Day Twenty-Two

Unfortunately, we had to leave our beautiful resort hotel this morning. We were picked up by our bus at 10:30am to take us to Lingao. Lingao is truly in the middle of nowhere. Once we got to the hotel we were served lunch and then given free time to work and walk around the city.

During the free time I actually finished up my powerpoint slides on retirement community design and key issues to be addressed ( physiological, environmental, community, medical, etc.). For the rest of the afternoon we hung out and watched the Friends show DVDs.

Dinner was quick and delicious. After dinner we walked to a local bakery and supermarket to buy some snacks. I got back to the conference room to discover a birthday party going on for one of the USC translators. Tomorrow we will be taken to the actual site that the retirement community in planned to be built on. Night!

P.S. Our hotel is a dump but yet it is one of the nicest hotels in Lingao, about 100 RMB (~ $13 USD a night). We have also been advised to watch out for cohabiting vermin, (mice and rates)! It's times like these that I miss home...

Day Twenty-One

Today was half work and half play. The first part of the day consisted of play. We had lunch at the hotel restaurant and then spent a couple hours poolside. The entire hotel is pretty desolate. Hainan is usually most visited during the winter season, the island's dry season, in order to escape cold snowy weather on the mainland.

When we got back to our room we worked for a few hours on our presentation for the school of architecture. The main focus of our presentation, as I may have discussed in my other entries, is to facilitate discussion and to present major issues regarding building retirement communities in China.

To finish the day we met with our professor to review our powerpoint, ate dinner, and debriefed at the hotel bar & lounge. Tomorrow we leave for Lingao, the future site of the retirement community. Our hotel may not have internet access so I may not post for the next 4 to 5 days. Hope everything is good and well back home!

P.S. Check out my new blog feature on the right margin of my blog. It's a news feed that streamlines up to the minute headline news in Asia!