Unfortunately, we did not get this posted in a timely manner when we arrived home from China. We got caught up in too many things. Hope everyone enjoys it even though it is a bit late!
March 23, 2009 – Well it is time to get things started with packing for the trip home. We will try to leave as much as we can behind at the apartment complex but there is always plenty to take home too. I kind of think our stuff multiplies while we are here. I started the week out well with my usual trip to the gym, I hope I can keep up the pace at home of exercising 4 days a week like I have done while over here this time. I know it is so good for me!
This morning Floyd flew to Chengdu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu). It is considered to be in the Southwest part of China in the Sichuan Province. This is not far from the big earthquake in May of 2008 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Sichuan_earthquake). After arriving, they drove for a little over two hours to call on a dairy that is just getting started. After walking through the dairy, they gave a training session to the dairy workers and then answered questions. Once done, they drove back to Chengdu, finally getting to the hotel just after 9 PM. They checked in and then went to dinner. This was Floyd’s first taste of true authentic Sichuan cooking. They are famous for hot spicy dishes. Floyd said they live up to their reputation.
March 24, 2009 – Another day, another trip to the gym. Today I was ahead of schedule to I went to the gym a little early. I did some preliminary stretching and weight training before I got on the treadmill. I watched a full movie and then switched stations and realized a move we watched last night was on, I went back and forth from the bedroom while we were watching it. Jeff kept IM’ing me so I missed out on some of the plot so I was able to catch up today. That meant almost 2 hours on the treadmill though. My legs were kind of rubbery when I was walking home!
Floyd started the day with a 2 hour drive to another dairy. Once done there they drove for about 45 minutes where Floyd participated in a question and answer session at a feeder group meeting. After a late lunch, they drove to another dairy where they spent the rest of the day. The owner did have two dairies, but one was basically destroyed in the earthquake, killing or causing to be sold several hundred cows. Floyd was about 20 km (12 miles) from the main area that was hit. Once they finished at the dairy, they then drove for almost 3 hours to get back to Chengdu. Another late dinner and short night just to start it all over again in the morning.
March 25, 2009 – Nothing much out of the ordinary today. Just get up eat, clean up and organize some things for packing then going to the gym. Just thought I would introduce a fruit that is available over here. It is called a Dragon fruit. It is very unique and quite tasty. I took some pictures of it and we will start a new picture folder of some unusual foods over here as we run across them. The first picture of the dragon fruit is the whole raw fruit, the second picture is of it sliced in half showing the insides, and the third shows how easy the skin peels off (once it is quartered it is almost as easily to peel as a banana). I spend quite a bit of my evenings while Floyd is gone on the computer checking on things and working on my Chinese. I feel like I am getting nowhere in a hurry with it.
This morning Floyd and his group left Chengdu and drove for over 3 hours to a dairy in the Chongqing area (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chongqing). This part of China is much different than the Beijing area. It is very mountainous. It also was overcast with the type of clouds that one would expect near the ocean. He was told this was with the mountains and high humidity, this forma a foggy mist that just seems to hang around. It was much hotter than Beijing, with high temperatures almost 80 degrees. They did an evaluation of the dairy and then had a late lunch on the dairy. Many of the farms have complete kitchen facilities with a dining room that rivals many restaurants. This was a very nice facility and the lunch was very good, even the cow lips that Floyd had. Floyd said that many of the dishes had little red and green chilies in them. The spun the lazy-susan part of the table so a dish of cooked chilies was in front of Floyd and told him they made it just for him. He took some in his cop-sticks and ate it much to their surprise. He said there was another dish that they said was also very spicy and asked if he wanted to try it. It had small pieces of pork cooked with small slices of red and green chilies. He said it was as hot as anything he has ever had, including the hottest Mexican food. After completing the visit they went into Chongqing to spend the night. At dinner, Floyd had a couple of other items he had not yet come across. One was pond eels. These are small eels that are about the size of a large night crawler. The just cook them whole in a sauce with mushrooms and seasoning. The other was fish-head soup. Yes, Floyd said they have a soup base and then put in a large fish-head and let it cook. Floyd was lucky - he got one of the eye-balls. He also had chicken and pork kidneys and egg yolks encased in pork liver. There were also many more spicy dishes. While some of the dishes may sound undesirable or gross, compared to our Western tastes, it is a matter of life to the Chinese. They don’t waste much. He said they actually got to the hotel after eating dinner about 8:30 PM. This is a record for this week. Floyd said he is going to have to come home to rest up after the marathon this week.
