Saturday and another dinner

April 28, 2007 Saturday.

It has been decided that a car will drive us to Nanjing and that we can return to Hefei on a bus. I think that they are worried that we will disappear into the bowels of Nanjing, never to be found, if they send us off unattended. The return trip (maybe they figure that Nanjing will be too worried to put us on a bus and will provide something?) can be by bus because once we get to Hefei, they know that we can get home to the campus.

I went exploring outside of the gate in a new direction. We had been talking about the fact that in China there is only 1 police person for every 1000 people (I don’t know about these figures but say it is true. I don’t think that they counted the guards at every gate of the campus and every apartment complex, the guards at every building on campus, and the crossing guards at the major intersections) My apartment has 3 locked metal doors between me and the outside. While walking along, I noticed the wall around the campus has glass on top and there was a security camera mounted just above it. (4 flight)

Chuck is going to give a talk in Nanjing, so he is getting it together. He already has a PowerPoint presentation that has most of what he wants to say. I will have to get the pictures and create the pages for what he wants to add. (If I have any problems, I might be sending out some PP questions. Is anyone an expert? Please let me know.) (4 flights)

Dinner with Feng Zhao and Jinmeng Liu (aka Dream because his name means golden dream) These were the only ones who chose a restaurant that was not on the list that Jian created. It was pretty brave of them, because they chose the most special restaurant in Hefei, which turned out to be the one that we went to with Nu. For lots of pictures of this restaurant look at: Nov 8, 2006 A Dining Experience. Dream’s roommate had told him about it and they decided to go for it. Choosing the dishes was hard for them. There were sooooooo many and they were hoping that we would do the choosing. We tried to leave it to them, but we hopped in with suggestions every once in awhile.

We ended up with very spicy noodles, stuffed pickled cucumbers, chicken (that’s what they said – but the bones didn’t look right) with peppers, beef wrapped around mushrooms and then fried, pork with eyeballs (really a kind of fruit that was semi translucent with a large pit in the center) and seafood with bok choy. There were 3 choices of beer: original, green (with some veggie matter) and dark brown (they said with coffee in it.) We went with original although green was tempting me.

For dessert we had a large round marshmallow that was painted a little to make it look like a peach and of course, watermelon. They also put little tomatoes on the fruit plate, since tomatoes are really a fruit.

(4 flights) (12 today)

One Week Anniversary

April 27, 2007 Friday

We have been in our apartment a week. We pretty much have our way of life here in order. I always have to be careful that I use the bottle water to brush my teeth and the boiled water for washing dishes. Turning on the tap is such a habit.

Here is a picture of the “dryer”. You can see that the poles are pretty high. I’m getting good at balancing the hangers on the lifting pole.

I walked by the elementary school that is on campus. Some of the kids were playing on one of the yards. (It looks like there are other yards and some basketball courts and tennis courts attached too.) I’m going to try to get an invitation to visit the Kindergarten school and the elementary school when the Golden Week vacation is over. I might not understand the language, but I can recognize what they are teaching and how they are doing it.

Went back to Carrefour (my new favorite place – I know where everything is.) There was a tug of war contest outside. Several teams waiting to compete, much screaming and laughter.

I was looking at the available movies and noticed that they had two types DVD and VCD. Does anyone know the difference? I was thinking of buying some.

(4 flights)

Tonight’s dinner companions are another boy & girl team, but they aren’t a couple, Yujiao Chen and Liaoyuan Huo. The restaurant that they choose was not as elegant as the other 2 we have been to. Its name was San He which I know means 3 rivers. It was quite close to the campus but because of the construction would be dangerous to walk to at night.

There are open man holes every few yards and there are no warning barricades.

At this restaurant we did not have our own room, so it was more difficult to talk to them. We also didn’t take a picture. At the next table was a group of young men who got very drunk, smoked and yelled. On the other side of us, was a group of deaf people who signed, so were much more quiet although deaf people can also make a lot of noise. I noticed that they were text messaging on their cell phones. I hadn’t really thought about what a fabulous thing that would be for a deaf person.

