Joan's Minutia: The Anhui Celebrity Hall.

April 29, 2007 Sunday

Weather wise, Chuck is very unlucky. This is his second Sunday and it is RAINING AGAIN! I get to go all over (to the store and shopping) in lovely weather and on his days off – it rains.

We took the next batch of shirts to the laundry. There was a little boy there who said, “Hello.” He wanted to practice his English, so we had a whole conversation. His name was Spencer and he was six. His baby sister (who kept patting my bright red raincoat) was 1. He thought that Chuck’s blue shirt was beautiful. His English was remarkably good. There were several old ladies in the shop and they all were beaming at Spencer and urging him on. Grandmothers are the same the world over.

We decided to go to The Anhui Celebrity Hall. I call this the wax people place. There are life-size figurines of every famous person who even walked through Anhui province. The ladies and I had visited here the last time that I was in Hefei and I thought that Chuck would like it.

The taxi let us off at the wrong place. I knew that it was close by, but not sure exactly which way to go. I had brought the booklet that showed the pictures of the place so showed it to an old man who was walking around. He pointed down the road. Off we go in the rain.

When we came across another couple, I asked them and they again pointed down the road. It was a long block, but when we came to it, I recognized the building.

An explanation: My friend Marie’s great niece Isabel has a class project. We have a picture of her (called flat Isabel) that we take pictures of with the things we see. Then we send a letter back to the class. So that is why Chuck is holding out a picture of a little girl on a popsicle stick.

Some of the scenes have action. My favorite is the battle involving a boat. Lights flash, water shoots up, wind blows. Very dramatic, but impossible to photograph.

Each exhibit has an explanation in both Chinese and English, so we can at least read about people that we have never heard of. (Including an inventor of a movable type printing press 400 years before Gutenburg.)

The important thing to know about this museum is that there are buttons for the lights that you have to find and push. Not all of them work. But it is still really fun to search them out and see what happens. (2 flights because I went downstairs again to push the buttons for the sea battle, so that Chuck could get the full effect of it on both floors.)

We walked across the street to the same restaurant that the ladies had been to. Sadly, the young lady who spoke English wasn’t there. I tried my “International Translator”. Pointed to things – no recognition. Finally I got up and pointed to a beer bottle in the case. Then Chuck said, “What does that guy have? It looks good.” So I pointed to his dish. Then I walked over to another table and pointed at that dish.

We ended up with beef with spicy green peppers (the guy’s choice), Tofu stuffed with ground up chicken, (what I had pointed to at the lady’s table) and chicken with garlic (I hadn’t realized that this was also on the lady’s table.). We managed to get rice by pointing at the picture. Since we had so much food, we saved the beef to take home, because that would travel best. Some more watermelon for dessert.

Getting a taxi in the rain is always difficult, but we were really lucky, one came by just as we got out to the street. (4 flights)

We relaxed at home and then went to the Korean restaurant at Carrefour for dinner. Chuck wanted to buy a lighter, and I knew that there was a Zippo shop there. I have taken the taxi to Carrefour 3 times. Each time it left me off in a different spot. This one was the worst, especially in the rain. He was trying for the back door, which would have been good. But, because of the construction, it was blocked. So we were dropped off about a block away and had to pick our way carefully through a very muddy broken up pavement.

We picked up some stuff for future meals, and then went to find the lighter. They were all very fancy and quite expensive. He just wanted the cheap disposable kind. We tried the stand that sells cigarettes – no they don’t have them. Giving up, we went to the restaurant floor. The first stand we saw when we got off the escalator sold disposable lighters. Sometimes, we just live right.

The Korean restaurant had plastic food and pictures on their menu. We had the assorted skewers platter and something like Shabu – shabu. Even though they brought out kim chee to start, I think that this was really a Japanese restaurant in disguise. We also had a vegetable salad that was shredded cucumbers, mushrooms and noodles.