Purple Mountain in Nanjing

May 7, 2007 Monday

Hongxia Huang was assigned to be our tour guide. I am never sure how the student is chosen. Qualifications? Lottery Loser? Anyway, she is a lovely young woman who took us to see the sights in the Purple mountain, which is just on the outskirts of Nanjing. This trip would have been impossible without her.

Nanjing is a city of trees. Even very wide streets (6 lanes) have a canopy of green. It looks like the trees are trimmed to spread sideways after they reach a certain height.

First, we went to the Sun Yat-sen tomb. The roof tiles are blue instead of yellow, but in all other circumstances, it is a royal tomb. The taxi dropped us off at the entrance to the parking lot. There was a walk through the shops area and then up a long corridor of greenery to the start of the steps. The flower gardens are all just potted plants arranged in complicated patterns.

Each building had a flight of steps in and out as we went up the hill. The final push to where Sun Yat-sen is buried is 392 steps. It was tough, but all of those flights that we have been doing to get to our apartment paid off. At least we weren’t carrying a toddler. Many, many people were. (I’m counting this as 16 flights)
Then we took a tram to another section of the park.

We visited the Beamless hall (1 flight), which is a large structure made of brick with a vaulted arch construction. It had wax people displays of Sun Yat-sen’s life and important events in the beginning of the Kuomintang. Each display had an English explanation

We then wandered to the Linggu pagoda. Ms Huang was very good about asking for directions if she wasn’t sure so we never went out of our way.

I said that I was willing to walk to the pagoda ( 3 flights), but totally unwilling to climb to the top. After I saw the staircase, I really knew that I made a good decision.

I think that she was a little relieved.

It was getting to be lunchtime (and Chuck’s tummy alarm goes off promptly). I had spotted a vegetarian restaurant near the entrance to the pagoda, so suggested that we stop for a nosh and a rest.

The waitress helped Ms Huang order, assuring her that westerners loved the choices that she had made. We had soup, a sweet and sour fried something, a strudel with vegetable innards, a green vegetable and noodles in broth.

I had my picture taken with the turtle, in honor of Purple lightning, who came in 6^th in the turtle race.

After lunch we walked back toward the entrance, stopping at another very smoky Buddhist temple (2 flights) and took a taxi back to our hotel. We needed a little rest.

Our room had been very warm and the air conditioner did not blow out cool air, so before we left, Ms Huang had told the desk our plight. When we were resting, a woman came to the door with a new TV remote. I was making motions that the TV wasn’t the problem, but she came in and started working her remote. Then she tried the old remote and realized that it wasn’t broken. I pointed to the air conditioner (blowing warmly) and she showed me that the switches moved. Right, bitch. Notice that they were in the correct positions for cool, 15 degrees, and high fan!! She left and I called Ping. He called the desk and then they called us and said that in ½ hour it would be cool. It was cooler, but never really cool.

We went on our own to the Zonghua Gate. It is a remnant of the wall around Nanjing that was built in 1386. The mortar was glutinous rice (super strong). There were ramps that would let both people and horses and carriages go to the top.

At this point we were ½ way to the top. (4 flights) The wax soldiers are wearing uniforms of the time.

Flat Isabel looking at the guard buildings and downtown Nanjing.

We went to a very nice restaurant in a 5 star hotel. Ms Huang had written the address for us. Chuck had found it in the guide book. We had pickled baby bok choy, cold pork (sort of the texture of corned beef), sauteed eels, vegetables with red bell peppers, and yellow conger fish (a local delicacy) in spicy sauce.

Our room is now a little cooler. It doesn’t help that because the room key has to be in a slot to connect the electricity, every time we leave the room the air conditioner turns off.

26 flights

Drive to Nanjing

May 6, 2007 Sunday

Up with the birds. We leave for Nanjing this morning and I wanted to do a load of laundry before we left. Wouldn’t you know it, this was the morning that the soap wouldn’t rinse out. I ran 2 extra rinse cycles before it was OK.

The university car came to pick us up promptly at 9:00. They sent two students to get us in the car. The driver doesn’t speak any English. 15 minutes to the highway and the sign that said that Nanjing was 151 K away. That is about 100 miles and at highway speeds, 2 hours was a good estimate.

We were happily rolling along, when suddenly all of the cars ahead of us were stopped. People were getting out of their cars. That never bodes well. Our first Chinese bouchon (that’s French for major traffic jam.) 45 minutes later we crawled by this:

We can’t even ask the driver what is going on. During this wait, I realized that if we are going to drive for 5 hours to Wuhan I’m going to need a lot of phrases written out for me. (Stop at the next rest plaza to use the facilities, being the most important.)