We did have delicious food though. Spare ribs wrapped in leaves, vegetable tofu stir-fry, braised celery with shallots, west lake soup, (one of Chuck’s particular favorites) deep fried duck, deep fried dumplings, beef with hot green peppers which were not spicy enough for the young lady who is from Hunan. The menu had pictures so we could go there again.

Both of these students were seniors. They have already been accepted to grad school in the USA. She is going to Columbia and he is going to Texas A&M. Chuck told him that Texas was famous for spare ribs and so something would be familiar there. Chuck also emailed a friend at Texas A&M to tell him about this kid.

(4 flights) (8 total, I took it easy today)

Parkson

April 26, 2007 Thursday

Marie called in the morning. It is fun to talk to home.

I took a taxi to Parkson. It was listed on my “places to go” sheet under supermarkets, but it really is a high end department store with a supermarket in the basement. In Shanghai, the one that I saw also had restaurants on the top floor, but no luck here.

What strikes me when I walk through a store here is the number of people ready and willing to wait on you. This department store was set up with each make of clothing in its own boutique. Each boutique had at least 2 salespeople. I was the only customer on some of the floors. It also has this system where you choose what you want to buy; receive an order slip; take it to the cashier; receive a receipt; return to the original salesperson and pick up the purchase. In a supermarket, there will be an assistant on each aisle – in a crowded store they are helping clog up the aisle. Each checkout counter also has its own bagger. It is easy to see that labor is very cheap here.

Outside of Parkson is a pedestrian walking street. I wandered for awhile, but had to leave to get home for lunch. Having Chuck come home everyday does mean that I have to stop what I am doing to go home too. (It reminds me of when we were in Paris when Alec was 7. He came home for lunch everyday and it meant that I only had about 2 ½ hours to explore.) Taxis are so cheap though that I can always return to wherever I left off.)

(4 flights)

After lunch (supposedly the Chinese people are all home taking naps) Chuck watches a little TV (the west coast NBA games might be on.) or checks his email then he goes back about 1:30.

I went to pick up his shirts. I guess that they do take naps. I woke up the shirt lady. She showed me that one of the shirts had a rip along the tuck in the back. She repaired it while I watched on her peddle Singer. Then she ironed the tuck down using a pair of jeans as a pressing pad. It looks great. (4 flights)

The air conditioner repair man came this afternoon. 2 students brought him so that they could translate for me. He took away the controller because it is defective. The other 2 air conditioners work with another controller. I had finally found that one and had managed to make the air conditioner beep, but since I can’t read the buttons, nothing else seemed to work. One of the students told me what the buttons said. I think that he has the same technical competence as Chuck. He could tell me what the buttons said, but didn’t seem to be able to tell me what they would do. He finally told me enough that I was able to figure out how the thing worked. I hadn’t realized that I had to push the blue button after every other button. The blue button sends the information to the air conditioner. Making the AC work is very important. Everyone keeps saying that it is going to get very very hot and that we are very lucky that it is still cool.

Since this kid was tall, I had him change two light bulbs, also.

We went out for dinner with Jun Yu and Xing Liu. Xing is a girl and they are a couple – not only just for this dinner. When we were walking to the taxi over rough ground, she took my arm. This is something that I have seen a lot here, a young person taking an old woman’s arm to help her walk. (Of course, that does make me an “old woman” and I don’t really think of myself as needing help, but it was really sweet.)

This place was Meng-Cheng, pronounced Mung-chung. There are several of them around town. It also had a bride in the lobby. She was in her white dress when we went in, looking very tired. I don’t know how long she has to stand there, everyone else seems to be inside the big room eating and drinking. When we left, she was still there, but had changed into a red and gold net evening gown.

We had pickled radish, pigeon with shrimp chips, beef with mayonnaise, ground pork stuffed into tofu balls (hard to pick up), fish with hot peppers, green bean soup, banana dumplings (shaped like bananas with a faint banana taste, but more like the pumpkin dumplings than a real banana) and watermelon.

(4 flights) 12 total today.

More minutia

April 25, 2007 Wednesday

We have been here a week and we are already planning our vacation. May 1 is the start of a one week holiday here. I went to the office with Chuck to talk about it with Hongfang. Originally, they had planned a hiking trip to the yellow mountain for us. Since Chuck needed treatment for a cyst on his spine just before we came, and since he is not in good condition for hiking anyway, they decided that Nanjing was just the ticket. Now, they are deciding how we are going to get there and where we will stay.

