Back in July, our United Airlines frequent flyer statement arrived in the mail. Included in the envelope was a flyer for a great deal on a trip to China. I looked at it for a moment, then threw it away. We were interested in traveling during the dark, rainy Seattle winter, but our plans had already been made. We would be spending a week in October at Lake Chelan in Central Washington on a timeshare bonus week, and a week in January on the Big Island of Hawaii on a timeshare trade. We’d invited our friends Bob and Shari Connors to join us in Hawaii and were looking forward to warm, sunny days, blue water and hikes in volcano country.
In early September, Shari emailed me. They would be unable to join us in Hawaii after all, she said. The airfares from the East Coast were higher to Kona than the entire cost of a trip they were taking to China over Thanksgiving. I wrote back. Tell me about China, I said. She responded with a description of the trip I’d seen on the flyer in the United Airlines mailing. I asked her to fax me a copy just for the heck of it.
I called Art from work and told him about the China opportunity. He sounded open to discussion.
I should say here that in my entire life I have never had the slightest interest in visiting the Far East. All those chunks of land and long chains of islands, populated by hordes of other races speaking indecipherable languages. Not at all appealing. The Far East was where my father went when I was growing up. The times he was gone for a year and came home with speech flavored with Japanese or Vietnamese phrases. I have a large ceramic elephant from Thailand on my staircase landing – a gift from my father from 35 years ago. That was my exposure to the Far East, and it was about all I wanted.
Shari’s fax arrived. We would get round-trip airfare from Seattle to Shanghai, three nights in a hotel with American breakfasts, five days and four nights on a Yangtze River cruise with all meals, and shore excursions. All for $1105 a person.
I took the fax home and showed it to Art. He was very interested.
I’ll interrupt myself again here to say that nine years ago, when Art and I got together, he had not the slightest interest in traveling anywhere. He’d been to Vietnam in the 60s and to a couple of stateside destinations when he was in the reserves, and that was enough for him. The first time I suggested we take a trip, he was deeply suspicious. “Why would I want to do that?” The first trip we took was to Central Washington, overnight, to a concert, with another couple, staying over at a Best Western. Each year thereafter, we went a little further: to Montana for a week, in a motorhome with six kids; to the national parks of Utah for a week and a half, in a motorhome with six kids; to British Columbia; to Mexico; to the East Coast to visit friends. And then, last year, to Ireland for 17 days. This past summer, Art filled out some kind of consumer survey and, in the space where it asked for hobbies, he said, “travel”. We’ve come a long way.
We discussed the China trip. It was still outside my comfort zone, but it was such a good deal I was willing to consider it. I said to Art, “All I have to do now is find a reason to go to the Far East.” He said, “How about, ‘Art is going and I want to go along with him?’”
The next day I called the travel agency listed in the flyer. The line was busy. I tried half a dozen times – busy every time. I emailed Shari. She had gotten through, and gave me another number to call. I tried it - busy. I tried half a dozen times and finally got a voicemail message. An English speaker, but very broken English. I left my name and number.
Four days later, I got a call back. By this time I was skeptical about the trip. But the travel agent, Kathy, sounded competent and knowledgeable. Her English was barely understandable to me, but she was fluent. My ear was simply not accustomed to the sound of a native Chinese person speaking English as a second language. Kathy told me that the response to the United Airlines ad had been so great that the agency was backed up in responding to inquiries. I told her that we would be traveling with Bob and Shari Connors and gave her their reservation number. She said she would make the arrangements and get back to me.
I didn’t hear anything for over two weeks. By this time it was October. Finally Kathy called. Our reservations had been made. We wouldn’t be getting our tickets and itinerary, though, until a couple of weeks before our November 21 departure, because the agency was so busy with people traveling on earlier dates. We could trust her.
I didn’t, much. But we went ahead anyway with the preparations. We got shots for typhoid, polio and hepatitis A. We sent our passports to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco to get visas for entry into China. We bought reference books and studied them. We found out that tap water in China is not potable and that we needed to be wary of food purchased from street vendors. I remember one phrase in particular: “Fruit you peel yourself is probably safe.” I visualized myself spending the entire trip close to a bathroom. That was the case for me in Mexico, after I swam in the ocean at the beginning of the rainy season. Even as I went forward with preparations, I wondered why on earth I was going to China – aside from going along with Art.
The tickets and itinerary arrived on November 8. It wasn’t until that day – two weeks before we left - that I really believed we were going. Even then, I had mixed feelings.