Our itinerary, as much as we know it now, starts with a flight to Edmonton on Wednesday, October 11th. We’ll stay in a hotel there for a couple of days. We don’t want to confuse the grandkids with a sudden view of Grandma and Grandad, only to see us disappear again. And as much as we love the two little kids, we have found ourselves especially susceptible to the particular strains of germs and virus which they carry, that are just different enough from our East Coast ones as to be troublesome. We don’t want to be hit with some unexpected malady during our time in China—and we’ve allowed plenty of time for concentrated grandparenting when we get back! Dan’s folks, Dave and Midge, will be doing the hands-on grandparenting while we’re gone.
We fly out of Edmonton to Vancouver in the morning of Friday the 13th (!), and then after a change of planes we take off for Shanghai, landing there the next afternoon. Clock time of the flight is just over 27 hours, but about 14 of that (I’ll have to check to be sure) is time zone difference. Our night will be your day, and vice versa.
Schedule and arrangements within China are still uncertain. We’re relying on Dan and his associates to lay out the itinerary. After all, it’s their business trip. We believe that the visit will start with a train ride to Hangzhou, where we’ll be for most of the time. There’ll be a stop in Beijing on the way back to Shanghai.
We fly back to Edmonton via Vancouver on Friday the 27th and stay there through the following Thursday. With grandkids!
Here are a few links related to Hangzhou and Dan’s conference.
Hangzhou:
www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/hangzhou.htm
www.chinapages.com/zhejiang/hangzhou/jg/tourism.html
Hotel (Note the “wallpaper draped with passionate tropical scenery and serene white” on the Guest Room page!):
www.hzfwhotel.com/eabout.asp
Conference:
www.worldleisure.org/congress/overview.html
From what we hear, China is very well equipped with Internet connections, though a number of popular Web sites have been blocked as “undesirable.” I think this might include Skype, which eliminates the possibility of free phone calls back to the US and Canada. We will not be using our regular e-mail address on this trip but have set up a temporary address bbbchinatrip@hotmail.com. There will probably be other temporary accounts as well, in order to be certain that at least one of them gets through. More on this later
Our passports are up to date. We’ve sent away for our visas through a visa handling company in New York www.visarite.com that knows the ropes and charges only a modest fee. We’re planning our packing strategy, selecting clothing, organizing cameras, memory cards, flash drives, laptop, etc. Stay tuned for more blogging, with pictures!
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