We know someone at the university at Nanjing. Prof Fan Wang was at UCLA a looong time ago. Unfortunately, he will be away during this time, but put us in contact with a Prof. who had been a student at UCLA. Prof. Ping made a reservation for us at the university guest house. We will go for 4 days between May 6 & 10. Hongfang is saying that the bus would be the easiest way to go. A student would go and get the tickets for us. I can tell that students here are the same slaves that they are in the States. When Chuck was in Grad school, his thesis prof. tried to have them install his air conditioner.

Went home to use the bathroom (4 flights) and took a taxi to Carrefour. I’m still looking for mustard and a dumpling steamer, but I really wanted to get the salami that I abandoned yesterday.

The taxi dropped me across the street, so I looked around at more of the shops that are around that area and also saw more of the ones inside the mall.

I can tell that I’ve been to Carrefour too often. I know where everything is. There was still a long line to buy eggs. I don’t know what is so special about them, they are loose and put carefully in a plastic bag and then weighed.

Found the salami, put it in a bag and gave it to the woman to weigh. The machine didn’t work!! I am not destined to get this. She ran off somewhere. I waited and when a store manager type came by, I snagged him and he fixed the machine and weighed my salami. The store wasn’t as busy today, so I could really look carefully in my efforts to find mustard. No luck.

Home by taxi to have lunch with Chuck. (4 flights) After lunch, we went to the store across the street. Chuck wanted some fruit, and I said that he could come and choose what looked good to him. (4 flights)

I took a lovely nap in the afternoon.

The physics group took us for dinner at Jinke (the restaurant nearest the physics building. (1 flight)

We had 2 Wangs, a Zhang, a Zeng, a Wu, a Chen and a Shao. I am writing down everyone’s name so that there is some hope that I will remember them. We had tofu several different ways – dried with a vegetable, regular with a vegetable, and noodles made with the skin. They ordered the duck (that had left the last time we were there) shrimp 2 ways (fried and boiled), mushroom soup, pork with peppers, clear slimy noodles, light green squash. For “main food” we had dumplings in broth. Watermelon for dessert.

Walked home (4 flights) and watched 24 on TV. It was really funny. The show was in English with Chinese subtitles, but the bad guy spoke Russian, so when he spoke there were English subtitles too.

17 flights today

First Student dinner

April 24, Tuesday

Today was just an easy day. I went to the store and then walked through the outside market. They had lots of chickens, ducks, geese, bunnies (small – I think for pets) and many kinds of fish. There were either eels or snakes – I didn’t look closely enough to determine which. (4 flights)

I called Marie. She had been trying to call me, but it was always busy. Then Heidi called. (Her brother-in-law is Douglas in Shanghai.) It turned out that Heidi had sent people the wrong phone # for me. It is really nice to talk to everyone.

Tonight was our first dinner with the students. The first two (Rui Tan and Jianping Xiao) had signed up quickly, so they had first choice from the restaurant list. The deal is that they pick the restaurant, make a reservation if needed, get us there and choose the food. This is quite stressful for them. It isn’t anything that most of them have had to do and they want to please Chuck.

The restaurant that they chose was Jin-Man-Lou. This may be the best place in town. When we told Hongfang about it the next day, her eyebrows went up when she heard the name of the place. It was quite fancy and had a wedding on the first floor. We had a room of our own on the 2^nd floor. There was an elevator, YAH!

Both of these young men spoke good English, so we were able to have a nice chat during dinner. We think that they may have chosen a “set” menu because there didn’t seem to be enough talking for the number of dishes that we had.

We had duck on green beans, chicken mushrooms, cooked melon, 2 kinds of soup, shrimp, beef with vegetable, bok choy, and sweet potato bun and pancake for “main food”.

We had the waitress take our picture, and the boys got to take home the leftovers. These students are both juniors. They take 8 courses at a time. (It was hard to tell how much outside work was required for each course.) They lived on campus and one had 4 in a room, the other 5.

