Swine flu is sooo yesterday's news (no, really. yesterday.)

In case anyone was staying up nights all anxious with worry about the outbreak of The Plague in my province, I just wanted to put your minds at ease. The plague town has been sealed off, and there are no reports that it has spread to Xining. Also, I plan to steer clear of eating marmots, which is how the outbreak apparently began, so no worries there.

We got an email this morning from one of the former vols that train and bus travel to Xining is restricted, but flights are fine (I have a flight). She said the only impact she knows of is one traveler who managed to escape Ziketan before the quarantine, and the government tracked her down to her hostel in Xining and hauled her off to isolation in another province. Go Big Red!

On an even more humorous front, I wanted to share our swine flu story! The girl who is going with me to Xining had been sick for a few days, so she went to the hospital. The docs prescribed some stuff for her stomach, told her to wait a few minutes while they filled her prescription ... When no one had returned an hour later, she discovered that the entire clinic had been evacuated. Before long, a team of CDC workers in full hazmat suits showed up to swab her for the H1N1 test. About 12 hours of quarantine later -- while we waited to find out whether the rest of the group was going to be quarantined as well -- the test came back negative, of course (she just had the usual traveler's sickness), and she was released around 11 p.m.

That's about all for today's report from the other side of the world.