I leave tomorrow to begin my Spring Festival holiday travel. I will be going with another teacher, Jane. We plan to go to Guilin/China, Bangkok, Phuket and Chiang Mai/Thailand, Phnom Penh and Siem Reap/Cambodia, Singapore and Hong Kong. There is no chance of me being prepared before I leave, so I thought I might as well post. I hope when I come home from this journey, I have some sort of clarity about what I should do for next year.
There is a canal that runs in front of my apartment. Between the canal and my building is a small park running the length of the canal. Every money while I put together breakfast, I can see elderly men and women doing their morning exercises along the canal: tai chi, aerobics, stretching and jogging. In the afternoon there is an old man who comes everyday--bringing his birds. He carries two large black birds in separate cages. He stops at a small pavilion directly in front of my door and settles. He begins to methodically clean the birds cages; unfastening the bottom and placing the open-bottomed cages on the grass so the birds might hop about and explore through the grass. He cleans the bottom of the cage off in the canal and talks quietly to his birds while he waits for them to dry. The whole process takes about three hours. I think he must love those birds so much. It is strange, I don't even like birds, but it is one of my favorite parts of the day to see him so carefully taking care of the little creatures.
I hope to post while I am traveling, but I am not sure what sort of resources I will encounter. In the meantime, feel free to ponder and reflect on this sign we found in Suzhou: