Monday chores

May 14, 2007 Monday

Today is cleaning lady day. I said that I didn’t know what she does for 3 hours – now I do. She dusts and washes every surface in the whole place. Because of all of the construction, we live in a dust bowl. After being away for 4 days, with only the porch windows open, there was a layer of grit and dust on everything. You can see the paths we take on the floors. I am going to have to buy a can of air to clean my computer and camera when I get home.

Speaking of home – We only have 2 more weeks here in Hefei. Then we go to Wuhan for a week. We are now making arrangements for a trip to the 3 Gorges while we are there. Then a day or so in Shanghai and home.

Took Chuck’s shirts to the laundry and was supposed to pick up 4. They weren’t ready – I wonder what happened. Since I’ll never know, I just hope that they haven’t been lost. (4 flights)

Lunch and then computer stuff again. I’m getting everything settled for Prague and Slovakia. (Can you believe it? We will be home two weeks and then off again!)

Ate dinner at home. Chuck picked up goodies for dessert at the bakery on his way home. I heated leftovers. Beef with mushrooms, and then mixed together 2 beef dishes and a greens. Since I only have 2 burners and 2 pots, I consolidate a lot.

Chuck went to teach his class and I went to the bakery outside of the wall to get something for breakfast. (4 flights)

I called my friend Brandi. It was 5:30 her time. She is about the only person I know, that is always going to be awake at that time. It was good to hear the news of all of the knitters.

It is still delightful weather here. The apartment gets a good cross breeze so we have not needed the air conditioner, which I now know how to work.

More of Lord Bao's park

May 13, Sunday

Chuck worked on the computer and I read and watched TV. I have determined that there are 2 contributors to my backaches here. The brown leather chairs hit my back at exactly the wrong spot. Even with a pillow, I have to place myself carefully. The other thing is that the sink is too low. This is an amazing thing, being a short person, I don’t believe I have ever found anything too low before. I now have my washbasin on the drainer, which helps a lot.

On TV this morning (30 channels)

0 – Man on the street interviews, 1 no signal, 2 Costume drama, 3 Makeup infomercial, 4 news, 5 Costume drama – comedy, 6 Cartoon, 7 infomercial for a slimming undergarment (the girls demonstrating are stick thin – of course they look slim. You never see the faces of the flabby ones.) 8 Costume drama – I think comedy, but all of a sudden there will be torture, 9 sitcom, 10 Costume drama, 11 – soap opera, 12 old people’s lives, 13 talk show, 14 worker’s life, 15 diet commercial, 16 no signal, 17 soap with young people, 18 cell phone commercial, 19 war film against the Japanese, 20 news, 21 costume drama, 22 French film with Gerard Dupardieu (dubbed in Chinese Louis XIV costumes, 23 sports channel NBA Phx vs SA, 24 nothing, 25 Modern drama, 26 mod drama, 27 documentary – war time, 28 Mod drama, 29 English Cost. Drama. In chinese

If I was better at the eras in Chinese history, I could probably differentiate all the costume dramas, as it is lots of them have lots of the leaping spinning fighting. Some look like the maids in the Mikado. Who knows? Channel 8 has some English language shows and some shows that have English subtitles. Channel 23 is all sports all the time – some very obscure sports like snooker. We became quite expert at the rules after watching the World Snooker Tournament for 2 weeks.

Other shows that I have seen are cooking with guest chefs, game shows and one that shows people with very mundane jobs that are incredibly talented in that job. (A bank clerk that can count packs of money very fast while blindfolded; a drill machine operator who drills through paper on a balloon, he finishes with a hole in the paper and the balloon intact; a shoe salesman who does intricate lacings; a crane operator who can move an egg and put it down on top of a pipe)

After lunch we went to Lord Bao’s park and walked in the opposite direction to explore more of it.

Fishing on the banks of the small lake was a popular exercise. Young couples hugging was another. There is a band of green parks around the city center all with lakes. We walked from one to another. One had a small fair area. This little boy was the only child there.


We kept walking. Chuck started to get worried that we were lost and was trying to match the street signs with the map (both in Chinese.) I looked at the bus numbers and tried to find the streets that had those numbers. This really isn’t a huge problem in China. If we are really lost, we just flag down a taxi and show them the paper with our address. I finally decided where we were and said if we followed this street we would end up at our favorite Carrefour. I was right, but unfortunately, there was a major construction project in our way.

