March 23 - 27, 2009

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 16-22, 2009

March 16, 2009 – another beautiful day in China. This morning is clear and beautiful with no winds. We can see several wind vanes on light poles from our apartment window so we can tell if it is windy or not (actually we can see the trees sway if it is really windy also). I do miss our outside thermometer we have at home. I have to go on the internet to see what the temperature is to decide which coat to put on.

Floyd was in the Beijing office today. They will go to Tianjin to follow-up on a visit they did in January.

March 17, 2009 – Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Unfortunately I can only think about it over here. No one else shares in my enthusiasm for all holidays. I wore nothing green (I actually forgot to bring anything) and we ate nothing green, as I am accustomed to do at home. I sometimes go all out with green omelets, green Jell-o, peas or green beans and sometimes green salad. I have also been known to add green food coloring and mint extract to our milk, or add a little green food coloring to muffins or whatever suits my fancy. The kids think I am crazy but I just like to have fun! I again went to the gym and spent an hour and a half on the treadmill watching a movie. Floyd said “Yea – no green food!“ He is just like the kids; can’t appreciate the fun things of some of the holidays. He went to Tianjin on the east coast early this morning but was back by late-afternoon. Since he got home from work a little early, we went for a walk at the park. The walk was very refreshing and we noticed a lot more people at the park than our earlier trips over. Spring is beginning to show as some of the trees have white “popcorn” blossoms popping out. I can’t wait to see how beautiful it is with all the foliage in bloom!

March 18, 2009 - Today another movie, another hour and a half on the treadmill. I get a pretty good workout every time by varying the speeds. The only problem is that they keep the temperature in the gym a little warmer than I care for, so I tend to get a little overheated and have to slow down from time to time to cool off.

Floyd was back in the office today as he will be for the rest of the week. Floyd’s company is going to release a software package to selected members of the Chinese sales team this summer and Floyd has a lot of preparation to do for it as well other tools he is developing for the sales team.

March 19, 2009 – At the gym, I am seeing movies almost every day that I would not take the time to watch in the states. It is very interesting and keeps me going when I might otherwise get too bored and quit too soon on the treadmill. I do have to be careful with the movies and check on the internet about them as China does not let you know what the movie is rated before it starts. They generally weed out the sex scenes, but don’t seem to always understand what a bad word is in English, so every once in a while you might get surprised.

It is strange to have Floyd get up and leave at a reasonable time and then count on him being back for dinner. Of course this only happens when he is working in the office.

March 20, 2009 – On the way home from my usual time at the gym on the treadmill watching a movie, I encountered an example of what the driving is like here in China. There are many, many things that are different but this one really shows something we would not dare to do in the states. A driver was stopped waiting for traffic to clear she they could make a left hand turn. The driver behind this car started honking their horn and as soon as traffic cleared passed on the left of the other car that was waiting to turn left. I just looked in unbelief! I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. We see that and more each time we take a taxi ride in China.

Floyd finished up is week in the office, getting ready to be out of it all next week. He will fly to Chengdu Monday morning and will not return until very late Thursday night, the night before we fly home. He will probably be beat when we head for home.

March 21, 2009 – Shopping, shopping, shopping again. Love it! Today we went back to Pearl Market to pick up a few things to take home for the family. It was very busy there today, compared to our other visits. The shop workers are no different than other shops. In fact we thought we would not get out of the shoe area as the workers kept grabbing us and holding on and trying to convince us we needed their shoes. Wow, what an experience! If that happened in the states, someone would probably get shot!

March 22, 2009 – What a beautiful sunny Sunday here in Beijing today. We had some wind come in last night and it cleared out the air that has been a bit stagnant and slightly foggy for a few days. We looked out the apartment window this morning and noticed the green leaves starting to pop out on the trees in the park across the street and down the street. Our taxi ride to our church meetings was long this morning, as for some reason the traffic was very slow. The driver seemed to know where he was going but could only go as fast as the traffic would allow. What a delightful day we have had at our meetings. We have met another couple in the branch from our Stake in Meridian. In fact we had heard the sister speak in Stake Conference while we were in the process of making a decision about accepting this opportunity. They had just gotten back from an English teaching assignment here when she spoke. Well, they liked it so much they have returned again. It will be interesting to get to know them better as we return. This afternoon Floyd had some work he had to do and I started getting some things ready to go home. We are in our final week of this trip. It sure seems to have gone fast. Now the challenge is getting things used up before we leave. We will leave some things at Floyd’s office so we don’t have to take it home, just to bring it back again. We head back for the states on the 27th so our next post will be when we arrive home.

March 9-15, 2009

March 9, 2009 – another lazy day in China. I got up, ate, went to the gym (I am trying to form a new habit!), came home for lunch, saw Floyd off to work (he did office work from the apartment before he headed to the airport to fly to Zhengzhou today), did grocery shopping, worked on the computer and just enjoyed my life here. It is amazing sometimes how easy it is to fill a complete day doing frivolous enjoyable things! We heard from our son Jeff via e-mail first thing this morning that there was a change in leadership in our Ward for our church back home. We were very excited about the change…3 new great men in leadership! We sustain them completely.

