Jan. 5-Jan. 11, 2009

Jan 5, 2009 - Floyd headed out on an early flight for work heading up in the cold northern part of the country, leaving me alone in Beijing. He was concerned but I assured him I would be fine! I really did not do too much that day, just some computer work, a walk around the park and a walk to the grocery store. It is cold here; so far it has not been any warmer than 38 degrees Fahrenheit during the day so I do not spend too much time out. We have only had one partly cloudy day with the rest being sunny; some of the days have been windy so it has been rather chilly.

Floyd went to Changchun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changchun). It is about an hour and a half flight North of Beijing. After arriving in Changchun, Floyd travelled to Jilin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jilin_City) where Cargill has a feed mill. They put on a training session that afternoon for the local sales team . They then drove back to Changchun where they spent the night. The hotel room Floyd stayed in was bigger than our apartment in Beijing. Since this is the beginning of the busy travel season for Spring Festival and year end for the government, the hotels were packed with guests so Floyd ended up in a suite.

Floyd’s food experience on this trip ranged from lamb soup, where many parts of the lamb that are discarded in the US are included such as parts of the digestive track, deer meat, octopus and noodles made from buckwheat. The noodles were very dark, almost black. Many of the hotels have a buffet for breakfast. A typical Chinese breakfast consists of cooked vegetables, mainly greens, squash and bok choy, several different varieties of rice or noodles, eggs, either hard boiled or fried, fruits such as apples, oranges, Asian pears, apricots, dates, soups, hot soy milk and breads, including fruit breads like banana or date nut bread and a few pastries. The breads, with the exception of the fruit nut breads generally are not baked. They are steamed or fried. They have bread that is a piece of dough twisted to form about a 6 to 8 inch long and 1 to 2 inch in diameter piece. I have had this both fried and steamed. Steamed bread is interesting in that it basically looks like bread dough but it is cooked. It does not brown like the outside of bread we are accustomed to. The pastries and nut breads are baked and quite good, but they have a very different taste as the Chinese do not use a lot of sweeteners and highly processed ingredients in their baking. It is probably much better for us than what we eat at home.

Jan 6, 2009 – I was home alone again today. I took some walks in the park, walked to the grocery store, and spent some time on the computer.

Floyd went out to a dairy to visit a prospective client. While they were walking around on the dairy it was -22 degrees Celsius – this is -2 degrees Fahrenheit . It was amazing to Floyd to see everyone out working, riding their bicycles and motorcycles, just like it was warm. I guess when that is your only mode of transportation, you do what you need to do. Floyd arrived home safely this evening .

Jan 7, 2009 - I called our oldest daughter, Terri, this morning (which was dinner time in Idaho) to wish our grandson Max a Happy Birthday! He was thoroughly confused though, it was Tuesday the 6th of January in Idaho but already his Birthday (the 7th) here in China. That is a hard concept for a 4 year old to grasp!

Today I walked to the park and took pictures. I am beginning to get into the swing of things and can start keeping up with things.

Floyd was back working in the office. They just had a major realignment of the regions and assignments in China and Floyd met with the new China General Manager today. It was a meeting just to get to know each other and figure out what he wants done as compared to his predecessor. Floyd doesn’t think this will have a negative effect on his assignment.

Jan 8, 2009 - Today I took it easy; Floyd is off on a trip to the east coast of China to visit with some dairies in that area. I decided it was too cold, as the wind is blowing pretty good, to do much walking. I only went to the grocery store and spent the rest of the day in the apartment working on the computer and some other sewing work I brought with me.

Floyd travelled to Tianjin, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianjin) one of the major seaports in China. There they met with a very large prospective client. They then spent the night in Tianjin where Floyd and Dr. Wu (Wilson) will be giving a presentation at a large dairy conference. Floyd wrote the PowerPoint presentation and Wilson will present it since the attendees are all Chinese.
Jan 9, 2009 - I again took it easy today as I seem to be coming down with a Urinary Tract Infection, ugh! Luckily the medication Cipro, that the doctors in the US gave us for Intestinal problems, works well for UTI’s also so I started on it. I am feeling better today than I did yesterday but am taking it easy so I can get over it quickly. I am just staying in the apartment and taking it easy…what a life! LOL.

Floyd spent the day at the dairy conference. When it was their turn to present, Dr. Wu had Floyd come up on the stage with him so he could introduce Floyd as the author of the presentation. Dr. Wu them gave the talk. It went very well and they had many come up to them after the presentation to ask questions. It was really good exposure for Cargill and for Floyd. He was also able to see many that he had visited on previous trips that wee at the conference. Floyd said it is really challenging to sit there for hours pretending to pay attention while you can’t understand a word of what is being said. Those that have served a foreign language mission probably have some understanding of what Floyd means. After the day’s meetings, they had a banquet. A tremendous variety of food was served. There was one dish that looked a little like sliced pieces of lunch meat. Wilson suggested Floyd try it. He did. The meat was a little chewy and the white streaks in the meat were a little crunchy like cartilage. After eating it Floyd asked what it was and it was pig’s ear. The white stuff was indeed cartilage. One chick dish was interesting in that it still had the head attached to the body, but everything was fully cooked. They also had whole crabs served. The Chinese eat much more of the crab than we do. Floyd said if you can get it past the mind, the taste is not bad. There was some entertainment that consisted of our equivalent of hip hop singers. The music was pleasing, even though the words were all in Chinese. It turned into a long day for Floyd with him not getting home until around 11:00 PM.

Jan 10, 2009 – Today ended up being a lazy type day. I am still recovering from my infection. I am feeling much better. I walked up to the store to get groceries and worked on some of my sewing projects I brought with me. We also talked to our son and grandsons in South Carolina. One our friends in Meridian also just got a webcam and signed up on Skype so we were able to have a nice visit with him today.

Because of the hectic travel schedule, work from the US was backing up on Floyd so he ended up spending most of the day doing rations for clients at home. He says it is kind of like having two jobs- a night job with his clients at home as this is usually when they call and a day job here in China. He is thankful to have a nice job even though it is hectic at times.

Jan 11, 2009 – Today is Sunday. At Church today, there were many more people than last Sunday as people are returning back after the holidays. After Church, we went back to the apartment to spend a nice quiet Sunday together.