Written 10/29

It's been longer than I had intended before posting another blog entry. We were over 30 hours in transit, with some adventures along the way. One member of our group, Polly, had her luggage sent off to parts unknown. Korean Airlines is still looking for it. Luckily, she had a bag off essentials with her. Korean Air was very good about it. They provided excellent service, all in all. But we did have a 145 mph headwind which put us behind schedule. That gave us very little time to catch the connecting flight in Seoul for Shanghai. Incheon is a big airport, so it was a sprint to the connecting gate, through another security checkpoint. When we got there, several hundred people were trying to squeeze through two screeners. A man came out to say "Too many people! Go that way! Three minutes. There's another check point". So, off we went again, sprinting another couple hundred yards. But there we found a check point, with no wait at all. It was worth it. We made the flight just in time.

Andy and Eric were waiting for us with a bus to take us to our hotel. Very accommodating. But again, another big line to check in. There is an expo in Shanghai, so all the hotels are very busy. They do things big in China. Seventy million people have attended the Expo since it opened last May. That's more than 1/4 of the population of the USA. We are now in Ningbo, near Rujing's temple, where Dogen trained and was enlightened. We will see that tomorrow. This little town near Shanghai has a population of two million people, five million in the metro area.

Another reason I am late posting to this blog is that I have been unable to connect with either Blogspot or Facebook since I got here. I can log on to other sites, so I'm wondering if those sites are blocked in China. I'm writing this in our hotel in Ningbo, saving it on my laptop, hoping to upload it when I can. That may turn out to be back in Portland. If so, my apologies for keeping you waiting.