Wuhan and the Mall

Friday June 6, Saturday June 7 and Sunday June 8
Days 20, 21, 22 … I think. hey i think i have learned how to upload an image... cool

So Friday was a travel day to Wuhan, which is called the Furnace of China. We had to be downstairs at 10:00 am for a 10:30 departure for the airport (40 minutes) … get our bags loaded on the bus and almost left a late dancer at the hotel … she only managed to get on the bus by the grace of a red light. Maybe she will learn a lesson not to be late to travel call? Doubt it.

Anyway, it was pouring rain (like a cow on a flat rock as my dad would have said.) The travel to the airport was fairly straightforward except for loading and unloading in the rain. Then back through baggage check and security check and down to our departure gate. There was a stack of plastic rain ponchos there —not a good sign. Waited there for a while for our bus to the plane. As we waited it got wetter and wetter. Ugh. We were all getting soaked. Fortunately, the flight crew had fancy nibblies and lunch ready for us.

We ate ravenously, dried off (Kris brought be a BIG fluffy towel!) and proceeded to wait…. And wait…. And wait…. And wait some more … the storm was so big the airport was closed. We did not get underway until about 10:00 pm that night. We could have flown home in the time we waited on the plane! But we had dozens of movies, music, food and friends to hang out with. The plane did start to leak a little but Kathy, a flight attendant, said it was from the emergency doors not being hermetically shut, like when they are in flight. We pretty much trashed the plane. I think they were going to need a fire hose to clean it up! But I know it will be pristine for our next flight to Beijing.

Another note about China’s people’s job duties and rules….they are very odd… While we were waiting on the tarmac in the bus to get off and go up the stairs on to the plane I noticed that the airport ground crew were all in heavy rain gear – slickers and pants, the whole works. But this poor little gate attendant’s job is to stand under the plane and be ready to help anyone who might need it. So there she was in her regulation black pumps, white stockings, short black uniform skirt and white blouse and tiny rain poncho in the pouring rain. Why? Because that was her assigned job duty. Certainly seemed absurd at the time but I guess if that’s your job, you do it, no questions, no complaints. Hopefully, once we were all on the plane she got to go dry off. I sure hope so.

So it was now 12:00 pm and we had to get our baggage and be bused 30 minutes to the hotel in Wuhan. Once at the hotel I went straight to bed to sleep at about 2:00 am! I then had to be up early for 7:30 am bus to the theater on Saturday to load in for a matinee performance and an evening performance. Fortunately for me, these were NOT firebird performances so I got to spend the day and evening getting stuff ready. We were very concerned that all the stuff might have gotten wet in its travel from the airport to the theater. I went through every wig in my box to be sure nothing had gotten wet and was fortunate that only one wig was wet. I cleaned and dried and reset her and now my roadbox is clean and pretty. I am all ready for Monday now.

Sunday is to be a free day but of course since we lost time on Friday the deck crew had to work to get lights hung and focused for Monday’s performance. We have a performance scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, a free day on Wednesday and then we travel to Beijing. I slept in (all the way to 9:00 am) and mosey’d around the room and finally decided to go downstairs for some food. On the way I met up with Karen Gabay, one of our principal dancers, (and a super nice person at ALL times) who is traveling with her charming minx of a daughter, Kalena. We decided to have lunch together and another dancer, Peter, joined us as well. It was a fun meal. Karen and I decided to go to “the Wuhan Mall” and Raymond Rodriguez, another dancer and dance master (he runs the warm-ups and daily class among many other things) and we grabbed a cab for “the mall” … I am not sure if a mall is the same thing in China as we are used to because both places we went were more like a department store. Did some window shopping and we then stopped for a snack. (and oh, did I mention that it is raining like a cow on a flat rock?) It took us quite a while to snag a cab but now I’m back in my fairly decent room on the 26th floor (it has its own little balcony (about 4”x4’) which activates my fear of heights but is fun. I fully appreciate windows in hotel room now… even with the agoraphobia.

Well, as I said we have a show tomorrow so I am going to just chill-ax here in my room, then grab little dinner and cruise the internet. If you are reading this, feel free to drop me an email to let me know if you like it. randehar@hotmail.com.

Talk to you all again later