Xitang

So while we went to visit the ancient village of Xitang, the rest of the cultural bureau was reading up on the material we left them with on my granddad and by dinner time it was apparent they had done their homework and were swimming in the information.

Overall the trip to China I think was a success, we had very good meetings with museums, the art academies, no one slammed the door in our face, all wanted to work with us in some way and so now to digest all that as well.

In Shanghai, Mom was too exhausted to face another library and so she slept the whole morning. Her trip involved transportation of all types! They even took a "bread van" from the train station of Jiashan to Xitang before I got there. The van took all the side mud roads to avoid having to pay tolls and they got to see real village life. I think I'll rent a place there and take the kids! We could do day trip outings to Hangzhou and Suzhou, Shanghai seemed way to hectic, maybe we'll just park ourselves there for a week. Or maybe 5 days in each spot...

My impressions of the ancestral home, well its bigger than I thought and the people not as unsophisticated as I thought too. It was a very nice warm welcome, they even gave us the local produce like silk pajama's and a nice thick wool scarf. They are v realistic people and showed the same "can do attitude" that we encountered throughout the trip.