A family photo at Beihai Park
It’s hard to believe that we have only been in China for 10
days. We have hit the ground running
from the very beginning.
Beijing
We started our trip in Beijing to see some friends from
Birmingham. Scott has a former student,
Chuan Wang, that lives in Beijing and works with a private PT clinic that treats
professional and Olympic athletes from China.
He has a very unique job, especially for rehab in China. It was great to
catch up and to have a contact that could help arrange a few things here. He went above and beyond the call of duty and
really helped in so many ways like purchased train tickets for us, arranged
dinners, cars, etc… He was born and
raised in China and this speaks to him personally, but also a characteristic of
many of the people here…very hospitable.
They can certainly give the South a run for their money in terms of
hospitality!
We also got to spend some time with our dear friend Jenny,
who also works as a PT in China. She
works at a large, inpatient rehabilitation facility and has been here a little
over a year. She was traveling out of
the country when we arrived so we only got to have dinner with her and Chuan on
Saturday night, but it was great to see her and catch up. We hope to meet again during our stay…maybe in
another part of China.
Wuhan
High speed train
"First Class"
We arrived in Wuhan on late afternoon on Sunday. It was a neat experience to take the
high-speed train from Beijing. The train
runs about 300 km/hr (~185 mph) and we got to see a good bit of the
countryside. When we arrived, we were
met by 2 students that we had previously met on our October trip. They helped
get us to our apartment where we spent the next day and a half getting settled
and buying supplies. We have enjoyed
getting to know our surroundings and making new friends. We can draw a crowd everywhere we go with our
large group and people are generally amazed that we have 4 kids, which is very
uncommon here. We have made several new
relationships, everyone here uses a few apps on their phone to communicate
(WeChat and QQ) so we can easily get their contact info and communicate via
text message to arrange meetings, get directions, etc… We have also connected
with an American family that lives here who have 5 kids! We got together for dinner at their place and
all the kids had a great time (ours and theirs!), so we are very thankful for
them.
Scott also hit the ground running with his work. He has planned a 3-day workshop with students
and clinicians in the area and given a lecture to international medical
students on the basics of rehabilitation.
More is planned and he will be very busy keeping up with new
responsibilities while also keeping up with a few UAB projects!
Homeschooling has been an adjustment for all (teacher and
students), but we are all aware that it will get easier as we develop a
routine. The benefit of homeschooling is
that we can make sure that we understand a topic before we move onto the next!
Thanks for thinking of us and being interested in what we
are doing here.
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