I’m baaaack

I walked in the front door around eleven last night. The total trip, hotel to home, was about 26 hours. I scored a aisle seat with an empty seat next to me on the long Shanghai to Toronto leg.

I went to bed around 12:30 and managed to sleep about 4 hours before getting up. I will be fighting sleep this afternoon.

Forgive me for not throwing up a meaningful essay today. Perhaps something will come to mind later.  I doubt you want to read any more semi-sarcastic travelogues.

I will leave you with an amusing anecdote. On Sunday we went to the Sun yat-Sen mausoleum in Nanjing. Like most places in China it was crowded. There were about a thousand school kids there (not an exaggeration). My colleague told me the kids were very excited. Most have never seen a “foreigner” (read round eye) before and found me way more interesting than a dead guy who died

school kids in their blue track suit uniforms

almost a century ago. I received lots of stares and embarrassed  giggles. After descending the stairs we were walking along the path back to the parking lot when one brave little guy, about eight or nine, had the temerity to actually offer me a shy “hello”. I gave him a hello right back. He ran thrilled back to his group chatting excitedly. My guide laughed and said the boy kept telling everyone “He spoke to me, he spoke to me”.

I am glad to give someone a thrill in life. My ego allows me to imagine that for the next couple of weeks the lad will be mentioned by his classmates: “Hey, remember that time Ralph spoke to that foreign guy”. In time the legend will grow to describe that we had a full conversation.

I have to admit, the whole thing made my day too.