Last night we returned from a trip with two wonderful groups of Israelis (one English-speaking, one Hebrew speaking) who traveled together. The people were delightful and China was, as always, a magical place. On the last night of the trip, I read them a poorly rhymed, poorly metered piece of doggerel with which I summarized the trip. Some asked for a copy, so here it is:<\/p>\n
Shai Bar Ilan Trip to China, April 16 – May 1, 2007<\/p>\n
We took off from Israel on a bright sunny morning,
\nFull of anticipation but up since the dawning.<\/p>\n
At last in China we finally arrived,
\nExcited and happy and already sleep-deprived.<\/p>\n
In Beijing saw Cixi’s Summer Palace,
\nA home more impressive than J.R.’s in Dallas.<\/p>\n
The acrobatics show was thrilling
\nAnd we sat there all willing
\nAnd fervently hopin’
\nOur eyes would stay open!<\/p>\n
And then in the blink of an eye,
\nThere we all were in Shanghai,
\nFrom the Jin Mao we looked down
\nOn the skyscrapered town
\nOn the Bund we started to BUY!<\/p>\n
(For the first time we heard the holler
\n“2 for, 3 for, 4 for ONE DOLLAR!”)<\/p>\n
We ate at Chabad with the Jews,
\nOn the Huangpu we took a night cruise,
\nAnd saw the bright lights
\nAnd all of the sights
\nAnd later were grateful to take off our shoes.<\/p>\n
In the morning we went to the park
\nAnd the monument they put up to mark
\nThe Jews who they saved
\nAnd the hardships they braved
\nBecause life there was not such a lark.<\/p>\n
At YuYuan Market things were hopping
\nAnd we occupied ourselves there by shopping.<\/p>\n
The City Museum of Shanghai was one of our priorities,
\nAnd there we enjoyed costumes of ethnic minorities.<\/p>\n
Our bus to Suzhou without much reconnoitering
\nCame to a factory where women were embroidering.<\/p>\n
That evening all of us were entranced
\nAs at Mater of the Nets people sang, played, and danced.<\/p>\n
At the Silk Factory we felt only praise
\nFor the jackets and scarves and duvets.<\/p>\n
In the Lion Grove Garden we took stock,
\nOf each building, tree, pond, and rock.<\/p>\n
On shabbat in Hangzhou we took a break
\nAnd enjoyed all the sights at West Lake.<\/p>\n
The Song Dynasty show in the vernacular
\nWas nothing short of spectacular.<\/p>\n
With waterfalls, lasers, acrobatics, and fire
\nAnd more action than your heart could desire.<\/p>\n
From the pharmacy to the Dragon Well Tea,
\nWe found cures for what ails you and me.<\/p>\n
In Guilin we didn’t lie dormant
\nBut went to the river to watch fishing by cormorant.<\/p>\n
We enjoyed the vastness of the Reed Flute Cave,
\nAnd at the Pearl Factory temptation tried to brave.<\/p>\n
We saw the Li River’s karst peaks.
\nWe’ll be talking about them for weeks.<\/p>\n
We walked through the village of FuLi
\nAnd saw what life there was like truly.<\/p>\n
Yang Shuo we felt was a “winner”
\nAs we sat down to a flag-festooned dinner.<\/p>\n
And here’s the thing we felt best,
\nTho’ we were at the end of the East, our hearts were in the West!<\/p>\n
The show on the river provided us sights,
\nWaves of red, torches, and shimmering lights.<\/p>\n
In Kunming the city of spring,
\nAt the temple, Buddhist women did sing.<\/p>\n
At the museum we saw an ancient pillar
\nAnd cases that looked good for a megill-er.<\/p>\n
To see another example of karst,
\nWe drove through hills and valleys to see the Stone Forest.<\/p>\n
After seeing the Stone Forest re-gi-on,
\nWe took a flight to Lijiang.<\/p>\n
The mountains’ beauty and the fresh air
\nMade it a delight to be there.<\/p>\n
Then we took a walk through the old city
\nThat we couldn’t stay longer was such a pity
\nAt Tiger Leaping Gorge,
\nI saw my old friend George,
\n(Not really, but the rhyme fit this ditty.)<\/p>\n
We visited the small village of Axi
\nWhich is home to people of the Naxi.<\/p>\n
We returned that night to Kunming,
\nRested, then for Xian took wing.<\/p>\n
There Qin’s army awaited,
\nAs a world class attraction it’s rated.<\/p>\n
We’ll tell our friend, our son, and our dotta-
\n“What a lotta terracotta!”<\/p>\n
For those of us who like jade,
\nTwas fun to see how the figures are made.<\/p>\n
In Xian we saw the mosque they use
\nModeled after the shul of the Jews.<\/p>\n
The music, dancing, and acrobatics impressed us so
\nWhen we went to the Tang Dynasty Show.<\/p>\n
With our adrenaline still raging,
\nWe boarded a plane for Beijing.<\/p>\n
The Temple of Heaven was simply Divine,
\nThe pearl factory had jewelry quite fine.<\/p>\n
At the show we saw about Kung Fu,
\nThey did martial arts, acrobatics and sung too!<\/p>\n
Before breakfast we wives saw our boys pray
\nAfterwards to the factory for Cloisonn\u00c3\u00a9.<\/p>\n
Like Humpty Dumpty, climbed the Great Wall,
\nThen Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City & THAT’S ALL!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last night we returned from a trip with two wonderful groups of Israelis (one English-speaking, one Hebrew speaking) who traveled together. The people were delightful and China was, as always, a magical place. On the last night of the trip, I read them a poorly rhymed, poorly metered piece of doggerel with which I summarized […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-ramblings","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}