I think that they had a good time. They had heard about me imitating animals to order food (I think that this must have been a great story to pass around if the students have heard it.) so they understood why this was a really good thing for us.

They delivered us back to campus and we thanked them for a great evening. They had done a fabulous job.

(4 flights)

Only 8 flights today

Real Life

April 23, Monday

The routine of everyday life is beginning. Hongfang brought a cleaning lady and introduced her and told her what she should do. We left her to clean while we went out to buy a calling card and to check to see where I should take Chuck’s shirts to be laundered. The International calling card had a face value of 100¥ and cost just 24. This was from the college book store – so no bargaining was involved.

I went home (4 flights) and waited until the Miss Hua was finished. This will be an interesting relationship, since we can’t communicate.

Chuck came home for lunch and after he left, I walked to the Carrefour which took about 40 minutes. This Carrefour has the Chinese version of Home Depot Expo in the basement. They had tons of bathrooms and kitchens displayed. Shower stalls, laminate floors, tiles, and light fixtures, some of the brands I recognized as major brands available in the States, others were strictly Chinese.

The main floor has a mall area with small shops (including a shop for each and every brand of athletic gear.) The supermarket itself has appliances and clothes as well as food. The third floor has a big food court, 4 or 5 restaurants and a fun zone with pinball machines, little kid riding machines, a roller rink and computer games.

The supermarket part is worse than Costco on a crowded day. There were blockades in every aisle. I knew that I had to get the vegetables weighed before I went to pay, but didn’t realize that I had to have the croissants priced also. So, I was in line and when the girl saw my bag of croissants she said “Whnn whnen” which I took to mean “Go back and get them priced. So I took my basket and returned to the bakery area and found someone to put the price on my bag. Back to the line. When it was my turn again, I was putting all of my things up on the counter and came to a dry salami. “Whnn whnen” again. *#@%#$! The salami, I wasn’t going to go back again. I motioned to leave it be and we continued until I was checked out.

I took a taxi back to the campus and hiked up. (4 flights)

Since Chuck is teaching from 7:30 to 9:30, we are eating at home. I warmed up the frogs legs, cooked some string beans and put out some cold spicy noodles from the store. As we sat down to eat, we realized that none of the light bulbs in the dining room work. We had a romantic dinner in the shadows with our light the spill from the kitchen.

Chuck came here with a plan to have the students take turns taking us out to dinner. We would pay, but they would choose the restaurant, get us there and choose the food. He came home from his class very excited. Our dance card is full. All of the students signed up for different nights. They are going in pairs – so it wouldn’t be such a burden of responsibility.

He thinks that his class is going well.

Sunday

April 22, 2007 Sunday

We had a tremendous rain storm in the predawn hours. Since yesterday was almost unbearably muggy, the rain really helps to bring the temperature down again. Unfortunately, the smell of drains in the bathroom has intensified.

We watched the sports channel on TV. Today it was synchronized swimming and the NBA playoff between Houston & Utah. Everyone here roots for Houston because of Yao Ming. The other popular sports channel offerings have been the world snooker tournament, synchronized diving, soccer, and golf. They do show the other NBA games if Houston isn’t playing.

Fireworks were going off like World War III. Hongfang said later that there was a wedding in the building across from her.

Between the raindrops, I took Chuck to the supermarket across the street from the campus. He likes to choose things to try and it is nice to have someone else to help carry. You may notice that I am going to the store A LOT! That’s because I am limited to what I can carry up 4 flights. Now, I am training Chuck to ask if I need anything, when he calls to say that he is coming home. (4flights)

We have been invited to dinner by Prof. Zhang and his wife. The original plan was to take a walk in the Arboretum near his apartment, but the rain has squelched that plan. Instead we met Hongfang at the East Gate (that’s the one nearest our abode) to take a taxi to his new apartment. (He also has a place on campus that he lives in during the week. It took us a big 20 minutes to get to his new place.)

This is how some real people live in China. (I think that they think that I’m a little strange asking if I can take pictures of everything. But, they happily give me tours and let me snap away.) (1 flight)

The living room area with Hongfang Chen. Behind her you can see the drying porch. We were having fruit and tea before leaving for the restaurant.

