Money Transfers and Mosquitoes

Today is our last full day in Nei Mongol. Know in English as Tongliao, Inner Mongolia.

Last night was difficult. I was awoken by mosquitoes and about 7 or 8 bites. I turned on the lights several times during the night after I awoken by buzzing to locate and smash the little flying vampires. It took awhile for my eyes to adjust to the light. Nina would wake up and gaze at me with a look that could have only said, "what are you doing?"

I managed to locate and smash two mosquitoes. My blood rests as evidence on the wall.

I've also been bothered by the heat. I've never appreciated air conditioning more, now that I don't have it. Yes, we were given an air conditioner for the bedroom, but of course, it doesn't work.

It's really hot here, so hot it bothers me to walk, to do anything that requires any energy output. Summer's no fun with this heat. There is no escape from it.

I'm still waiting on the Veterinarian to bring over a transportation paper for Nina. I'm so ready to be done doing business with Chinese people. Nothing feels efficient here. People won't make appointments, or set times to meet. They make promises, and then don't show up. There are numerous rules to do things, but nobody seems to follow them, or let me know how things are done. We've gone to the train station twice to ask how we should go about bringing Nina along. All we get is, "It's okay. It's allowed," and "No, it's not allowed."

It's beyond frustrating.

So, hopefully the Vet will show. I'm hiding Nina in a thin sheet and carrying her like my baby when we go through security. When we get to the waiting room, I'll discretly put her in her carrier. I'm so nervous something will go wrong, and they'll refuse the dog to go with us. Time is tight. We have to get Nina off with the WorldPet company when we arrive, and then make our connection to the airport for out 11am flight to Lhasa that morning.

I'm praying to Ganesha the Remover of Obstacles, and St. Christopher, the Patron Saint of Travelers, to guide us through safely and without incident to Monday evening when Ned and I will be safely landed in Lhasa, Nina will be boarded, and we'll have made all our connections.


On a good note, I sucessfully wire transfered all the money in my Chinese bank account to my Wells Fargo account in America. I feel like a hardcore international traveler now that I've sucessfully wired money around the globe, and will have flown my dog with me half way around the world (fingers crossed).

I wanted to keep my awesome yellow Bank of China bank book, but they wouldn't let me. So sad. It was my favorite document.