China Tour 2012 :July 21 to August 8

I just completed taking 19 Canadians on a Six province tour of Northern and Southern China. I added Sichuan Province on the tour this time. The City of Chengdu which was the epicentre of the 2008 earthquake has been completely rebuilt. In the earthquake there were 67,000 people killed, 180,000 missing and a million homeless and yet in a space of four years the city has been rebuilt into a modern city. An hours drive from Chengdu is the World Heritage Panda Reserve that is a world class centre for the preservation of the endangered Panda. 
Here is a brief itinerary of the 18 day tour.

Day01 Depart Calgary (or Vancouver) for Beijing- crossing International Date Line

Day02 Arrive Beijing,
Arrive historical Beijing，capital of People’ Republic of China, also a modern metropolis now with a population of 19 million! met by our professional guide at the airport and transfer to our hotel to check in & rest. Dinner at local restaurant. (D, dinner)

Day03 Beijing
Full day Beijing tour: today’s first stop is to visit Temple of Heaven, sacred place where ancient emperors worshipping the heaven.and praying for a good harvestaft; later we’ll tour to Beijing’s old residential area the Hutongs, and enjoy a nice rickshaw ride tour into the alleys; lunch with local family; also some shoppings, to visit a fresh water pearl workshop and an eyeglass store where you could get glasses made; return to hotel. (BLD: Buffet Breakfast at hotel, Lunch/Dinner at local restaurant, same for below).

Day04 Beijing
Full day trip to Great Wall, a symbol of Chinese ancient civilization, climb the wall as much as you can and enjoy the breath-taking view; lunch at a Cloisonne Factory on the way; later today pay a visit to National Stadium at Bird's Nest ,main statium of the magnificent 2008 Beijing Olympics; afterwards visit to a Traditional Chinese Medicine Center, have a basic idea of TCM and enjoy a free traditional foot massage there. (BLD)

Day05 Beijing-Xian (overnight train, sleeper berth)
Some free time at hotel this morning and check out from hotel, then visit Tiananmen Square, walk on this largest city square in the world and from here we could walk to the outer court of the Forbidden City and take some pictures of it; after lunch, we’ll go to see a local free market and also for some fun bargaining shoppings; after dinner transfer to station and take overnight train to Xian. (BLD)

Day06 Arrive Xian
After 10 hours ride; arrive Xian in the morning. Xian, the ancient capital of China and the cradlle of Chinese civilization and center of Chinese culture, art. Met by our guide and transfer to our hotel for breakfast & check in if rooms available. Then visit to Xian Stele Museum, a very unique museum for displaying works of calligraphy, painting and historical records from various dynasties; return to hotel. (BLD)

Day07 Xian
Full day Xian, tour the Ancient City Wall, the best preserved city walls from the dynasties; walking on the Wall; later visit a Jade Carving Workshop, chance to learn Chinese jade culture and pick up some beautiful, quality jade items if interested. Afterwards, proceed to Terra Cotta Soldiers & Horses Museum, one of the most exciting archeologial findings in 20th century and known as the “8th wonder” of the world: see the various pits of the terra cotta figures and also the bronze chariot of the pwerful Qin Emperor, all these dating back to more than 2200 years ago. Return to your hotel. (BLD)


Day08 Fly Xian/Chengdu
Transfer to airport and take flight to our next destination - Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province & hometown of giant pandas & home of spicy Sichuan Cuisine; Arrive in Chengdu, lunch and brief city tour of Chengdu, tour Riverside Park; check in Hotel & rest. Dinner at local restaurant. (BLD)

Day09 Chengdu
Full day tour in Chengdu, our first stop will be Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding & Research Institute, organization specially engaged in the research of captive breeding, conservation of the giant pandas, and today here you’ll see the most giant pandas than everywhere else in your life; later visit to the Wuhou Museum, learn some history about China’s Three Kingdoms Period; also a stop at Shu Brocade Institute. Return to hotel. (BLD)

Day10 Chengdu-Dujiangyan-Chengdu
Day trip to Dujiangyan Ancient Irrigation System, this ancient water project from Qin Dynasty more than 2200 years ago is really an amazing feat of engineering and construction and it has been benefitting the local people through the history, one hand it’s providing irrigation water to the region’s agriculture and on the other hand controlling the Minjiang River’s flooding; lunch on tour; return to Chengdu in the afternoon. (BLD)

Day11 Fly Chengdu/Guilin
Fly to Guilin, beautiful south China city that boasting to have the best scenery and landscape in whole China; Arrive and have a city tour with stop at a spectacular Karst cave, the Reed Flute Cave at outskirt of the town. Check in hotel; dinner. (BLD)