March 10, 2009 – again, no real schedule today. Got up, ate and went to the gym. In the afternoon I really started to hit the Rosetta Stone Chinese language tutor. I have worked on it a little here and a little there but have made a second resolution (along with working out at the gym) that I will work hard at it each day. Chinese is a very difficult language to learn but I am determined to do it as we will be here for the next 2 years. This is something very worthwhile. I am thinking the learning is going to be a VERY slow process, kind of a snail’s pace and I am rather impatient right now as I would like it to come to me very quickly. I know I have to be patient!

The Dairy Campaign meetings for Floyd started today. Since much of the first day was on a different subject than Floyd will be presenting for training and was all in Chinese, Floyd was given the opportunity to take a tour to a couple of sites in the area. He went to the Millennium City Park, part of Qingming Riverside Landscape Garden (http://english.51766.com/detail/scenes_detail.jsp?ent_id=dxgs). Millennium City Park, located on the west bank of Dragon Pavilion Lake, is a grand cultural garden. It covers an area of 600 mu (about 98 acres), and the construction area is more than 30,000 square meters (about 7.4 acres). The built area consists of several architectural complexes which are re-creations based on the famous twelfth century painting by Zhang Zeduan of 'The Qingming Festival by the Riverside'. Some pictures are available at this site (http://yeschinatour.com/china-guides/china-attractions/qingming-riverside-landscape-garden-kaifeng/pictures). He also went to the Shaolin Temple (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaolin_Monastery), probably one of the most famous temples in China. It was quite interesting to see such old sites. A new album is posted with pictures.

March 11, 2009 – I changed things just a bit today, instead of going to the gym before lunch I stayed in the apartment and did computer work first. After a very worthwhile workout I came back to the apartment and worked on my Chinese again. I keep having very so small “Ahah” moments, and something will click. This certainly helps my resolve. I am going to have to take some time soon to finish my quilt blocks that I brought with me as my next class is going to be on putting the blocks together for the quilt top. I am excited to see what it is going to look like all together! It has been a long journey; we started the class last March doing a block a month.

Today was Floyd’s busy day. He started out by lecturing for 4 hours about dairy management to about 60 of his Chinese co-workers. After lunch, he continued the training on the farm helping his colleagues put into practice what they had been taught that morning. The hands-on training really helps reinforce the classroom instruction. That evening they had a big group dinner as they did most evenings. Many of the sales managers from the different areas invited Floyd to come to their area to put on additional training. He said right now he feels like one of the most wanted men in China, in a good way.

March 12, 2009 – when I looked out the window this morning I noticed the sidewalks and the pavement were slightly wet. This is the first rain (although very light) that we have had since we have been in Beijing. It didn’t last very long though. I had the same schedule today as usual, got up, ate and went to the gym. Then on the computer again, I am finally getting to the point of wanting to repeat the Chinese lessons over and over to try to absorb it and understand it. It seems like I get something learned but when I go back to it I have forgotten it again. Very frustrating! I know this seems like a boring life but I am enjoying being able to concentrate on 2 areas in my life that would be put to the back burner in “real life” back in Idaho. There are no deadlines or outside pressures.

Floyd had a little different role today. They held what is called a feeder group meeting. This is a meeting where dairy farmers have been invited to come into a seminar type meeting. They consisted of customers and prospects both. He spoke for 2 hours on how to help them improve production and profitability. About 200 Chinese dairymen were in attendance. The feedback he got was very positive. Many of the farmers had questions for him after his presentation. They are very hungry for Western technology.

March 13, 2009 – as I went to the gym this morning, I was planning on my usual hour and a half workout but when I got on the stair-stepper they were just starting a movie on HBO. It was one that I had wanted to see but never got a chance to. After I finished the stair-stepper I went on to the treadmill and continued watching the movie. Unfortunately when my hour was up on the treadmill the movie was not finished so I spent an extra half an hour on the treadmill until the movie ended. I think I may pay for it tomorrow. Boy was I tired coming home.

In the afternoon I made a pot of spaghetti sauce and a pot of vegetable beef soup. There are still only a few things I can make here because of not having an oven but I make the most of what I have and really enjoy it! I also spent a couple hours on the computer working on my Chinese…I am determined.

This morning was the last of the meetings for Floyd. Before returning to Beijing, he was given a tour of the Longmen Grottoes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longmen_Grottoes). It is a fascinating area where the monks carved caves into solid rock and then carved many different figures in the caves pertaining to their Buddhist worshipping. The amount of work they put into this was incredible. There is a new album with pictures in it. Floyd finally arrived back at the apartment about 10:30 PM. It has been a long week for him.

