FINALLY!!!!!!!
Needless to say, we were pretty tired. I think I was more "wired" than "tired", but I also caught a good nap between 5:30PM and around midnight (Thanks, Lunesta!). I had a timer set on my watch (& still do) to keep on the "every 12 hour" Augmentin antibiotic schedule until the pills are gone. I DO NOT want my arm to get all nasty again.
Here's a few pics:
Genie, our FTIA China Adoption Coordinator
Us, after arriving in Beijing & clearing Customs (no problems at all, BTW)
Here's a picture of Chinese money
We stayed at the Sino-Swiss hotel last night in Beijing. The hotel was not too memorable, no internet access in the room unless you wanted to pay 20 Yuan per minute (about $2.50/minute). Other interesting things were:
--> You have to leave a room card-key in a slot just inside the doorway, or the lights don't come on. Not quite sure how this saves power, since you generally receive 2 room keys upon checkin.
--> It DID have a nice outside dining area, with good service. Remember, though...DON"T DRINK THE WATER, or eat raw veggies or eat fruit that you can't peel yourself, unless it's cooked unless you want Montezuma's revenge bigtime. So far, so good. I'm popping 2 Pepto Bismol tabs 4 times a day to hopefully ward off the evil plague. We've also got some Cipro & Imodium tabs to take should disaster strike, but I'd MUCH rather not have to use them at all, thank you very much.
--> The hotel had the FASTEST closing elevator doors I've run into (and I mean that literally). The doors open, and you better be an Olympic sprinter to get inside the elevator before the doors shut. You better be pretty good at moving across uneven terrain, too, since the floor had a ridge (?sill?) just before the elevator doorway. Not too great for slip-trip hazards here. Not that I'd ever have an accident. Nossirree, not me.
Well, there was that slight disagreement my right elbow had with the gravel last Saturday, but who's counting?
Speaking of which, have you ever removed sutures from your dominant forearm using your weak hand while jetlagged out of your mind while in a foreign county with some access to advanced medical care? Well, let me tell you a little story...It wasn't really all that hard. I was glad to have the darn things out of my arm so the wound could finally be allowed to heal over. Prior to release from Kettering Hospital, Dr. Clymer doc prescribed some sort of salve that promises to dissolve away dead tissue & scabs, while leaving healthy tissue untouched. Sort of like "maggots-in-a-tube".
Now THERE's a pleasant thought, eh wot?
When I was laying in the hospital bed, bored, I looked at the ingredients for this "M.I.A.T." wonder-salve. One accelerator type material, plus Papain. Papain, huh? Ever looked at a container of Adolf's Meat Tenderizer? Huh? Ever done it? Go ahead & check it out, if you've got any at home. Active ingredient: Papain. WONDERFUL! I'm putting meat tenderizer on my wound. Well, it worked out OK. The scab was pretty well nuked away, leaving just my "boo boo", surrounded by a raw area of road rash. This made it easier to get the stitches out, believe it or not (no scab adhering the sutures in place).
OK...that's enough about Beijing, and the entire 16 hours we spent there before flying to Changsha the following afternoon.
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Jeff Johnson
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