A 180 degree turn to the dining room.

Through a door across from the table to the kitchen. It is quite spacious and has a two burner cook top and a lot of drawers and cabinets.

Bathroom with washing machine. The sink is open to the hall.

Guest bedroom.

Built in closet. The picture is of Prof. Zhang’s daughters when they were little. They both live in the USA now and are in their early thirties. We saw the wedding photos of one daughter. She looked exquisite. She wore several very formal dresses and a wedding dress in the photos. They explained that everything is rented for the photos. The groom gets to dress up in fancy costumes (Louis XIV for example) also.

During the picture showing I brought out my photos of Calder & Branwen. They are very intrigued by Branwen’s looks. She is more Asian looking, but has grey-blue eyes.

The master bath.

The third bedroom is a lovely office.

The outside of their building. Mrs. Zhang is looking back at their balcony. It is on the 2^nd floor and you can see the clothes.

This is in a gated apartment community with walkways and fountains etc. Each of these communities has a guard at the gate.

We walked out of the gate and down the road apiece to the restaurant.

The fake flowers and leaping fish lit up after dark.

Here we are with Hongfang and Prof. Zhang.

The ladies went down to choose the fish. (They don’t seem to know any more about it than I do. We seemed to be picking based on which ones had fewest bones.) (2 flights)

We had the skin of a green radish (pickled), snails with green onions, beef, peanuts, wood ears (black mushrooms), dried tofu, green beans (they looked like limas, but didn’t taste quite the same), stone frogs (in the black caldron), fish soup (1 fish in each bowl), sticky rice soup with little colored balls of sticky rice and for “main food” a pancake. And of course WATERMELON. The “main food” thing is really funny. When you have had lots of different dishes and you are stuffed to the gills, they come and ask what you would like for “main food”. The choices seem to be: rice, pancake, noodles, dumplings and bread. This is why we never get rice when we are alone – we don’t understand what they are asking and just signal for the check.

We had tea and beer to drink. Zhang asked if we wanted White wine. I said that I had not seen white wine in China and it would be good to try. Hongfang then said – that white wine is their name for the white lightning liquor. I changed my order to beer.

During dinner, they told us about the time when USTC moved out of Bejing. It was decided that it would be safer to have it away from a big city, so they moved everyone to a very very small town. It was horrible. There was no place for anyone to live. Faculty families were sharing the stage of the auditorium with blankets hung up to separate their areas. Zhang said that he had just received his degree, so he just got off the train and went home instead of going to this place. This was in 1970, so it was during the “disturbances”. Since this place was impossible, the government emptied the Normal University in Hefei and moved the Science & Technology University there. I think that however bad it was, the other possibilities were worse during this time.

A fine time was had by all. We flagged down a taxi and went home. (4 flights)

11 flights today

Chuck teaches & we go to the zoo

April 21, 2007 Saturday

Today is our first day in our new home and we have a problem. No hot water! Hongfang and I had checked to see that it was working when we did our walk through, but now nothing. We took sponge baths so didn’t have to worry that the shower curtain won’t stay up. Every once in awhile, I would turn on the hot water to see if it would come on, tap the water heater, swear, you know the drill.

We had tea and a sweet roll for breakfast. Chuck went off to teach his first class. He has 10 students. I put on a load of laundry and type a bibliography for him. When the laundry was done, I managed to hang it up (the poles are near the ceiling and there is a lifting pole to get hangers there.)

We had lunch with Jian at another restaurant near the gate by the physics building. (1 flight) This is another good one for us. It has a display of the food. Now, the reality is that we don’t always recognize what the food is – but at least we have some clue. We had spicy frogs legs, shrimp wrapped in cabbage and beef with the green tops of scallions. We had enough of the beef and the frogs legs to take some home. (4 flights)

We went to the zoo in the afternoon. I had been there with the ladies, but it is a nice way of spending an afternoon, and Chuck hadn’t been there. (1 flight and lots of walking)

This sign as you start walking through the zoo gives one pause:

TO TOURSIT: BEWARE WILD ANIMAL ATTACK

The poor elephant was in a tiny cage.

