CHRISTMAS IS COMING IN CHINA.

Our Little Christmas Tree is all aglow with the spirit of Christmas in Jinan, China.


I started out showing you a picture of our Christmas tree, left by the previous English teachers here, the Beachely's. We will have a Chirstmas party with all the BYU English teachers on Christmas night at our apartment. White elephant gifts, food, Christmas carol singing, and some sort of dramatic program will liven up the night.

Perhaps I should explain the map that in the last post.

We live in Jinan. On Thanksgiving weekend, we went to Beijing. It took us 3 hours on the really fast (Bullet) train.

Then two weeks later we went over to the Yellow Sea -- ocean and to the city of Qingdao. Both places were beautiful.

In four weeks we will head down to Hong Kong. We might fly because it only costs $250. each and takes about 3 hours. If we were to take the fast sleeper train it will cost $95. each to Guangzhoa. That takes 22 hours. We then would have to go a little way to Shenzhen about $10. each. From Schenzhen we have to go over on a bus to Hong Kong. When the BYU conference is over with on the 18th of January, we will stay a few days longer and enjoy the sights and sounds of Hong Kong. We still have until February 10th before school starts again in Jinan.

I want to be have another adventure and visit Gullin. Then I propose that we go up to a small town called Zhanglia, where one of my graduate students lives. From there we would go to Shanghai for a few days and then back to Jinan. All this is possible except for one major problem. It is the Chinese New Years Holiday and every Chinese in the country is traveling home for the Holidays. Of course, I think everything is possible, and we always meet some really wonderful people along the way who seem to be there in our path, just to help us. We call them our guardian angels and tell them so after they rescue us from one or another daily peril. We sometimes wonder if our daughter, Tammy has been assigned to us, to watch over us and help us while we are far (7000 miles) from home in China. But as you look at the map you notice that we really are a long way from Jinan and perhaps a western toilet. Also, I don't think we know how to hitch hike here very well yet. We will see. But you have to admit it does sound like a great adventure, just to try that. We would have to spend a lot of time on the train with such a plan. But we also like reading books while we travel. That helps make time go by faster.

The Cities whose names are in red are where there are BYU English teachers. We hope to visit each of those cities before we return to the states in July. We will see...