My hiking group celebrated five years together and I made a video of still photos from my sixteen months with the group as well as other photos from the past.

I spent nearly $4 on some Azithromycin (sp?) and I have one more day of it. I think it is helping. I have a cold now. I’m in day four of illness. I only let it slow me down one evening. Other than that I have been going and going. Yesterday was one of the best because of the hiking excursion. We drove two hours out of the city and arrived at a beautiful mountain park where roses grow in the summer.

The three hour hike included eighteen Chinese folks and one Texan. Everybody spoke English because of their time spent outside of China. Afterwards, we dined at a hot pot restaurant that specializes in DONKEY meat. Don’t knock it til you try it. It’s just like beef except more lean. My part of the meal was $5.50. I love those kinds of meals.

I met Lucy (originally from China) from Canada at the airport on the way to Cambodia. She introduced me to Tracy and Steven. She grew up with Steven in Beijing and she met Tracy, a Chinese native, living in Toronto. Tracy has since moved back to Beijing.  This is all a very interesting education I am getting. One of my new hiking friends, Jay, presently lives near San Francisco with his wife and two sons. He has a company that develops medical devices. He hires engineers in China to develop the devices and then he applies for approval in the United States. Jay first went to America in the early 1990′s and has since moved there. Another new friend, Vanessa, first went to Iowa for graduate school in her early 20′s. She spent 10 years in NYC after getting a degree in Asian studies. She now manages a boutique hotel in Beijing called Hotel Côté Cour .

Tracy works 100 yards from my hotel. She and I had lunch on Tuesday before touring her office. Light in the box is the website. Check it out. They sell Chinese items to the U.S. There is free shipping. Brilliant! Super cheap prices! Her boss, Alan Guo, sat with us for a few minutes. He had something to do with the Google China. Google his name. He’s all of 33 or so. He got a graduate degree at a small private college called Stanford. Tracy invited me hiking yesterday. I went. We had a BLAST. It’s a group of folks; married, single, all kinds, 20′s up to around 50 who go hiking each Saturday who are Chinese who moved away and then came back to China. They all speak English. I was the only non-Chinese person with them. We left at 11am, drove more than 2 hours, hiked more than 3 hours, drove part of the way back, ate Donkey dinner, and then drove back. I got home at 9pm or so. There was no alcohol and I loved that part the most as I have a cold.

Steven, the other friend of Lucy, is a graphic arts designer guy.  I went bowling with him last Sunday and I’m going again in a few hours. He lived in California for a few years.

Please excuse the errors. I’ll blame it on my cold. Also, they don’t have medicines at the store here. You must go to a pharmacy. It’s different.

I am getting good at the metric system.

I’ll take bowling photos today.