New Discovery and Plan C

Most summer days here in Nanjing are a variation of hot and humid, with a high dose of smog thrown in for effect. Think Hawaii in LA. My first few days started out that way before the five-day monsoon that followed. After the rain stopped, we had several days of low humidity, light wind days that were pleasant meaning my shirt didn't soak through with sweat soon after leaving the house. Yesterday, things began to crank up bit and the smog was intolerable with visibilities less than a mile. Today started out a bit better until we left the house a short while ago. Then, looking up at the sky, i noticed something i've not seen in a great while, even in Modesto.

Blue Sky as far as I could see. It's still hot and humid, but at least i have something beautiful to look at when i'm not looking at Mia.

Now, Plan C of our quest for train tickets. This will be short.
During Mia's endless evening with her friends last night, one volunteered to contact a travel agent to ease our pain this morning. The agent would immediately try to snatch tickets to the 8:30 or 9:30 overnight trains on Thursday and then give us a call. That's nice. Shortly after 9am today, we got the call that all the tickets to those two trains were sold out. yes, sold out. we quickly trecked out of the house and down the street to the local ticket outlet to inquire about other options. Plan B was to bring Chris back to Nanjing on the 8:20pm fast train, arriving around 10:40pm and then take the 1:11am train to beijing. Unfortuantely, the ticket office couldn't sell those tickets because we were outside the 3-day purchase window. we could "reserve" the tickets at the Nanjing train station. So, we jumped in the taxi for the 16 Yuan trip, and got in line at window 30. Yes we could reserve tickets. (a note here. To reserve any tickets to Beijing, you must prove who you are and prove that you have business in Beijing (you little trouble maker, you). This means you need passport numbers and a receipt for olympic tickets)
So, yes we could reserve, but the 1:11am and the 1:30am trains were sold out. The 7am and 8am trains were sold out. Ok, time for Plan C.

Plan C (which is where we settled) is to bring Chris back to Nanjing, stay the night at our house, and then take the noon fast train to beijing. yes, tickets were available. The train, traveling at 155 MPH, will arrive around 8:40pm, meaning that we'll miss a good chunk of the opening ceremonies. LIfe goes on. We have tickets to ride. Of course, we'd already purchased JiaWei's ticket earlier, meaning that he'll still leave the evening before and will be in Beijing about 10 hours before us. Mia's friend (the hotel manager) will pick him up at the station.

And so it goes.