Trip of a Lifetime - Day 13

What a day today has turned out to be. This is Day 13 and that has always been a lucky number for me. I was born on the 13th day of the month and good things seem to happen to me on that day. Today was no exception! The 2007 China Hunan Tourism Festival was about to begin! We left the boat very early as there were special buses waiting for our group ... seven of them. We had a police escort in front of us as well as in back. After we had traveled for several miles, we started noticing that there was NO traffic anywhere as we started into the town. The authorities had cleared the streets of all cars, carts and bicycles in order not to slow down the honored guests at this event ... US! We were all wearing our hats, shirts and badges that they had give us for this event, and we walked the final 3 blocks....all 262 of us, with literally thousands and thousands of Chinese looking at us. They had never seen that many Caucasians in one group before. They were even up in the trees watching so they could get a good look at us. It was a very exciting time! There was lots of activity outside the main entrance and we watched the dragon dancers and listened to the music.

Once we were inside, we got settled and were waiting for the Opening Ceremony to begin. As we were sitting there, we started to hear this weird, swooshing noise and suddenly realized that something was very wrong. The crowds outside were starting to get out of control and started pushing down the barriers.

They had to bring in extra military enforcements to try to keep them under control.

I have to admit that it was very frightening. We had nowhere to go and there were hundreds of us and thousands of them!

Once the ones who could had pushed their way inside, they were very quiet and orderly. We were later told that all they really wanted was to be able to see the show. Unfortunately, only the few in the front could actually see as they are all about the same height and they couldn't see over one another.

The ceremony itself was spectacular. I would have to liken it to an opening of the Olympics on a smaller scale. I can only imagine what Beijing will be like next year at their opening ceremony for the 2008 Olympics. I'm sure that it will be mind-boggling. The Chinese know how to do things right!
I have decided to put a slide show in the following blog. I took so many photos that I would like for you to see that I think this may be the easiest way to go about it. Don't worry .. there aren't TOO many. If you click on "View All Images" at the bottom right hand corner of the slide show, you can see it full screen with captions.

After the Ceremony was over, we pushed our way through I don't know how many people to get back to our buses which were MANY blocks away. I think you can see by the expression on my face how I felt about that time of day. I was hot, tired and very thirsty.

I might add that there were probably as many people gathered together and as MANY police officers at one time and in one place than I will see again in my lifetime. It's still hard to imagine and I was there!

We took it easy the rest of the day and then went upstairs to take advantage of cocktail hour. We made a point of being in the dining room at 6:00 p.m. since a special table was reserved for us so we could celebrate our new friend, Helen Lassley's birthday. After dinner the staff sang Happy Birthday to her and served her a special birthday cake with champagne for everyone.

The walking and the excitement this morning at the festival was very strenuous for me ( we covered over 2 miles in very crowded conditions) so I decided to take it easy the rest of the evening as we have a very long day tomorrow.

Several asides that I found to be very interesting. The Chinese call Americans either "Long Nose" or White Ghost" (they call the Japanese "Short Nose"). I made the comment that it would really be funny if we had had those false noses with the glasses to wear to the Ceremony and believe it or not ... look a "Hello, Hello" person was selling the very next day! I seem to always be a day late and a dollar short :-(

In the #1 cities you can only own a car for so long and then they must be passed on and sold to the #2 cities for resale. The same goes for the buses. The cities are rated by the number of people that live there .. the larger the city, the higher the priority.

Stay tuned as the plot thickens.

Pcasso