March 14, 2009 – I was right, my leg muscles are sore today. True to the saying “Exercise is good for sore muscles” we went sightseeing today, since the weather is getting nicer. We went to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Olympic area. I had so much fun taking pictures that Floyd had to keep reminding me that we had to press on so we could get finished before dark. He took many pictures of the structures in his trips to them but I like to take pictures of details so that is what I did. So much fun!!! The “Birds Nest” is HUGE, and very unique! Even the lighting around the building had the bird nest theme, very interesting. There was also a high rise building you could see from the Olympic area that was in the shape of a torch, it was very interesting also. I took pictures of it also to share. Pictures do not do it justice. By the time we finished today I think we walked about 8 or 10 miles.

March 15, 2009 – Happy Birthday to our daughter Terri today! It was good to go to church today and take a reprieve from our worldly schedule. A family that has been in the branch for over 7 years spoke as this is their last Sunday here. They will be moving to Taiwan. They will surely be missed as they leave many good friends behind. This afternoon we worked on the blog to get it ready to be posted and just spent time relaxing.

March 3-8, 2009

March 3, 2009 – today was a take it easy day, just unpacked the rest of our things and kind of organized. Watched a couple movies on the TV (something I NEVER get to do at home!), worked on the computer and just stayed here in the apartment.

Floyd was in the office today to get the agenda lined out for this trip. There is always a lot of planning and coordinating to do. When he is here he is very helpful to the company, but it does put some burden on individuals with the necessity of being available for translating. Next week he will be helping in a national training program, called a dairy campaign. He has a lengthy presentation to do on farm and animal evaluation. He had emailed the presentation over to be translated, 181 PowerPoint slides. He also has another presentation to a group of dairymen next week as part of the campaign.

March 4, 2009 – I stayed in the apartment most of the time, the air quality was quite bad today. It looked really bad but part of it was fog. I call it dirty fog, either way it was gross to look out the window and see it! I walked up to the grocery store to pick up some more things we will need. It is really different having to think about what to buy here, you have to plan things out specifically so you don’t have anything left when you leave…no extended food storage capabilities here.

Floyd will spend the rest of the week in the Beijing office finalizing the presentations for the dairy campaign in Zhengzhou next week and working on other issues for the rest of this trip. He will be gone to Zhengzhou all of next week, flying out on Monday and returning late Friday night.

March 5, 2009 – I got adventurous and went over to the Country Club at the hotel. We get a complimentary pass for one person with our apartment rental. Last time they put it in Floyd’s name so neither one of us were able to use it, Floyd because he was gone most of the time working and it was not transferrable so I could not use it. It is a very nice facility with a small but adequate gym (with probably 10 treadmills, 4 stair steppers and elipticals, 4 stationary bikes, weights, etc.), a large warm pool (my kind of pool, one that doesn’t make you gasp for air when you get in) and a hot tub. I will be using it frequently now that I got brave enough to venture over there on my own.

Floyd has both the presentations completed and translated so now he needs to practice giving them. He said it is much more difficult with a translator. First it takes twice as long and second because he can only do so much talking and then has to stop to allow the translator to catch up. It is very difficult to keep a consistent fluid train of thought going.

March 6, 2009 – Other than making another trip t the gym, today was very quiet. It is very different being here than at home. It seems like at home I always have a thousand things I can do, while here it is much more laid back.

Floyd was in the office again today to finalize everything for next week.

March 7, 2009 – We are finally starting to sleep better through the nights. It takes a little while to get used to the different hours. We are going to bed here when it is early morning at home and then getting up in the middle of the afternoon. The day started bright and sunny with no wind. The temperature was in the 40’s, perhaps into the 50’s later in the day. Since today was housekeeping day, which means they come in and clean for us, we took a walk to explore the area. We found another market where we can buy groceries. It is larger than the one we have been shopping at and has more selection. Between the two we should do quite well. We continued walking around the area and went over to the big park. With it being a nice day and the weather warming, there were a lot of people in the park. After we got back to the apartment, our pedometer said we had walked just under 4 miles. It was a very nice morning walk and adventure.

Tonight we had the Saturday evening session of District Conference, which is roughly equivalent to our Stake Conference, except in China it covers basically the whole country. Elder Kent D. Watson of the Seventy, and a member of the Asia Area Presidency, was the presiding authority. He was assisted by Elder Chi Hong (Sam) Wong, also of the Seventy. We had an excellent session, followed by the obligatory stop at Dairy Queen for a Blizzard – a Mango blast…yum, yum! Yes, they have Dairy Queens in Beijing. In fact this was is located on the ground floor of the office building that the church meets in. This was a special treat to be there for meetings on a Saturday as we usually pass it on Sunday but will not stop. We wonder if this was a prerequisite to the Church leasing the space to meet here – just kidding.

March 8, 2009 – This morning we continued with District Conference. Floyd had Priesthood meeting at 8:30 and then we had the General Session at 10:00 AM. We both went together for the 8:30 session as we did not want to have to take 2 different taxis to our meetings, so I got to spend some time visiting with others sisters and reading my scriptures before the second session. Again, both of these meetings were very spiritual. We went back to the apartment very uplifted and spiritually well fed. We had a leisurely afternoon of just resting and spending time together. It was very enjoyable.