Yesterday morning, HWMBO left Maryland for his Great Adventure. He will be on a study tour in China for the next few weeks. I am sorry that I am not with him this time. Perhaps another time ...
He should be in Shanghai right now, hopefully getting acclimated and catching a breath or two after the long - LONG - flight from Washington, DC to Shanghai, from which I suspect he is not only feeling quite jet-lagged but also very cramped. HWMBO is a tall man (although we both seem to have shrunk a bit in recent years, in my case, two whole inches!). Scrunching those long legs into airplane economy seats for the duration of the flight was likely not the most comfortable situation for him, but I hope that all went well. Interestingly, he and the other members of the group were offered flight upgrades. He didn't take the option precisely because the flight upgrade cost was double that for the entire tour, which also included the economy fare! I hope that he has not had reason to regret that decision since.
If all goes as scheduled, tomorrow he will tour the city - China's most populous and, according to Wikipedia, the most populous in the world - seeing such sights as the Shanghai Museum, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, the Yuyuan Garden and the Bund, among many, many others, I am sure.
On Sunday, the group will visit the city of ZhouZhuang, also known as the "Venice of the Orient" because of its canals. They will return to Shanghai to spend one last night and on Monday, they will travel to Xi'an for the next phase of their journey.
To participate in this study tour, HWMBO had to take courses in oriental art at our local community college in Maryland, which sponsors the tour on an annual basis. He is not taking the tour for college credit, but for personal growth - to experience a new culture, albeit one that is very different to any that either of us has had the privilege of experiencing so far.
I look forward to hearing from him about his experiences. Once he has returned and downloaded his photos, I look forward to sharing them here.
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