Prof. Ping was getting worried about us. We arrived about noon and he took us to the restaurant at the Guest House. It is one of the restaurants recommended in the guide book. We had duck, lima beans, cucumbers, sautéed greens, spicy beef fish and watermelon.

He wrote the Provincial Museum for us and also the name of the shopping district. He said that there were a lot of restaurants there. The museum was good. (1 flight) Interesting porcelain, bronzes, laquerware, but not too much of it. It closed at 5, so we took a cab directly to the shopping area. Walked around a bit and stopped at a dumpling place. With help from another patron, we got 3 kinds of dumplings and soup. It cost a big 31¥. For dessert, we shared a Häagen-Dazs cookie crunch sundae which cost twice as much.

Home to the guest house where a wedding was in full swing.

Unfortunately, the guest house does not have internet access. I also discovered that my cheap phone cards only work in Hefei. (Perhaps the reason that they are so cheap?) And to top things off, my cell phone needs more minutes. I will stop at a phone store tomorrow. I am feeling very cut off.

Only 1 flight today, I’m going be spoiled.

A brand new temple

May 5, 2007 Saturday

When I looked out of my window this morning, I looked down to check on my lost pole. There it was – with my neighbor’s laundry on it. I guess that they figured that the gods must have delivered a pole from heaven.

I took Chuck’s shirts to the laundry while he went to the office to get some information for his talk. (4 flights) While he was gone, Zhang called. He wanted to suggest that we visit the temple that is still under construction near where he lives. It was a fabulous idea, but without someone to write the address, we can’t go anywhere.

I called the office, and luck of all luck, Hongfeng was there. She called Zhang to get the info and wrote it for us. (a note to the Hefei gang of 8: this was the red temple looking buildings that we saw on our way to the zoo. Someone told us that it was a new apartment complex. They were wrong.)

Everything is bright and shiny and new.

But not everything is finished. I poked my nose in everywhere. I like seeing things under construction.

There were two halls filled with these clay figures (all different).

This little girl’s father came up to us and said that she wanted her picture taken with us. No way, Jose!! The reason that the 2 women are in the picture is because she wouldn’t stand near us without them. Notice that they are both holding on to her to keep her form leaving. We kept trying to beg off. The adults insisted.

No matter where we go – there are always clothes hung out.

8 flights (It was a really big temple built on a hill.)

Home again (4 flights) and then dinner at Jinke (1 flight). It is getting harder and harder to get to this restaurant. The tractor that jackhammers roads worked all through our dinner. When we left, we had to carefully go over the rubble to get to the road that is open.

We had ribs, deep fried chicken balls, cucumbers, sautéed greens, eggplant, and meat dumplings.

Home and then took out the garbage (8 flights because I had stupidly forgotten the garbage every other time that I left the house today.)

25 flights today. That makes up for yesterday.

Lord Bao's Park in Hefei

May 4, 2007 Friday

In the morning we just did some chores around the apartment. I was being overconfident and putting the duvet cover out to dry on the bamboo pole. I pulled the pole over toward me, so that I could push the cover further out on it. I inadvertently pulled it out of the ring and down it went. I did manage to grab the cover before it went too. My pole is now resting on the rack of the 3^rd floor apartment. I got Chuck to come and hold the end of the pole and tried again. Success. My duvet cover is now hanging neatly outside the window.

After lunch we went to Lord Bao’s Monument and the park.

The park is really large and an oasis of green and quiet in a noisy city.

Inside the building was an incense burning place

Note the smoke. It was so thick, I was choking.

This sign was right next to it.

There was another wax museum telling the story of Lord Bao’s accomplishments and pretty paths and places to sit and watch the water and relax.

We moved on to explore the rest of the park. There was a temporary fun fair. The best “ride” was the water balloons.

You crawl inside a large deflated balloon.

Then they inflate the balloon.

You stand up inside:

Step off the edge and promptly fall down:

Everyone rolls around trying to get to their feet. When your turn is up, they reel you in. The guy running the ride offered me a turn for only 5¥, but I told him I was too old.

The other activities included a large bouncy castle thing, shooting a target with a crossbow, throwing darts at balloons – the normal kinds of things.

We moved on to the pagoda temple.

When we paid our admission, we didn’t realize that there was going to be a performance. There were lion dancers:

A fashion show:

The girls came back several times. They started out wearing ancient costumes, and then there were modern designer takes on the theme.

There was a fire eater, and this guy who is shoving a nail up his nose. As an encore he sucked up a glass of milk through his nose.

