http://foreignxchanges.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html
This link will take you to some familiar tales of washing machine woes.
A few weeks ago, the USS Stennis and all of its support ships were in town. They were one month in to a 6 month mission from Washington. We had three sailors over for dinner at our house one night while they were in town. Two of our friends here who are from Chicago came over as well and the 7 of us all had dinner together. It's a program called Meals in the Home that the American Women's Association I am president of participates in each time a ship is in town. This is the first time we were able to host. All three sailors were class AOS, which I don't know what that stands for other than they are the bomb builders on the ship. We had a great evening. One of the most fun nights we've had here. The guys were so happy to have a home cooked meal. Two were in their early 30s and one in his mid-20s. All three had kids and wives back home. Chris ended up taking them out to the bar district that night. The Commanding Officer and Executive Officer of the ship were out that same night and one of our guests broke just about all protocol and went up to introduce Chris to the CO and XO to let him know that we hosted them for dinner and that they loved the food and it was their best night in Hong Kong. Anyway, that was really sweet, especially since I don't think they normally go around chatting with the officers. Chris of course was in heaven and thought it was cool that he got to meet those guys.
While the ships were in town, the Meals in the Home program hosted more than 200 sailors for dinner and I think there is going to be an article in the English newspaper here about the program and the American Women's Association in the near future. I am very happy about the publicity.
We also got to go on a brief tour of the Stennis. This was after we saw first hand how the US military may not be such a well-oiled machine. We had to wait 1.5 hours for the boat to come and pick us up because they couldn't get the right boat sailing and then didn't have someone to guide us. All very funny. Unfortunately, they limit the tours for people in China to just the hangar bay and flight deck. They say it's because of the number of people around (or at least that was the official reasoning) but the sailors we hosted were pretty sure that it was just because of the risk of the communist country that we live next door to. Funny in a not so funny sort of way. We did get to right the flight elevator that moves the planes. That was my favorite part. Very Top Gun.
We are hoping to be able to do it again the next time a ship comes in to town. It was a great way to say thank you to all of the men and women who serve in our armed forces.
