washington to see and do everything we got on one of the open air hop on – hop off bus tour things to see Washington. Got on at our hotel in the morning and the first viewable site was the Jefferson Memorial.
We took the bus into the center of Washington and made the White House area our first hop off. There was posing.
and more posing
and more posing
We did some more posing and then hopped back on the bus and hopped off at the Capitol where we did some lawn posing.
Some light fixture posing
We walked around to the other side of the capitol and got a picture of the Supreme Court and some anti gay lady protester.
Then it was around the building again to hop on for the trip back to the Lincoln Memorial and that surrounding area.
A few more posing opportunities
With one last shot it was time to hop on for the trip back to the hotel.
The ride back to the hotel brought to an end the tourist part of the trip.
I made my way to the airport and rented the van for the trip home and the next morning we, and I’ll us a technical term here, hauled ass back to Muncie. We got there late afternoon where Ashley picked up her car and followed us to Kalamazoo. The next day Ashley and I took her parents to Chicago where they left for home on an early afternoon flight. Later that day Mary and I went to Chicago (yes twice in one day) where she caught a late evening flight to Poland. Ashley spent most of the week and put together her portfolio for her job interview and she is now working in Columbus Ohio for at least a couple months. Mary got back to Chicago the following Saturday and was able to spend a week and a half doing nothing except for a trip to Ohio we had to make before she left for China after Memorial day.
So there you have it a rather intense month of May.
We have some hydrangeas that maybe have 1 or 2 flowers every year. I determined that this might be because we are on the northern edge of their growing range and they need to be protected over the winter. Last fall I used every leaf from our yard (and that still wasn’t enough) to surround the 3 plants to protect them over winter. Of course that means come spring the process needs to be reversed. So late April I took that job on. Here you can see in the background behind our failed well pump hanging from the crane truck an example of a winter protected hydrangea
So I removed the chicken wire and had to remove the leaves, by hand, carefully so as not to ruin the buds on the plant canes. Canes being the operative word. These are like bamboo sticks that stick up and are very close together making it necessary to try to reach down in 2 to 3 feet to get the leaves out. There are pointy ends . After completing this and cleaning up the leaves (even if this works I don’t think I’ll be doing this again because normally the leaves blow into the neighbors yard and I don’t have to clean them up) I looked down to discover I had been seriously injured by the hydrangeas protecting them from the harsh winter.