There was the sweetest baby camel. We always decide if a zoo has a particularly good animal and this zoo has great camels.

Mama was a bit concerned. And no, I wasn’t using a zoom.

We walked on to the panda, which really moves around a lot. He went inside his house, and then came out again. Ate a snack. Dragged his bamboo up the hill and then sat and very systematically ate it.

On the way out we stopped by the camels again. The baby was galloping around and trying to climb on his mother’s back. (She was on the ground.)

We had leftovers for dinner. The beef mixed with the bok choy and the lotus root. For dessert we had popsicles. (4 flights)

This was a Mung Bean popsicle and surprisingly tasty.

Good News!!! We have water. By accident I turned on the cold water and heard the heater turn on. It turns out that both the bathroom and kitchen sinks are reversed. The tub is normal. Life is good, because today was very hot and muggy and it was nice to be able to take a shower and wash my hair.

A word of explanation about the water heater. It heats the water as you use it, so there is an unlimited supply. Turning on the hot water at the tap (in our case, the cold) causes the gas to turn on and heat the water running through it. We had this system in Japan, but because of their fear of fire, I had to ignite the pilot with a match whenever we wanted to use the hot water.

10 flights today

Moving day

April 20, 2007 Friday

We received an email from Calder. He has his own email address now. He got it because he is looking at a web site about the leatherback turtle migration between Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands. You can choose a turtle to root for and they send you emails everyday about your turtle’s progress. Alec says that he clicks on the duck icon to go to his area of the computer, then on the email icon to open it, and Calder says that tomorrow he will be able to look at the turtles by himself. So he dictated a note and typed his name at the end.

Breakfast (1 flight there and 2 back) and then I went to take pictures of the apartment before we moved in. (It is much neater before our stuff is all over. 4 flights)

We have a small entrance with hooks to hang jackets and a built in shoe cupboard. To the left is the “Master bedroom”.

The previous tenants left some weird things. The blue and yellow thing is really a mattress pad. The beds here range from marble slab to really firm. This pad makes a firm bed out of a slab. This is the bedroom we sleep in because it is the only one that has enough room to get out of both sides of the bed.

To the right of the entrance is the dining room:
And through it to the kitchen:

This is the hot water heater. It is on a small balcony which also has the stove.

The stove has 2 burners – but a lovely view while cooking. I have windows on three sides. This area is just big enough for one person.

Standing with my back to the outside and looking back into the inside part of the kitchen. There is a refrigerator, washing machine, sink and even has granite countertops. Lots of cupboards to store things but we don’t have much and I can’t reach most of them anyway. The thing with the red seal on it is a 5 liter water boiler. I boil all of the water for washing vegetables and dishes. We drink and brush our teeth with bottled water.

Going straight from the entrance is the living room.
We have the two large chairs, coffee table, fake plant and desk.

This is the “media center”. The shiny gray thing on the far left is the steel door. This is a very secure apartment. There is the steel door, a security metal screen door beyond it, and a locked security door to the building.

There is a lot of detailing – notice the moldings, cove ceiling and archway for the door. The ceiling of the entrance is dropped with glass panels with grape vines on them. The door to the drying balcony is etched with leaf forms. And the living room has a paneled chair rail.

This is the drying balcony. There is also an outside rack accessible from the windows here. I will probably never use mine, because it involves balancing a long pole with wet clothes on it. Here is a picture of my neighbor’s:

On the right of the living room is the bathroom:

An outer area with a sink and shelves and then an inner area with a bathtub (with shower) and toilet. There is a tension rod for the shower curtain that doesn’t have any tension. I have propped it between a cabinet and the rack at the bottom of the tub. It keeps the water in. I mentioned to Hongfang that I would look for another tension rod and she said that I shouldn’t bother – none of them work.

Beyond the living room to the left is another bedroom.

We keep our clothes in the closets in this room. Since the bed is moved closer to the far wall, it is easier to open the closet doors in this room. There are drawers built in under the closet for underwear etc.

On the other side of the hall is the 3^rd bedroom. We are using this one for an office and suitcase storage. The bed in this room is the marble slab type.

