Joy's Journey Home: Monday at the Pagoda

Monday at the Pagoda

Today was another free day and after hanging out at the Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robins this morning, we agreed we'd both like to see the Giant Pagoda.

There are only 2 originals left in China and this is one of them, so we thought that a good choice. I got my "please drive me to...." card from the reception desk at the hotel and hailed a taxi.

The Pagoda was much more than I expected. It was a huge garden area. We arrived in time for a very magnificant water-music show of the fountains. I enjoyed the gardens very much but sweet-Joy does not like walking at all.

Then we got tickets to go inside the Pagoda grounds which ended up being a Buddhist Temple. We were guided by a college student that wanted to practice her English. She did an amazing job and it was nice to have someone to talk to.

We ran into quite the delima though. We didn't realize we were completely across town and that it was rush-hour and a holiday. Which means no taxi was willing to take us back to the hotel. After an hour of failed attempts to hail a cab, being bullied by motorcycle taxis, calling our local contact with no luck, our options were: wait 2 hrs and take a cab (at night! no thank you!), take public transit (no thank you!) or walk the 1hr 30min back (which would eventually be night with street beggers),

I promptly walked us into a nearby Westin Hotel and asked to hire a private driver. Within 5 minutes they brought us a private car with a private driver and air conditioning!

Joy's jaw dropped! (I did walk away at first and said I'd walk, but after 3 min into the walk, I could hear Dale's voice in my head saying "pay the money, hire the driver!" So we returned to the hotel and paid the $24 for the nice ride!). It was really quite fun.

A little more on Joy: (Besides fixing her hair and relishing in the fact she has mutliple pairs of underwear now, she most enjoys watching TV and playing games on her new iPod Touch (which is just my old iPhone) She likes Fruit Ninja the best. She can read Chinese characters and helps me with money when I don't know what people are telling me. She seems quite confident in her adding and subtracting money on the fly. She really enjoys her daily baths now, which she thought was weird at first but now can't wait to take one. And she did tell the college student that she likes me. That's good! But then said "she even loves me". THRILLED about that! She seemed to be adjusting even more today.)