Trip Update

I must apologize for the lack of entries lately. The connection I have from my parents' home is very slow and my attempts to create new entries on Blogger.com are often unsuccessful. Here is a quick update of what we're up to.

We took a day-trip yesterday (Oct. 14) to go visit my ancestral home and grave sites on an island in the middle of Tai Hu lake (太湖,西山). It's a 2-hour drive from Shanghai, near Shu Zhou. That is truly a magical place. The island in the middle of the lake has its own moutain range and villages. The farmers live there are either fisher men or orange growers. Some also grow gingo nuts. My grandfather grew up there before he went to work in Shanghai. There is still one relative's family who live there today and tends to the ancestral graves. Their lives are of a completely different era in time and a pace of its own. They grow much of the vegetables they eat on their own land. The village has its own wells that supply their water which in my opninion is much better than the city's water. I'll have to write a separate entry for this place when I have more time.

Today afternoon, we'll be joining a group of my dad's old college class-mates for a short 2-day trip to Shao Xing(邵兴) and the "Thousand Island Lake" (千岛湖). We'll be back in Shanghai by Sunday evening. Then I'm scheduled to fly back to SFO on Monday the 18th.