Outta Here!

Farewell banquets - check

Hours of the dice game - check

Hauling all of our stuff down to the post office to ship - check

Throwing the rest of it away - check

Contacting Gateway to make sure my computer won't explode at 16,000 feet - check (?)

Saying goodbye to 1,200 kids - check

As you may have guessed from my last post, the last was the most difficult to do. We got our train tickets to Lanzhou (will be leaving later tonight) and will be homeless again until August when we will journey to our new home in Beijing.

Right now it is peaceful in Guyuan. It is late Sunday night and there is really no noise. Quite a feat! No cabs honking, no people hacking, no cuckoos coo-kooing....Quite a contrast to the flurry of activity from the last couple of days. Many of the senior three teacher are going on a vacation together - a special reward from the school for doing such a good job with the students this past year (the senior three students from Yi Zhong were ranked really high for the National Exam).

So, this caused quite a bit of activity for us as we are trying to get everything all done before we head out of town too. Unfortunately for us, what we have on our plate is of little or no concern to them as long as we do what they want us to do. So much for a relaxed exit. Actually, with all of the hubbub and pomp concerning our arrival, our departure is rather anticlimactic (must like this post).

Anyhow, I won't go into the details as you probably can guess pretty well what the dinners are like and what goes on during 'em. I'll just fast forward to the result, I'm tired, irritated and sick. Yes, I am starting off yet another vacation ill. Foiled again by the family-style food sharing system. Luckily, most of the people who were concerned with our day to day lives are out of town so I won't have the "injection" threat looming this time.

So, for those of you who are curious: Guyuan to Lanzhou to Xining to Lhasa to Nanjing to Beijing. There will be some little side trips, but that is generally what our IT is shaping up to be.

So, farewell Guyuan! We have had some good, bad and interesting times together. I don't know if Beijing will be a better or not, but we know it will be a lot different. Hopefully we will be able to make it back a few times.

Stay tuned to posts from the road!