Then there was a sword swallower and someone who walked on hot metal plates. The guy who changes masks in an instant was not as good as the one that we saw previously in Hefei. A fashion show happened between each act.

We found seats on the steps and I shared with an older couple. When we moved up to see better, suddenly little stools appeared and they shoved me on one and insisted that I stay. I had a really good view. We supposed that the show would take about ½ hour, but 1 ½ hours later, they were still going strong. Chuck and I finally left, but we had had a really good time. (2 flights at the temple)

(4 flights)We ate dinner at home. I added bok choy to the ribs with mushrooms, and combined 2 shrimp dishes

Only 6 flights total today.

We never know where we are going

May 3, 2007 Thursday

We needed some breakfast stuff, so decided to go to Carrefour for lunch and shopping. When we got in the cab, Chuck said, “Maybe we could go to the other Carrefour?” There are two here in Hefei, and we had driven by the 2^nd one on our way to several restaurants.

“That would be great,” I replied, “but, I have no idea how to tell him to go to the other one.”

I showed the driver my paper and off we went – to the 2^nd Carrefour. Now, I have gone by taxi to the 1^st one at least 3 times, with exactly the same direction sheet. I have no idea why we went someplace else.

This Carrefour doesn’t have the restaurant floor, so we made do with MacDonald’s. It was either that or KFC. Instead, it had a bazaar on the top floor which opened into a rooftop garden, complete with ponds.

Shopped and went home. (4 flights)

Did some more PowerPoint in the afternoon. There is just one more thing that Chuck has to get and then we are done!!

We went to a Hot Pot restaurant for dinner. We had a phrase book and pointed to “What is your specialty?” and “What do you recommend?” Many giggles and then a menu with pictures. We made a mistake when we looked at the picture. We choose the cooking liquid (actually 2 in a divided pot) and thought that it included the stuff you put in to cook. We ordered several other things and couldn’t understand why the waitress was so insistently pointing out other stuff. It wasn’t until food came that we realized our mistake. The girl was sooo relieved when the light dawned. She ran right over with the menu to help us pick our main course. (The young women here were extraordinarily helpful with everything.)

We had octopus, meatballs, shrimp, greens and lotus root. We also had some small round pancake looking things. We unwound them like a cinnamon roll, but they were like a stringy pastry. Then we dipped into honey. Watermelon

This restaurant was just down the street from the North West gate. But the construction is so terrible, we took a longer way that was paved. We walked a little further on to explore a little after dinner and then went home. (4 flights)

A working day

May 2, 2007 Wednesday

We worked on Chuck’s talk. Thanks to Maureen for offering her help, but it turns out that what he wanted to do was fairly simple. No bells and whistles. The only tricky thing was that one of the files was only available on the machine in the office. I was having to paste pictures into PowerPoint in Chinese. It took a couple of tries before I could get a new slide. Since I normally use Ctrl + C and Ctrl + P for copying and pasting, I didn’t have to find the words for them in the edit menu. (4 flights)

For dinner, we went back to Meng Cheng. There were 2 weddings going on, so we had dueling brides in the lobby. One had the good spot just inside the door with a nice picture of bride and groom on the backdrop behind her. A good photo op place. The other was in the corner, without backdrop. (I didn’t think her dress was as pretty either.) The remarkable thing was that the floor was constantly being mopped. The mopper went over and over the front lobby area, right by the brides, FOR THE WHOLE TIME THAT WE WERE THERE! I’ll bet she was in every picture.

The wait staff was a little worried about how to tell us to go to another room to pick food – but we had been there before, so we knew the drill. Our assigned order taker was very helpful in pointing out possibilities. We had the radish tower, soup in individual bowls, lettuce and flower petal salad with dressing, pork ribs with sautéed mushrooms, and steamed fish. (Picking the fish from the tank is a trip. There are about 6 different kinds of fish and several sizes. We accidentally found a good kind. Now, we know that the ones with the speckled tails are tasty without a lot of bones.) And of course – Watermelon.

Took leftovers home. That is the best part of the apartment. Now we have enough for 2 meals. (4 flights.) 8 total

Hui Garden

May 1, 2007 Tuesday

It is “Golden Week”. The way that everyone was talking, I thought that we would be the only people left on the campus and that all of the little shops would be closed. We are not taking our holiday until almost the end of the week. Then we will return late. That way we will avoid most of the crowds.

When we went out to the gate to get a taxi, there were a lot of people with suitcases and a lot of cars leaving. It was bustling.

We went to Hui Yuan (I was right - Yuan means garden). This is the place where they have representations of the areas of Anhui province. I wrote about it before on Nov. 12 Last Day in Hefei. Now, I know its name. This time there were many more people. Everyone who wasn’t going away decided to go out and picnic and enjoy the pleasant weather.

