Wednesday... A Travel Day...

We had to get up at 4:00 am this morning to pack and get all the kids in the van headed to the Beijing Airport by 5:30. We left our beloved Yurts and headed out. We caught our flight out to Wuhan at 7:30.
We were greeted at the airport by our Chinese friend I will call "G". G took us to the hotel and we checked in. We went up to our rooms to drop off our bags and headed back down to meet G in the lobby. We went across the street for lunch. We tried many new dishes that we had never had before... I tell you, Chinese menus at home seem so limiting now that we have had a few meals in China. We went back to our rooms after lunch for a wonderful rest.
After our naps we joined G again in the lobby and he took us to his home, which in China is a great honor... not many people have guests to their home, only their very close friends. We had a wonderful reunion with his family, his wife and son. We had enetrtained G and his son in our home last Summer but we had never met his wife. She made us a wonderful Chinese dinner. The girls were all very happy to drink their favorite Chinese drink, a very sweet yogurt type "milk". After dinner Mrs. G played her electric keyboard for us. She has been taking lessons for three months and was a little nervous to play for us but she did a good job. G explained the ways a traditional Chinese family would host guests in their home, some of which he could demonstrate, some of which he couldn't, like offering cigarettes. But he explained each thing and told us what typically would be done. Among some of the things that we tried that were new was Lotus root seeds. They were fun to eat.
G took us back to the hotel and Mr.H so graciously offered to watch all the children so that the three remaining parents could go with G and get a foot massage. Oh my goodness!! We had to wait awhile for an opening because as G said this was "rush hour"... 8:30 at night is "rush hour" for a massage in China... ok...
Anyway we waited and waited... we decided we couldn't wait anymore because it wasn't fair to Mr.H to leave him so long with all the children... G went into action... much conversing back and forth... I have no idea what h said but he got us in right after that. IT WAS GLORIOUS!!! (to quote my friend Susan) It was so worth the wait! I don't know why it's called a foot massage because most every part of my body was massaged. They are amazing. We asked questions through G to the massage people as we were all in the same room together getting our foot massage. We found out how little they are paid and that they work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day! Wow!
We came home at nearly midnight and had a great sleep.
We are leaving this morning for an over night trip to the Three Gorges Dam. We are not taking the computer so I will need to "catch up" again when we get back tomorrow or the next day. I'm sure there will be much to tell!