Reflections: What I didn't show, nor tell

I have been uploading photos to the safety of my hard drive for several hours now, thinking about all of the pictures and details that were missed as I tried to capture the most relevant images and thoughts during our trip. Many observations went unpublished on this blog because there was so much rich subject matter from which to choose. In this post, I will try to complete the experience a little, both with photos and with memories that are still fresh in my mind.

The first thing that comes to mind is the city. Beijing. Where smog presses in on otherwise clear days and cranes fill the horizon. There was construction happening everywhere we turned in Beijing, from the huge Olympic stadium that looked like massive scraps of metal folded one over the other to the downtown renovations that I assume are underway to make the city more palatable to wealthy Westerners for the 2008 Games next summer.

Although frequent rainfall cleansed the air while we were there, smog crept in any time it wasn't raining, and atmospheric moisture combined with the smog for a confusing, unsettling canopy over the city during our ventures into downtown Beijing. We stayed in a school about half an hour away, but visited the city often, attending church there and taking the children to Tienanmen Square during week 2.

The city felt like so many others I have visited, noisy with traffic and full of tree-lined sidewalks. But it was also different, of course. A little more subdued than the major U.S. cities I have visited.

So much of our time was spent riding through the countryside on buses that I cannot go without describing that experience. First of all, it was usually so hot outside that we looked forward to the air conditioning the vans provided, even if it meant cramming our long, American legs into seats made for smaller people. Second, I am one who thoroughly enjoys just looking out the window as I ride, especially in a foreign country. Fascinating to see the people commuting, working, selling, trying to avoid being hit by vehicles that don't stop at crosswalks.

Most times, the kids would fall asleep when we rode somewhere in the vans, but on the way to the Great Wall during week 1, Dori's girls started peeking around the seat at me, poking my leg when they thought I wasn't watching, then retreating to their seats. It was especially sweet because it was the first time that Sarah (on the right in the picture below) had shown such outgoing playfulness. Until then she had been very reserved.

The campus where we stayed often felt deserted. With empty rooms full of discarded furniture and whole buildings I never saw anyone going in or out of, it was especially lonely on the weekends, when the other camps, ones where Chinese teenagers arrived to practice basketball or music, had left.

One thing I mentioned but did not have time to describe was a beautiful garden attached to the famous "Forbidden City" where emperors supposedly spent their entire lives. We only had about an hour inside, after purchasing tickets for something like 80 cents, but it was enough to take in the immaculately-maintained paths and plazas.

What else can I say? Plenty, I imagine, if I completely combed my memory. But I think I have exhausted that which you would find even remotely interesting. I will leave you with a couple of random photos.

OK, there is one more thing I just have to post. While we were at the gorge on Saturday, Aug. 4, there was a man on a motorcycle going across a tightrope. With a man in a seat hanging ten feet below him. These two guys were at least 300 or 400 feet above the lake. I have no idea what kind of wire-gripping equipment they were using, but I hope in these photos you can get a feel for their insanity.