Day12 Guilin
Full day Li River cruise along the picturesque Lijiang River, enjoy this 4-hour cruise journey and the unrivalled scenery, landscape on the way; lunch served on boat. Disembark at Yangshuo town early afternoon, have some free time in the local market; then drive back to Guilin, on the way make a stop for picture taken of the rice paddies. (BLD)

Day13 Fly Guilin/Xiamen
Today we’ll fly easternwards to China’s coastal Fujian Province, Xiamen City, known as “Garden City on the Sea”, and a home place for many overseas Chinese people. Arrive Xiamen, visit and stroll around the vehicle free Gulang Islet, drive along the beautiful seaside avenue, visit South Putuo Temple, etc’ and also enjoy a dinner at local sea food restaurant; check in hotel. (BLD)

Day14 Xiamen-Hakka’s Earth Buildings-Xiamen
Full day trip by coach to Huan An County to view the unique earth buildings of the Hakka’s people, which is a magnificent architecture work of village houses for its unique style, smart structure and grand scale. In the history the earth building was also a well-protected fortress for the Hakkas to defend themselves from enemies. These houses from the history are still home of local people today. We’ll visit some of these houses today and also the walk around the village, enjoy beautiful country view. Drive back to Xiamen in the afternoon. (BLD)


Day15 Fly Xiamen/Shanghai
Some more leisure time in Xiamen, later we’ll fly to Shanghai, financial, economic center of the country and symbol city of modern China, with a population of 22 million! arrive Shanghai for a brief city tour and then check in hotel; rest. (BLD)

Day16 Shanghai
Full day tour in this busy, dynamic town, first stop at the waterfont, the Bund, viewing the beautiful architures on both side of the river, you hardly believe you are in Shanghai; Nanjing Road pedestrian shopping street; in the afternoon visit Shanghai Museum and also shopping at a Silk Workshop, and see how the beautiful silk fabric made out of silk cocoons; return to hotel. (BLD)

Day17 Shanghai
More tours and shopping in Shanghai. Visit Yu Yuan Garden, a beautiful south China style private garden, and then spend time shopping at Old Town Market right outside of the garden. After lunch you’ll have some free time on your own to explore more of Shanghai or additional shopping. (BLD)

Day18 Depart Shanghai/Canada
Time free to relax or finish your last shoppings in Shanghai before drive to airport for flight back home. (B)

Accommodations:

5 Star Hotels
Beijing--Beijing Hilton Double Tree Hotel
Xian-----Xian Shangri-la Golden Flower
Chengdu--Minshan Hotel
Xiamen---Pan Pacific Hotel
Shanghai-Jinjiang Tower Hotel

Calgary Stampede

Relatives from my mother's side of the family came up for a visit from California and Texas. The temperature in Calgary seemed cool in comparison to the heat in the U.S. I toured them around the Stampede grounds where there are a number of free activities. We went to a one hour musical show called TAILS that is a fanciful story of the Stampede originated 100 years ago. The show featured three horses performing to music unbridled , and saddled as they interacted with characters from the Old West such as the first nations, the ranchers, and farmers. In one scene a buffalo charges into the arena and is met by the three horses who charge the buffalo. There are some new bronze horse statues on the park where everyone is welcome to take pictures.

Bragg Creek Fawn

Bragg Creek Fawn I was visiting my cousin in Bragg Creek who has completed a nice house on a five acre acreage. The house is situated between Bragg Creek and the south entrance to Kananaskis Provincial Park. From his window overlooking his pond, a fawn emerged from the tall grass sniffing the air and looking for its mother. CLICK ON THIS LINK AND VIEW THE BRAGG CREEK FAWN

Rotarian Luncheon

I teach in a school where there are 58 different nationalities and 65 different languages are spoken. A Rotarian appeared at our school and was looking for two students to attend a Rotarian Convention that was taking place in Canmore at the end of May. I recommended two students who I have taught to attend the four day Rotarian convention. One student took a computer course and another took a financial management course from me. Both were grade 11 students. There were students representing schools from throughout Alberta and the Rotarians who attended were from clubs from across Canada. The theme of the convention was about leadership. The guest speakers at the convention were individuals such as Craig Kielberger, of WE THE PEOPLE, Amanda Lindhot who was kidnapped and held hostage for 400 days and Samantha Nutt a social activist for the poor. The two students I sent had to make presentations at the convention to the Rotarians on what they could do to give back to society. The two students after the convention were invited to the Coast Plaza on June 22 to give a presentation to the Rotarian Club that sponsored the two students at their monthly business meeting. Using an I phone and the internet the two girls gave a 20 minute presentation on what had transpired at the convention . They projected the presentation using a computer plugged into the internet from which they downloaded their prezi presentation and projected onto a screen with a video data projector. Using their I phone as their notes they delivered a speech that had the Rotarians engaged and in tears. The Rotarians are going to contribute their time and money to help the students with their community project to help young people recognize the symptoms of depression and seek help. As their teacher , I was invited to attend the luncheon where the girls delivered their presentation. In the photo, I am sporting my 100th anniversary Calgary Stampede Commemorative jacket. As a teacher , it is rewarding when you can help students become active participants in community service. At the end of the presentation, the Rotarians gave the two girls a framed certificate for their presentation. One of the girl's is Amerasian and the other girl is Chinese Vietnamese who are second generation Canadians. Many of the new immigrants to Canada have suffered severe hardships before coming to Canada and when they arrive there is the culture shock of learning a new language and trying to earn a living. I am always amazed at the resiliency of the new immigrants when faced with their hardships but they came to Canada so their children could have a better life.

