06 June 2005

Today was a tough day. We woke up super early to catch an 8 am train to Qufu, our next destination. We all squished into some cabs and were off to the airport. Sounds fine right? That's when it began. Me and two other students got put into a small mini van cab...one of those vans that looks like a toaster. Almost immediately the van smelled of exhaust. We thought it might be traffic but quickly concluded that the van was pumping fumes into the passenger section. We breathed through our shirts but soon that didn't work. It started to get scary as we became light headed. There was a group of our girls riding behind us in another cab and we signaled to them that we were having troubles. They didn't get it and thought we were joking around. Then we grabbed a notebook and made signs that said "Exhaust" and "Help". Then they got it. Problem was no one could communicate so they couldn't do anything and we were in morning rush hour traffic. I mustered some words in Chinese...can't breathe, sick, stop....but the driver just shrugged me off. At this point we were getting quite dizzy. We re-arranged the bags in the vehicle so that we were closer to open windows but the effects were getting worse. The other two were taking it badly and getting faint. Long story short...it was bad news...very scary...but we arrived at the train station semi-safely. They were sick for most of the day but it worked it's way out. I want you to know that we are all safe and it was just a fluke happening. That cab driver was some sort ofr jerk and we've made a no toaster cab rule as well as a hand signal to indicate true trouble.

Then we took a train ride and I'll write about that later...it was something. Now we're in Qufu the home of Confuscianism...should be some neat learning....Love you...later

3 comments:

Nevada said...

Oooh..so scary baby! I'm glad you are ok, you're story made me so worried!!! I hope that's the worst thing that happens to you!

SarahJ said...

Hey Chester,
Glad that you are having an interesting..and semi-sketchy trip! Keep up the blogging cuz it makes everyone here at home feel like we can catch up on what's going on. Take care, we all miss you lots!

Melissa said...

I'm glad you're ok. That sounds scary, I hope you're able to stay away from situations like that. Good idea to create your own signals!

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