Saturday ended uneventfully. We showed the movie, "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves." The students enjoyed it; however, I wonder how much it really increased their knowledge of England and western culture. It did give us the opportunity to discuss King Richard and the Crusades.
On Sunday we began a new mini-adventure. Zeneta and I had to travel to the provincial capitol of Zhengzhou, about 400Km from Xinyang, where we are working.
The reason that we had to travel was to get our medical examinations. In order to receive our residency permits we, and all other people moving into the province, are required to take a medical examination. We still do not have the results from the examinations yet. The person who traveled to the examination center with us, Julia, remained behind in order to get them as soon as they are compiled.
We first took a taxi from the college to the train station, where Julia had already purchased tickets. She was a bit put out that we, soft westerners as we are, insisted on seats for the five-hour train ride. However, she did get us seat tickets. We were then admitted to the VIP lounge, on the very basis of being westerners and this allowed us to board the train first, when it arrived, assuring us of seats. It seems that, like everywhere else, they over sell the tickets and the people that cannot find seats, and are left standing or sitting on the floor, are refunded the difference, in cost, between a seat ticket and a standing ticket.
I spent the ride continuing to read, "The Dice Man." It is not a very good book and I do not recommend it. However, there are not many English books to read and I still have not located a charger for my palm pilot, which I use as an e-book reader. Zeneta was starring out the window; however, with the tree cover that is next to the train tracks, there was little to see. Our guide, Julia, sat, rather perturbed at the man next to her that insisted on encroaching into her space, and also stared out the window.
I am continued to be amazed at how good of cognition that their tracks are in. The ride is, consistently, smoother than trains in the U.S. even with the better suspension technology used in the U.S. rail cars. A couple of other things that I have noticed is that all of the rail ties are concrete. In addition, the entire track that I have traveled on, to this point, has been, at least, double track. This allows trains to pass without either needing to pull onto a siding, or even slowing significantly.
We arrived rather late and did not do much that night. We first tried to get a cab and found them to all be spoken for, so we walked over to KFC and got some take away for dinner, in the form of a meal bucket for about 53 Yuan, and then returned to search for a cab.
The cab took us directly to our hotel, which seemed to be near the center of the city. The hotel was undergoing renovation. As a result, I was not able to get any pictures of the outside. I did get some pictures of the room itself. I also tried to get some pictures of the bathroom. The room was a standard two-bed hotel room. The beds were both twin size, as they were at the hotel that we stayed in when we first arrived in Xinyang. The Air Conditioning unit was the same as is used in the rest of China, that we have seen so far, This was good as it was a rather hot night and we both wanted the AC turned on, and there was no need to ask how to use it. At the hotel we paid 300 Yuan for the night and were refunded one hundred and seventy Yuan the next morning.
The bath was a semi-wet bath. By this I mean that there is no real barrier, on the floor, between the shower area and the rest of the bath. As a result, when a shower is taken, the floor in the rest of the bathroom gets wet and drains through drains located throughout the bathroom.
We finished the KFC bucket; I am glad that I got a lot of food that night, as the next morning I was not to eat until my blood had been drawn. And then settled down with the expectation of a need to be up at six AM. As it turned out, I had understood Julia to have said that she would meet us at
We then took a cab to the examination center. This time we got a sane cab driver, something that seems to be an exception in China; unfortunately, he did not know where we were going. To that was added a detour that interfered with access to where we needed to go. The detour was due to construction. I am constantly amazed by the amount of construction. Buildings are going up everywhere. Be it new office buildings, housing, roads, or expansions to factories; there is constant building. This was particularly noticeable in Zhengzhou where the skyline was constantly filled with construction cranes. Even on the campus where I work there is construction. There is a new library, a couple of class buildings, and another dorm that are all currently under construction.
We first went to a place where Julia made copies of our passports. Then came the examination.
We started by filling out several forms, many of which were, or seemed to be, exactly the same. We also attached copies of our photos to several of the forms. I am seeing why we were told to bring at least six passport photos, each, with us when we came to China.
Also at the examination center were other Chinese who had recently traveled outside of China, or were preparing to travel outside China, and some who had recently entered the providence. There is clearly a lot of concern for the spread of AIDS, and other diseases. There were also a number of military recruits, in uniform, there, receiving their induction physical.
The examination started with a blood draw. At that point we could eat if we had brought any food with us, so we munched on some M&Ms. After the blood draw I started to have my usual reaction, probably a result of my, very low, blood pressure. I will compliment the recruits for immediately seeing what was happening and making room for me to lie down on a couch in the hall where I could elevate my legs.
In a few moments I was fine and continued to the room where we were weighed and measured for height. Then, normally, would come the blood pressure and pulse check. However, with my having had a problem, they had us sit in the, yet another, VIP lounge, for several minutes. We then proceeded to the check where I was found to be at my usual 120/70 with a resting pulse of 52. While this was being done, the doctor listened to my heart and made some notes. We then went to an ECG, which was done quite quickly.
This was followed by a chest X-ray where I was expected to remove my shirt and undershirt; I will admit that the recruits had flatter bellies than I did. They did not request Zeneta to remove her shirt for this stage.