Mount Royal Nurses Graduation

The Mount Royal Nurses Graduating Class had their graduation ceremony on June 2 and my Horticulture Class did the 35 floral centerpieces and two large presentation vases for their banquet as a school project. In my horticulture class, I have a sixty foot greenhouse where we grow tropical houseplants and propagate bedding plants for sale in the spring. Throughout the year, the class will make floral bouquets and displays as part of the course. Since i have a whole sale license to buy flowers and a commercial flower cooler, I can through word of mouth take floral projects to show students the commercial side of running a flower shop. For the Mount Royal Nurses Graduation, I met with the graduation committee and like a wedding planner I asked them the color scheme and theme of their graduation to make the floral displays and centerpieces match the decor of the banquet hall. I inquired what was their budget for flowers and made an appropriate flower order to match their budget. Running a commercial flower shop is not an easy task because price points are critical and you can easily lose money. My goal was to give students hands on experience in completing a commercial order. However, even though my price for the flowers centerpieces would be half the price of a retail flower seller the expectation on the horticulture class is to provide a professional quality product that would equal a retail flower dealer. In other words, completing a commercial project is highly stressful when showing students how to create a professional product. I had to order the flowers three weeks in advance because the flowers are grown in Ecuador, and Columbia transported to Miami, trucked up to Winnipeg to be inspected and then driven overnight to the Calgary wholesaler for the Monday morning pick up. I turn up Monday morning at 7:00 am with the rest of the flower buyers to discover the transport truck with my flowers has been held up at customs so I have to return Tuesday morning. On Tuesday, i pick up $500 worth of flowers and take them back to the school and place them in buckets of water in the flower chiller to rehydrate the flowers. On Wednesday, I create a sample centerpiece and find that on Thursday, that the flowers have wilted. I thought that I might have placed the finished centerpiece too close to a cooling fan in the chiller but I find that is a false assumption. We make all 35 centerpieces Friday night and just finish the final centerpieces and 6:00 pm and to our horror see that the hydrangea's we have placed in the centerpieces are starting to wilt. By Saturday morning the flowers will be totally wilted and the nurses are going to be arriving at 10:00 am on Saturday to pick up the centerpieces. Panic, Panic, what does one do. I jump in my car and speed down to Cost Co and try to find replacement flowers that can match the color scheme. I manage to buy a $100 in replacement flowers and place them in the school chiller . We are at the school Saturday morning at 800 am redoing the centerpieces and at 10:00 am the nurses walk in to pick up the centerpieces which they just love. The lesson I learned is do not buy Hydrangea's for floral displays because they are just too finicky. On this order , we broke even. It could have been worse if we had delivered wilted flowers.

The Chinese Academy Graduation

The Chinese Academy the largest Heritage Language School in Alberta celebrated its fifteenth graduation ceremony at John G. Diefenbaker High School on June 2. I have been an honorary director and advisor for about 10 years. About 1900 students attend Saturday Chinese School and is totally funded by nominal tuition fees and donations with almost no government support. Dr. Xinxin Fang Special Language Advisor from the People's Republic of China's International Education Services came down from Edmonton to congratulate the graduating class and hand out diplomas.

Graduations

The month of May and June is a busy time for graduations. I attended our High School Graduation at the Jubilee Auditorium. As the teachers were getting our gowns ,I stopped to take a photo with one of my former ESL students. Thie girl came to Canada as a sponsored refugee from Myanmar on human and compassionate grounds because her ethnic group the Karen are being ethnically cleansed out of Myanmar by the Burmese. The Karen who have come to Canada are literally taken out of the jungle and transplanted into Canada. I admire the resiliency of the children of these refugees. The girl you see with me just turned 20 came here at the age of 17 and could not speak a word of English. Today she is graduating from High school and is going to post-secondary to become a hair stylist.