| We arrived home late on Sunday night, October 30, after almost 24 straight hours of travel—and collapsed into bed. I awoke early, of course, at 3 a.m. (4 p.m. in China). I’m not sure what happened to Monday and Tuesday. Monday I recall being Zombie-like, in a dazed and slightly dizzy stupor. All I could do was laundry, distribute what seemed like two tons of mail into appropriate piles, and try to avoid hurting myself bumping into things. And Monday, too, was Halloween. As we tried to stay awake while dispensing candy from the stoop, the neighbors understandably started to ask how the trip was, a question also reflected in the dozens of e-mails that awaited me.
So, today (November 2), when I feel like I am less a clear and present danger to myself and the community at large, I thought I’d write out some thoughts on the China trip while memories are fresh and send them out to tripmates and interested others for comment and input.
Later, on November 20, I revisited the first draft to incorporate input and finalize the draft before sending it again to tripmates and interested people at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, whose alumni association promoted the trip. The main changes:
• An appendix containing a description by Bob Forman ’61 of the dinner meeting in Beijing between most of the travel group and a group of Chinese RPI alumni.
• An appendix containing a summary of the responses to a brief survey about the trip that I sent to each trip participant.
• Thoughtful comments by Charlie Byrne, ’57, on parts of the memoir text, which I inserted as footnotes.
• Several additions, changes, and corrections in the text by me.
If you could not participate in the trip last Fall (2005), the good news is that we are going to offer essentially the same tour again this year, in October. If you are interested, please e-mail Mike Wellner '64 at captmike46@alum.rpi.edu. This is truly a trip of a lifetime; if you have not been to China, take advantage of this opportunity to travel with your fellow Rensselaer alums. Read on and you'll see just how much last year's travelers enjoyed this experience.
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The fantastic ancient mountains of the Guilin area in south China.
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The equally fantastic new Pudong district of Shanghai, taken from the terrace of the world-famous ‘M on the Bund’ restaurant. Pudong was built on what were rice paddies 20 years ago.
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