I had been making notes of the things that we needed, so went to the store for some needed supplies and dropped them off. (4 flights)

I met Chuck and we went for lunch to the Jinke restaurant right outside the gate near the physics building. (1 flight)

We had dumplings and a soup with ham, eggs and noodles. At the Jinke restaurant there is a display of all of the possible foods. You point out what you want to the order taker. Much easier than clucking and making a fool of yourself.

After lunch, I picked up some sodas for the students who were going to help us move and put them in the refrigerator. (4 flights). Then went back to the room to pack up everything so I would be ready when they came. (1 flight)

I had visions of them carrying all of the suitcases across campus, but it was much better. They had a bike with a cart on the back. Everything fit on. There were 4 students so we had an easy move. (4 flights)

For dinner we went back to Jinke since it had been tasty and oh so easy. The order taker pointed out the duck menu on wall. It looked like Peking duck – 3 courses. What a good idea. An easy choice. Up 1 flight to the restaurant. After a bit, a young man came to our table and said, “ The Duck left, sorry”. We interpreted this to mean that there was no more duck. Down we went to make another choice and then up again (1 flight)

We had baby bok choy, warm lotus root and onions sort of pickled and pumpkin stuffed with a beef and rice mixture. Now that we have a refrigerator, we can take leftovers home – so we did.

Back to our new home (4 flights) and fell into bed. I was so tired I ached.

27 flights today.

Day 3 Hefei

April 19, 2007 Thursday

Up with the chickens again. I normally get up about 6:30 in Los Angeles, when my friend Marie calls me to exercise, but if she doesn’t call, I have no trouble sleeping till 7:30 or 8. Here, I have been waking up when it is still dark. I’ve been very careful not to take naps, not to go to bed really really early, and I still wake up!

Breakfast at the GH restaurant: (1 flight)

Yes, that really is a fried egg in the middle. Have you ever tried to eat one with chopsticks? It was even a little runny. There were also 3 dumplings, ½ sweet potato, cake with sprinkles and a red bean and rice soup. The red beans here are sort of sweet – so quiet different from red beans and rice in Louisiana. Back to the room (2 flights)

Walked Chuck to work. He planned to have a meeting with Jian to discuss the class. But first we were offered a tour of our apartment. Our apartment is on the 4^th floor in the Faculty Housing area of campus. None of these buildings have elevators. (4 flights)

All of the buildings look alike. I’m not sure if all of the apartments are the same size. Everyone here lives on campus and they have a kindergarten, elementary school and high school for the children of the faculty. Hongfang’s daughter went from Kindergarten to Doctorate without leaving. (She now lives permanently in the USA – do we think maybe she wanted to get away from home?)

This is the foyer of the building. At night there are more bikes parked.

More of the apartment tomorrow.

Chuck went back to work and I went exploring. I planned to follow the main road outside of USTC toward the center of town. The road had been torn up when we were here in Nov. Now it is worse. They are building a double decker road, so there is a huge scaffold down the middle of the street. They are pouring concrete for the pylons. They also have huge ditches along the edge that have very murky water in them. It is an obstacle course to leave the campus. The roads on 3 of the 4 sides are torn up like this.

I only got about 1 block when I came to a department store. Since I need some towels and other supplies, I went in. It looked familiar – it was the same one that the ladies had gone to when Lois bought her husband a shirt. Who knew that it was 1 block from campus? I bought a lot so didn’t venture further. I took another route home through a street market with a lot of live chickens. Do I have to worry about Avian Flu? (1 flight)

There is a gate to the outside world next to the guest house with a restaurant right across the street, so that was our dinner choice. (1 flight) It turns out that this was a true adventure. No one spoke English and the menu didn’t have pictures. What to do?? First, I tried to oink. Pigs must sound different here – no one understood. Then I tucked my hands in my armpits waved them up and down and clucked like a chicken. A HA a moment of recognition. We had all 3 waitresses at our table by this time and they all did the chicken thing, too. Then, I tried a fish face and wiggled my hands. But I was laughing too hard to suck in my cheeks for the fish face. The brightest of the girls went running off and returned with a bucket with fish. Yes! Then just to make sure that we were on the same page, she came back with a whole raw chicken! Yes, again. Back she came again with an eggplant in one hand and some green shoots in the other. We had said (really held up 3 fingers) that we wanted 3 things. But we changed to 4 and got both vegetables.