March 26, 2009 – I kept my self busy today going to the gym, I watched a movie I have never seen before but have heard a lot about it from my kids and grandkids…it was “Inspector Gadget”. It was really cute and made the time go by quickly. I also kept busy packing as I have to have everything done today so we can leave at around noon tomorrow. It has been a challenge of how to pack things since Floyd is gone this week. Basically I had to pack everything except what he is going to wear home. The suitcase he took with him will go home the way he has it now.
More of the same today for Floyd. They went to another farm, near Chonqing, arriving about 10:30 AM. It is a very beautiful dairy with a very unique and aggressive vision. They have a theme park setting, with a children’s camp, a planned hotel and a new milk processing plant. The signs in English say Cow DreamWorks. It is designed to be a fun family place that promotes a very positive image of the dairy industry. They currently have about 3,000 total head with 1,200 milking cows. They plan to expand to 10,000 head with about 5,000 milking cows. They have both Holstein and Jersey cows. They had a very lengthy meeting providing training on calf raising, by Dr. Wu and Floyd did a session on heat stress. They then answered questions and led a discussion for a period of time. The training was presented to about 20 dairy employees and about 8 of the sales team. It was interesting, management required all employees to sign a sheet showing they attended the training and then Dr. Wu and Floyd had to fill out a section and sign their names to show what training they had presented. They left the farm about 6:00 PM. Some pictures of this dairy and a couple of others from this trip are posted in the album titled China Dairy Pictures. They grabbed a quick dinner at the airport and then returned to Beijing late tonight, with Floyd getting to the apartment after 11:00 PM. It will be a short night before a long flight home tomorrow. At least he can sleep, or try to, on the plane.
March 27, 2009 – Today we travelled home from China. This time it was uneventful. We ate, watched a movie, slept, ate, watched a movie, slept, ate, etc. Even though the trip is long, there are usually plenty of things to do. We arrived in San Francisco on time this month and made it through all the customs, security, etc. on time to make our flight to Boise on time this trip. Thank goodness. We really enjoy China, but it is always good to get home. We look forward to going back on about May 4th.
March 23, 2009 – Well it is time to get things started with packing for the trip home. We will try to leave as much as we can behind at the apartment complex but there is always plenty to take home too. I kind of think our stuff multiplies while we are here. I started the week out well with my usual trip to the gym, I hope I can keep up the pace at home of exercising 4 days a week like I have done while over here this time. I know it is so good for me!
This morning Floyd flew to Chengdu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu). It is considered to be in the Southwest part of China in the Sichuan Province. This is not far from the big earthquake in May of 2008 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Sichuan_earthquake). After arriving, they drove for a little over two hours to call on a dairy that is just getting started. After walking through the dairy, they gave a training session to the dairy workers and then answered questions. Once done, they drove back to Chengdu, finally getting to the hotel just after 9 PM. They checked in and then went to dinner. This was Floyd’s first taste of true authentic Sichuan cooking. They are famous for hot spicy dishes. Floyd said they live up to their reputation.
March 24, 2009 – Another day, another trip to the gym. Today I was ahead of schedule to I went to the gym a little early. I did some preliminary stretching and weight training before I got on the treadmill. I watched a full movie and then switched stations and realized a move we watched last night was on, I went back and forth from the bedroom while we were watching it. Jeff kept IM’ing me so I missed out on some of the plot so I was able to catch up today. That meant almost 2 hours on the treadmill though. My legs were kind of rubbery when I was walking home!
Floyd started the day with a 2 hour drive to another dairy. Once done there they drove for about 45 minutes where Floyd participated in a question and answer session at a feeder group meeting. After a late lunch, they drove to another dairy where they spent the rest of the day. The owner did have two dairies, but one was basically destroyed in the earthquake, killing or causing to be sold several hundred cows. Floyd was about 20 km (12 miles) from the main area that was hit. Once they finished at the dairy, they then drove for almost 3 hours to get back to Chengdu. Another late dinner and short night just to start it all over again in the morning.
