To explain who went on this trip and why, I have to introduce the following cast of characters:
- Me (Uncle Moose)
- my wife, Brenda
- Carol, a college friend of mine
- Rodger, a friend of ours in Shanghai
- Rick, a radio personality in Beijing
Here's the story:
Back in 1987, Brenda and I took a tour to China. We had signed up for a classic "tour", but we were the only people who had signed up. So what we got was essentially a private tour, with a different guide in each city (Shanghai, Xian, and Beijing).
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| Brenda and me in Shanghai in 1987. Aren't we adorable? |
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| Rodger and Brenda in Shanghai in 1987 |
Over the years, we kept in touch with Rodger, our Shanghai guide, and he even wound up coming to North Carolina (and staying with us part of the time) for college. We always told him that we planned go back to Shanghai and visit him.
On a completely different thread, in about 1995 I got a telephone call from Rick, who was in Hong Kong. Rick was a former friend of mine with whom I had a major falling out in Junior High. He said that he was now a radio personality in Hong Kong, and he wanted to mend fences. We kept in email contact after the call, and eventually he moved to Beijing, where he continued in radio and became somewhat of a celebrity. Over the years, I told him that one day I would return to Beijing and get together with him.
On still a completely different thread, Carol and I got together a couple of years ago in South Carolina. I happened to mention that someday Brenda and I planned to return to China and visit Rodger and Rick. I also told Carol that I also wanted to go to Mongolia (to add to my country list) and Tibet. It turns out that Carol was a friend of Rick in high school, and she (or maybe it was me) proposed that she join us on the trip. The only glitch was that Brenda had no interest in going to Mongolia. So after a couple of years of planning, we decided that Carol and I would go to Mongolia, then fly back to Beijing, where Brenda would meet us, and we would get together with Rick. The three of us (me, Brenda, and Carol) would then continue on to Tibet, and then to Shanghai, where we would get together with Rodger. We arranged it as a guided tour through China Odyssey Tours, but we arranged for free time to get together with Rick and Rodger.
Got it? Let's go.
Next -- Days 1-5: Mongolia