The eggplant came back as a spicy dish, the shoots were the pea tendril things from last night, the fish were delicious and the chicken was prepared by chopping the whole thing into tiny pieces, bones, and all. It was tasty, but a little disconcerting to pick up a piece and discover that it was the chicken’s head. They brought rice after they kept asking us something and we finally answered yes. Watermelon and orange pieces for dessert. This whole thing came to 65¥. Back home across the little bridge. (1 flight to room)

10 flights of stairs again today.

Day 2 Shanghai to Hefei

April 18, 2007 Wednesday

For our half day in Shanghai, we just walked around the neighborhood of the hotel. Today is lovely. Chuck really doesn’t have any luck. It rained on one of his only days to explore Shanghai and then it is beautiful when we have to leave.

We walked over to the Carrefour that we could see from our window. Carrefour is a French supermarket chain. They usually have one floor of grocery items and one floor of household, clothes, etc. As you ride up the escalator they have every kind of chip or snack food you can think of. (Same ploy as putting the candy at the check out in our stores.)

This one also had some other shops on the 1^st floor and outside of the checkout area. Chuck hasn’t been in a supermarket here, so he needed to see all of the things that were available. To see the pictures that I took in the Carrefour in Hefei go to Nov. 10 Hefei Old and New. (2 flights of stairs to cross the bridge back and forth on our walk.)

We wandered around for awhile and then back to the hotel to leave for the airport. We were there really early, of course, so we had a light lunch and read while waiting for the plane. (1 flight up to the plane) Our ticket said that there would be a snack, but since the flight takes less than an hour, the snack is really a bottle of water. Everyone kept their clothes on, so this was an uneventful flight.

Jian Wu met us with a car to take us to the Guest House of the University of Science & Technology of China. (USTC) The class that Chuck is teaching started already and Jian has been teaching from Chuck’s notes but in Chinese.

The Guest house is on the edge of the campus and has a lovely lotus pond with a little island and a bridge across.

Our room is spare but very pleasant and large enough that we aren’t tripping over our suitcases all of the time. (1 flight up) It pretty much looks like a normal hotel room, but they have very cool switch plates. I think that photos of the university buildings were laminated onto foam core, and then cut out. Each one is different.

Hongfang Chen (Chuck’s mentor here) and Xiaolian Wang (her assistant) came to welcome us. Jian explained that the guest house dining room was in another building and took us over to see it. When we were there, he realized that we wouldn’t be able to order because the menu only had Chinese writing – no pictures. Much worry until the girl in charge told him that they had a set menu each night. He checked that this would be OK with us and “preordered” 2 20¥ dinners. We would just have to write our name and room number on the bill.

Back to our room (2 flights – 1 from the restaurant building level and one to our room in the guest house.) We decided to take a walk around the campus, so that Chuck could make sure that he knew how to get to the Physics building. The guest house is on the north side of the campus and the physics building is all the way over on the south side. It was a lovely day so the stroll was nice. I showed Chuck the market area. This really is a very self contained little world. The market area has about 10 small shops selling everything from ice cream and snacks, to DVD’s. There is a little supermarket, stationery shop, and a laundry. There also is a little restaurant – but it looks iffy on the cleanliness level.

Back to our room (1 flight) and then to dinner (1 flight). Our set menu was really pretty good.

It came in what looked like a Japanese “bento box.” Going clockwise starting with with rice was a green vegetable that reminded me of pea tendrils with tiny shrimp. One half of a hard boiled egg (still in its shell), spicy pork with a vegetable that looked like little corkscrews, (they were crunchy) and beef with beans. There was a chicken bone soup and fruit for dessert. We had a hard time ordering beer, but the guys at the next table helped us. I went and pointed to their beer and then they told the waitress. They assured us that Tsingtao was good beer. We said that we knew that, we just didn’t know how to get the girl to get it for us.

Back to our room (2 flights) and a little relaxing before bed.

A total of 10 flights of stairs for the day. The bridge may have really been 2 flights each way but I’m only counting it as one.