March 25, 2009 – Nothing much out of the ordinary today. Just get up eat, clean up and organize some things for packing then going to the gym. Just thought I would introduce a fruit that is available over here. It is called a Dragon fruit. It is very unique and quite tasty. I took some pictures of it and we will start a new picture folder of some unusual foods over here as we run across them. The first picture of the dragon fruit is the whole raw fruit, the second picture is of it sliced in half showing the insides, and the third shows how easy the skin peels off (once it is quartered it is almost as easily to peel as a banana). I spend quite a bit of my evenings while Floyd is gone on the computer checking on things and working on my Chinese. I feel like I am getting nowhere in a hurry with it.
This morning Floyd and his group left Chengdu and drove for over 3 hours to a dairy in the Chongqing area (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chongqing). This part of China is much different than the Beijing area. It is very mountainous. It also was overcast with the type of clouds that one would expect near the ocean. He was told this was with the mountains and high humidity, this forma a foggy mist that just seems to hang around. It was much hotter than Beijing, with high temperatures almost 80 degrees. They did an evaluation of the dairy and then had a late lunch on the dairy. Many of the farms have complete kitchen facilities with a dining room that rivals many restaurants. This was a very nice facility and the lunch was very good, even the cow lips that Floyd had. Floyd said that many of the dishes had little red and green chilies in them. The spun the lazy-susan part of the table so a dish of cooked chilies was in front of Floyd and told him they made it just for him. He took some in his cop-sticks and ate it much to their surprise. He said there was another dish that they said was also very spicy and asked if he wanted to try it. It had small pieces of pork cooked with small slices of red and green chilies. He said it was as hot as anything he has ever had, including the hottest Mexican food. After completing the visit they went into Chongqing to spend the night. At dinner, Floyd had a couple of other items he had not yet come across. One was pond eels. These are small eels that are about the size of a large night crawler. The just cook them whole in a sauce with mushrooms and seasoning. The other was fish-head soup. Yes, Floyd said they have a soup base and then put in a large fish-head and let it cook. Floyd was lucky - he got one of the eye-balls. He also had chicken and pork kidneys and egg yolks encased in pork liver. There were also many more spicy dishes. While some of the dishes may sound undesirable or gross, compared to our Western tastes, it is a matter of life to the Chinese. They don’t waste much. He said they actually got to the hotel after eating dinner about 8:30 PM. This is a record for this week. Floyd said he is going to have to come home to rest up after the marathon this week.
March 26, 2009 – I kept my self busy today going to the gym, I watched a movie I have never seen before but have heard a lot about it from my kids and grandkids…it was “Inspector Gadget”. It was really cute and made the time go by quickly. I also kept busy packing as I have to have everything done today so we can leave at around noon tomorrow. It has been a challenge of how to pack things since Floyd is gone this week. Basically I had to pack everything except what he is going to wear home. The suitcase he took with him will go home the way he has it now.
More of the same today for Floyd. They went to another farm, near Chonqing, arriving about 10:30 AM. It is a very beautiful dairy with a very unique and aggressive vision. They have a theme park setting, with a children’s camp, a planned hotel and a new milk processing plant. The signs in English say Cow DreamWorks. It is designed to be a fun family place that promotes a very positive image of the dairy industry. They currently have about 3,000 total head with 1,200 milking cows. They plan to expand to 10,000 head with about 5,000 milking cows. They have both Holstein and Jersey cows. They had a very lengthy meeting providing training on calf raising, by Dr. Wu and Floyd did a session on heat stress. They then answered questions and led a discussion for a period of time. The training was presented to about 20 dairy employees and about 8 of the sales team. It was interesting, management required all employees to sign a sheet showing they attended the training and then Dr. Wu and Floyd had to fill out a section and sign their names to show what training they had presented. They left the farm about 6:00 PM. Some pictures of this dairy and a couple of others from this trip are posted in the album titled China Dairy Pictures. They grabbed a quick dinner at the airport and then returned to Beijing late tonight, with Floyd getting to the apartment after 11:00 PM. It will be a short night before a long flight home tomorrow. At least he can sleep, or try to, on the plane.
March 27, 2009 – Today we travelled home from China. This time it was uneventful. We ate, watched a movie, slept, ate, watched a movie, slept, ate, etc. Even though the trip is long, there are usually plenty of things to do. We arrived in San Francisco on time this month and made it through all the customs, security, etc. on time to make our flight to Boise on time this trip. Thank goodness. We really enjoy China, but it is always good to get home. We look forward to going back on about May 4th.
