Jetset

Sunday was a travel day, a strange concept on a trip where you are always technically far away from home and therefore a traveler.  We left for the Beijing airport with plenty of time to spare, given the likelihood of morning traffic, and arrived early enough to explore the delights of a major Chinese airport terminal.  It turns out there were places to fill water bottles, a delightful surprise, but that they were all boiling hot water.  We took what we could get and left them in semi-shielded places where they wouldn't get knocked over.  But then we found cold, filtered water, which was a relief because the boiling water in Chinese cools incredibly slowly for some unknown reason (this is a scientifically-proven fact).  They even have these little slips of paper next to the coolers with instructions for folding them into a cup.  Magic.  People fanned out through the airport, getting a taste of home from Starbucks or poring over the hundreds of letters from the Xiuning High School students who we met at our outreach event.  While some of them wrote in perfect English, others struggled to find the appropriate vocabulary or communicate clearly at all.  But the effect was endearing, and we had quite a few favorite letters.  These included ones that called us "facetious", had anime-inspired drawings of Glee Clubbers, or mixed up the words "memories" and "memorize".  See below for some excerpts.

We arrived in Hong Kong two hours late due to a delay (very little luck with on time flights here in China for the Glee Club) headed over to the Jade Restaurant for the 60th Anniversary Gala for New Asia College.  Yale has a very long-standing relationship with this school, and the sixtieth reunion is special because it corresponds to five full cycles of the zodiac.  Where there is celebration, the Glee Club is apparently a logical addition, because both Yale-China and New Asia College have been planning on our presence for a while.  We had a 10-course dinner of small plates.  The first involved jellyfish, but since I arrived a bit late I didn't get to try it.  The best course by far was the Peking duck pancakes, which were delicious but not as good as the ones we had the other night.  The other courses were find but not my favorite.  There was an auction of paintings, wine, cooking experiences, and the like.  As is usual for an auction, people spent far too much money and the organizers were happy.  We sang "It's" and everyone (who drank) got tipsy on the copious and apparently quite good wine (from a vineyard owned by a Yalie's father, with the wine named after her).

Spotted: humidity.  Where has it been, you might ask? I don't know, but not on our trip.  Now, it is back with a vengeance, but at least I don't feel dehydrated all the time.