Raining Whales and Elephants

We spent Saturday touring the memorial park of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, the father of China. The scenery was beautiful but the weather was becoming a bit sketchy. Rain began to fall about 11:00am and the winds began to pick up. We (Headmaster Chen, Assistant Headmaster Feng, the students and myself) then went to Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's home and toured. The home was mini-complex with meeting rooms, dining rooms, bathing rooms, outdoor bathroom, and much much more. The history of this man is quite fascinating. Dr. Sun Yat-Sen was a very influential man in China. He played a key role in uniting China. His wife was very wealthy and became the Vice-President. ( this is the history as relayed by our program coordinator). My knowledge of China is very limited but growing daily. It is a country rich with history and rooted in traditions. I have been extremely impressed.

Mr. Chen took us to a lovely restaurant in the mountains. The seating area opened up to a beautiful view of a fishing pond and the lush greenery of the mountains. At this time the rain was beginning to pick up at this point. I said to one of the students that we have never seen rain like this. The program coordinator turned to me and said "Yes, it is raining whales and elephants." I asked him if he meant cats and dogs and he indicated that that was about an hour ago. We are on to whales and elephants now. The meal was incredible. We dined on chicken, duck, fish and pork. We consumed steamed spinach, tufo, and broccoli. This meal was a surprise birthday party for me. After we had eaten, the song Happy Birthday began to boom from the stereo system and a beautiful birthday cake was brought to the table. It was covered w/ fresh pineapples, kiwi, and berries. I later learned that the cake had to be brought in from another town because the town that we are staying in does not have a cake shop. I was very impressed and surprised. The students were pretty tickled. They knew about it all along. Turkies!

After the dinning, we went to the hot springs. The students swam in pools of steaming water. It is always refreshing to be with children. They can make friends with anyone. Our five students were swimming and playing and eight Chinese teenagers swam over and were trying to swim with our students. Now mind you, we do have two fine swimmers from our swim team on this trip so they were teaching the Chinese teens the butterfly stroke, the breast stroke, and how to do handstands in the water. The pool was filled with laughter and smiles. I was not swimming. I was braving the weather. Did I forget for mention that the typhoon had hit. The rain was pouring down at a much more dramatic rate. As a matter of fact, they were predicting 20 inches of rain with this typhoon. Nervous yet?

After standing in the rain and wind for about 40 minutes, Yuki and I decided to go to a small shelter that overlooked the hot springs and have afternoon tea. Yes, I was enjoying hot tea with milk, while eating bread and mango jelly, in the MIDDLE OF A TYPHOON!!!!. It is almost too funny to share.

The hot springs ended with a bit of a scare. One of our students, how has low blood sugar, got a bit overheated and became extremely faint. All of could think of is, I am in China and I have a student that is going down! Oh boy this is going to be a good phone call home. I requested that the servers bring orange juice. The came with freshly squeezed orange juice adorned a little pretty pink umbrella. I wanted to laugh. You stopped to put an umbrella in the drink!!! Do you know I have to call her parents!!!!!! Needless to say the OJ brought her back. Thank god for the First Aid Classes! After the initial crisis was diverted we headed back to the school.

The rain was coming down in horizontal sheets. I have never in my lifetime seen such rain. It was pouring off the hills like waterfalls and splashing onto the road. We could not open the windows in the van because the rain would drench us. As we were progressing towards the school the water was rising in the roads. Cars were creeping by with the water half way up the tires. We were about 15 minutes from the school and the van stalled out. I was trying to be brave but my heart was in my throat. We sat in the road while the driver revvd the engine for about 5 minutes trying to push the water out of the system. I had the students roll down the windows due to the fumes that were accumulating in the van. I weighed our options of getting wet or suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. I chose wet. The driver received a roaring ovation when he got the van working and was able to get us across town. We pulled up to the shopping center across the street from the school entry way. The van could not make it across due to the water. Our interpreter said we were going to have to walk.

We poured into the torrential rain, hauling umbrellas, bags and other trinkets we had purchased and crossed the road in calf deep water while bracing ourselves against the winds. I know you are thinking, did this really happen, but let me assure you that all six of us will vouch that we had quite a wet day. Once crossing the street, we made our way up the alley to the school gates. We walked back to our dorm and changed into dry clothes. The winds were beginning to die down and the rain was lessening. About an hour later, the air was cool and the rain had stopped.

Because it is the weekend the dorms and kitchen were closed. Most of the students travel home for the weekend. Dinner was brought in from a very unique dining establishment called KFC. Our students were so excited. They consumed an amazing quantity of food. It was a little taste of home in the orient. Apparently, KFC is considered quite a delicacy here, along with, McDonalds. That is another entire story for another posting. :)