There were bicycles (both single and tandem) and boats to rent.

Goldfish to catch. This little girl had given up on her fishing pole and was grabbing them with her hand. She caught quite a few – when they wiggled, she squealed and let them go. That’s granny keeping her from falling in.

Lots of opportunity for picture taking. We followed a group of soldiers (I called them baby soldiers, because they looked so young. But then, all soldiers look so young.) This group stopped at every place and each one posed. They tried for a combination of recruiting poster and male model.

We saw a little girl in her princess dress. Chuck said, “Oh, there goes the Chinese Isabel.

Most of the children that we see are dressed in normal play clothes, but they all look really well cared for. The babies are dressed really warmly – I’m sweating in a tee shirt and they are bundled up. (All except for their bottoms of course. I have no trouble telling the boys from the girls.)
This little boy was just learning to walk. We applauded his wobbly steps and then his relatives went through all kinds of contortions to get his picture with us. He kept turning around to look at the strangers and ruining the shot. Finally, the mom got behind us and put him standing in between. We just took the kid and his mom.

This group wanted their pictures with us, too. This seems to be a thing here. Stick your kids in front of the weird looking foreigners for a photo op. Chuck says that it is because we are 1 in a thousand. (I’m figuring that we may be 2 in 4.5 million.)

Before returning to the apartment, we stopped at the store across the store across the street. The foreigner odds just went down. We met 2 couples and 1 of their daughters. The adults teach English at the foreign language institute here on campus. They are living at the “old guest house.” After golden week I will have to visit them. (4 flights)

We went to the restaurant outside of the gate near the physics building. But that gate is closed because of the construction. A gate has been opened on the South side now. This street is closed at both ends but is really good for walking in the middle.

This is another good restaurant for us. You choose from displays of the uncooked food. Of course, we have no idea how it will be prepared, but we do know the ingredients. We had pickled cucumbers, braised celery with mushrooms & peppers, fried shrimp, beef with scallions (5 spices) and frogs legs (spicy with garlic). A change for dessert – pears and a black fruit with an apple texture, along with the watermelon. (2 flights – the tables are up one and the food choices are up another.)

Home (4 flights.) 10 total

Monday's the day we wash the clothes

April 30, 2007 Monday

The cleaning lady came again. Considering that we have been in the apartment less than 2 weeks and I only do breakfast, lunch and a few dinners, it is remarkable that she finds enough to do to occupy her for 3 hours.

She brought 2 long bamboo poles, so that laundry can be hung outside. I had to go down the stairwell to help her get them up. They are really long. The way she did it was: She put a sheet on the pole while it was still inside.

She balanced the pole across two windows. Then she held the sheet up while moving the pole through the window.

She had to put the other end of the pole through a side window, so that she could maneuver it.

It was a very windy day, so she put two small clothes pins under the pole to hold it on. I am to buy the large clothes pins that are the diameter of the pole. She also tied the pole to the frame. I kept checking it during the day and with the way that the sheet was blowing around, the sheet and the pole would have been somewhere in the trees below. It did dry really fast. Actually, the things that are hung inside dry quickly, too. (In France, they used to take 3 days, and since they were hung over the bathtub, we all had to take a bath when the clothes dried and before the next batch went up.) They are all dry the next morning. (4 flights)

In the afternoon, I went to the supermarket across the street. I needed to buy some things to make for dinner. The pickled cucumbers required a clerk to scoop them out. I waited behind the person that she was helping and then she walked out from behind the counter and past me. I got her attention and made motions that I wanted something, too. She announced something (in a loud voice) and swaggered away. There was a collective gasp from all of the customers and the other staff, and then a hush. She stopped in mid-stride. Another clerk spoke very sharply and gestured toward me. . I just stood there, nonplussed. She turned and came back. Everybody started breathing and returned to what they were doing. She waited on me without any other problem.

I was shocked and astonished by all of this. I don’t think that I have ever had anyone, especially a shop person, in any country be as rude. I have seen them almost draw straws and have the loser be the one who came over, but this was unbelievable. (4 flights)

I made leftovers, with more vegetables and dumplings for dinner. I still haven’t found a dumpling steamer, but following Heidi’s husband’s directions, I made one with a bowl and a plate. It worked fine and the dumplings were quite tasty.

Chuck went off to teach his class. I watched 24 while he was gone.

(Only 8 flights today.)

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.

It was still raining when we took the taxi home, this time from the taxi stand at the front door. (4 flights) (10 total)

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.