Nov 11 More excursions in Hefei

The ladies decided to go to the “Anhui Province Celebrity Museum.” Every famous person in antiquity from this province (and also some who were just passing through) is recreated in wax. Some of the figures move. There was a whole ship battle with flashing lights. Some look like they should move, but pressing the button doesn’t do anything.

Here is a picture of Deena with the first recorded anesthesiologist. We made her pose with him because she is also an anesthesiologist.


This museum was far away from everything. We asked at the ticket office if there was a restaurant nearby. They pointed across the street. This was a giant street; we didn’t see any restaurant from our side; but we took it as an article of faith and trooped across. I think they must have called the restaurant and told them to watch for us, because the waitresses came out the door and were calling to us.

One of the waitresses spoke Engish – how lucky can we get? She helped us order and then wrote: “please take me to the zoo” for us. (She had to write it twice, since we are now 8 and need two cabs.)

It is amazing that we manage to flag down 2 cabs and all get to the zoo with very little trouble. The air quality at the zoo was quite a bit better than downtown Hefei, which was a big relief.

You know that I am a connoisseur of zoos. This one had an excellent camel collection, which obviously people feed, because they were hanging out at the fence greeting everyone who came by.

They had a seal. For a small sum, you could get your picture taken with it.

He put his nose to the ear for every photo and kept it there until the trainer blew a whistle.

Best of all, there was a panda. We decided that a trip to the zoo would be quite expensive for the Chinese. The entrance fee was 25 RMB, except if you were less than 1.2 meters. Instead of charging less by age they do it by height. There were other activites like rides and fishing for goldfish, all of which had additional costs. There was a supplemental charge of 10 RMB for seeing the panda, and another 10 for the reptiles. We passed on the snakes.

First the panda ate leaves:


Then he got a special snack which he took a long time eating. He actually licked the pavement to make sure that he got every morsel.

Then, as he was moving back to the leaves, he POOPED. (This last bit was put it because I know that Calder will be very impressed!)

After the panda, we divided into two groups. My group decided to head back to the hotel. We left by way of a huge aviary. The other group stayed longer, missed the aviary, but saw the lions, tigers and bears.

That night was the collaboration banquet. They held it at our hotel which was really convenient. Because we were sitting at the table with the Vice president of the university, I didn’t feel that I could take pictures. Here is the menu:

1.) Mixed spiced platter, 2.) 6 cold dishes, 3.) fish puree soup, 4.)boiled shrimp with sauce, 5.) stewed bean curd FengYang style, 6.) sautéed spring chicken, 7.) stewed abalone and mushrooms with baby bok choy, 8.) boiled bull frog in hot spicy(sic), 9.) spare ribs with lilac, 10.) steamed Duobao fish, 11.) cabbage core with minced red peppers, 12.) boiled vegetable with sauce, 13.) turtle and special mushroom soup, 14.) dim sum, 15.) fried rice YangZhou style.
Once again everything was yummy. I would have preferred just having the broth of the turtle soup, but the head of the physics dept. told the waitress to divide it up and give everyone some – oh joy!

This time we just had to walk upstairs to our room to go to bed.