DEFINING MOMENTS - Winkler and Shatner

Last night we were watching a crazy show, 'Better Late Than Never' featuring Henry Winkler, William Shatner, Terry Bradshaw and George Foreman. LeRoy's brother, John called us to say the show tonight featured Hong Kong.

As we were watching, there was a segment filmed at the Intercontinental Hotel Presidential suite. The men were smoking cigars and discussing 'defining moments' in their lives. It seemed so odd in a comedy show to actually have a moment of seriousness. Both Henry Winkler and William Shatner shared interesting insight to the paths they both chose for their lives.

This morning, I asked LeRoy about 'defining moments' in our lives. As soon as I said that, I began to tear-up and could barely speak. My 'defining moment' was a Saturday in October 1991 when I picked up an abandoned baby girl out of a cardboard box on a main street in Nanchang, China. The emotions from that experience are still so strong even though it has been almost 25 years. I always tell people that was the worst and best year of my life! I knew that I knew that baby girl was the reason I came to China.

I don't know if everyone experiences a 'defining moment' but I'd like to hear from others that would want to share. Baby in a Box was written about this moment and can be seen Here

LAST DAYS IN CHINA

BEIJING FUN

Illegal photo standing in front of the Forbidden City gates. We were wondering why no other bikers were riding past.

After six weeks of travel in Hong Kong and China, we ended our spring trip in Beijing. We enjoyed four days of once again visiting China's capital city and historical sights. Teresa Woodland and her two children hosted us for 4 nights. It was fun meeting her children, Kaili and Kaishang, and catching up on news as we all came to China in the 80s with ELIC.

Legal photo as I was actually biking past LeRoy to get the shot

Teri let us use two of her bikes to travel to Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City and Wufangjing area. Security was very tight near Tiananmen but since we were on bikes, we breezed by. Our only mistake was stopping in front of Forbidden City gates to get a tourist to take our photo. Evidently we were not supposed to stop and a security guard was on us immediately, waving for us to get going. The foreign tourist already had my phone so he snapped a quick photo before we headed on. My maxim for China has always been 'life in China is not always fun but always an adventure".

Dave with Kaishang and Kaili

Teri and Kaishang on the way to school

Sally Chen, assistant to the Ambassador of Sri Lanka in Beijing
She has worked at the embassy for 10 years. She was in our group in WF when she was 16.

Sally, her husband and daughter drove us to the airport to get our flight to Seattle.
Dave was also seeing us off before flying to Kunming.

Kaitlyn came with Tim to get us in Spokane.

No telling when we will have our next adventure in Asia. We've been involved in China for 30 years and it seems like 'home' to us. We just got new 10-year passports and 10-year China visas. We have luggage and go when we next get an opportunity. We will let you know our 'future' plans!

Thanks for joining us on the journey!