This was followed by a sonogram. The technician, in this stage, spoke reasonably good English. She reported that there was nothing unusual to report. The test then ended with the urine test.
In all, it went very quickly and had no real unusual tests. It was a reasonably through physical and was done very efficiently with us walking from one test station to the next. We paid in cash at the beginning of the examination. This was not a surprise as all business in
The idea that all business is done by cash is, in itself, a bit of a surprise. There are no store courtesy cards, or any other method of tracking purchases or payments. Most of the shops do not even want to receive large bills for payment. This untraceability, in this modern age seems odd; where tracking people through purchases is possible, and common in the U.S. (after all, tracing parking tickets was how Son of Sam was caught) it is something that is, simply, not done in China. Even the offers, by the University, to hire Zeneta, which were refused, were presented as under-the-table arrangements.
After the examination we then took a cab to a very nice restaurant. The décor was fantastic and the tables were very private. The food was expensive, by local standards; however, it was no more than a meal at McDonald's would have been (yes, we did see a McDonald's in this town). I have included a few pictures of the restaurant and the couches we sat on there. I also included a picture of the bathroom. This is an excellent, and clean, example of the types of toilets that are available here, once you get out of the hotel rooms that have been modified to cater to westerners. I am still working on my balance (I have yet to fall… eww… yuck…).
We then began to head back to Xinyang. Instead of returning by train, the way we had come, we returned by bus. The reason for this decision was that there were no tickets left for seats on the train. The bus ride had several surprises. There was no VIP waiting room at this bus station, so we waited in the general waiting area. We were then boarded on the bus first and placed directly behind the driver.
This bus was very much like any, nice, intra-city, bus that you would find in the U.S. Zeneta commented that it was much nicer than the Greyhounds that she had ridden. There was a large screen in the front of the bus that showed movies that entire length of the trip. There was a second driver on the seat across the isle from us and the stewardess sat on a jump seat near the door.
The ride itself was a straight run from Zhengzhou to Xinyang with no scheduled stops. A couple of stops were made, along the freeway, to unload passengers. These stops went very quickly as the stewardess quickly unloaded their luggage form the lower storage area and the bus was quickly moving again. There was also one, almost stop, made to change drivers. I call it an almost stop because the bus did not stop. The driver simply slowed, put the bus in neutral and stepped out of the drivers seat and the other driver stepped in. The driver change went quite quickly and smoothly.
It was the road that surprised me. I did not expect an interstate highway of that quality. I was impressed by what I saw. I had first thought that the reason for the quality of the rail system was due to a decision to focus on quality rail instead of highways. What I saw was a highway that rivaled Interstate five, through the valley, at it's best. While the lanes were narrower, they were very well maintained there were three of them, a passing lane, a carriageway (driving lane, spelled, "darriage"), and a breakdown lane. The highways are toll roads with a ticket being given as one enters the highway, then the toll is paid upon exit. The bus we were on, and the heavy trucks, seemed to exit several times pay the road toll, and get right back on the highway. I believe that this was a form of time stamping. There were clearly more trucks and buses than automobiles, chauffeured Volkswagons' being very common here.
The speed limits were as follows: sedans 120Km/h, buses 100 Km/h, and trucks 80 Km/h, with a minimum speed of 60 Km/h. I saw two police vehicles on the entire 400 Km trip. One was a radar/photo van and the other was in a car, a Volkswagen Santana, (which is the same as a Quantum. It is a fairly popular large car here) ignoring the horn blowing death race that was going on around him. Other traffic rules that are clearly posted are prohibitions from driving while fatigued, talking on the cell phone while driving, dumping waste, and extended driving in the passing lane, the last one seemed to be regularly ignored except when passing in the breakdown lane (Yes, in a full size Bus). Yes, the signs were in English as well as Chinese.
I also noticed the lack of on/off ramps. The highway passed many villages that had no direct access to the highway. These villages had small roads going through them with one or sometimes two lanes. It appeared that the local, village, roads then connected to the highway at the major off ramps and rest areas. The rest areas, typically, had fuel, a market with food shops and housing for the staff. These were situated about every 100km.
When we arrived in Xinyang the stewardess insisted that she walk us to the cab zone and place us on a cab. I knew where we were and was interested in walking around for a while. However I did not want to appear unappreciative of the effort that she was making. So, we got in the cab, and even though she had already told the driver where to take us, I showed the driver the card for the University. He took us straight to the University and I was back in time to ride straight to the film showing that I had arranged with Collin. Collin had also covered for my class while I was gone.
The next day, Tuesday, about the only eventful thing that happened was that I broke the chain on my bicycle. I was going up a hill and Pop… pop… and then no pedal action and the chain was on the ground behind me. I will go back to the shop where I got the bike and see about a new chain, I think it should still be under warranty. I may see if it is possible to get a heaver chain. The only other possibility is to prepare myself for the purchase of a bike with a derailleur and selectable gears. They do exist, they are just not as common, and much more expensive. The only holdup on going back is that Susanne is the person that I need to go with, seeing as she was with me when I purchased the bicycle, and she has been working very long days lately.
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