We ended up taking tiny paths past people’s doors and climbing over things and around stuff, but we got there. After our 2 ½ hour walk, we needed a drink, so went back to the tea place. We both had blueberry spins. This time they came with a dollop of whipped cream and a sprig of parsley.

Since we were at Carrefour, we did a little shopping and then taxied home. (4 flights)

A short rest and then it was time to leave for dinner. The Chinese eat early. By 6:30 restaurants are full. The people at Meng Cheng greeted us like old friends we have been there so often. Order takers waved hello when they saw me. It was a little embarrassing. When we sat down at our table after ordering, the waitress brought me a special drink. It was a “Mother’s Day Present” of watermelon juice. Chuck ordered a beer.

We had eel and bitter melon for cold dishes, and fish, grilled pork and tofu with bok choy for hots. Watermelon for dessert.

Home again to sit with our feet up. (4 flights)

Only 8 flights – but a very long walk.

Downtown Hefei

May 12, 2007 Saturday

Chuck taught his class in the morning. I went to Carrefour and did the other chores. (4 flights) They are often having events in the front of the building. Today, was new car day.

After lunch we went to the center of Hefei and walked along the pedestrian mall. I am still looking for a dumpling steamer and we need to find an ATM with international symbols. The machine (without symbols) at the university wouldn’t give me any money because I was out of the area. We also both remembered the horrifying story of the machine that ate the physicist’s card the last time we were in Hefei.

Wandered along some of the other streets, too. One of them was dedicated to wedding photo shops. Big ones and little ones, very elaborate and very cheap. There were at least 8 of them on one street. It looked like some of them were one stop shops with displays of wine and souvenirs and all of the dresses that were for rent. (3 flights)

Finally found an ATM and have more money. Chuck said can you find it again? Not really, but there was another one near the big department store that was the right kind too. That one I can find again. Just before we went home, I found the dumpling steamer shop. Actually 3 shops – must be the restaurant supply area.

Bought 2 steamers and a lid for 15¥ I probably should have bargained, but things are so cheap, I always forget. (4 flights)

We went to the restaurant on the corner for dinner. They were having a wedding. When the bride and groom entered the room, they set off fireworks outside. It was deafening – and we weren’t close to them.

We had pickled cukes, shrimp with asparagus (really this time), beef in a basket, tofu with beans, steamed greens & watermelon. (2 flights – 1 to the restaurant and 1 to choose the food)

As we reached the street, they set off another barrage of fireworks. Now, we were not only deafened but also choked by the smoke. Walking home across the quiet campus is really a pleasure. (4 flights)

17 total

Recuperating

May 11, 2007 Friday

A very quiet day. Chuck went to the office. I talked to everyone, did chores (took shirts to laundry (4 flights) and in the afternoon, read, knitted and watched Ice Skating on TV. Can it get any better?

We went back to the Hot Pot restaurant. They still give us bibs and put the food in the pots for us, but now we know how to order, so we aren’t such a problem for them. We chose beef, cilantro beef balls, kelp and romaine lettuce to cook.

By the time that we were leaving there was a light rain. We had been prepared and had taken our new umbrellas.

4 flights 8 total

Bus to Hefei

May 10, 2007 Thursday

Today is the big adventure. We are taking the bus to Hefei. Ping came to say goodbye. Ms Huang came because she was going to take us to the bus station. The adventure started when the cab dropped us on the access road of a highway. We then had to cross that road and another road before reaching the building. If we had been alone, we would never have made it. We were not the only ones being dropped in this incredibly dangerous spot. There was a whole gang of people dragging their belongings behind them dodging cars, busses and trucks.

Inside the building she escorted us through the scanning area and took us to the correct gate. She then explained to the keeper of the gate, that we were poor helpless souls, who would need help getting on the bus to Hefei. None of the signs had any English, and they didn’t put up any electronic notice. The keeper just screamed something and then people lined up.

Needless to say, we were there in lots of time. We waved goodbye and sat to wait. I carefully had not consumed any liquids before this trip. Who knew when I would see a bathroom again.

About 20 minutes before the bus was supposed to depart, Chuck started to agitate. He kept hearing someone say Hefei. (Now, it was the person at the next gate, and he didn’t know that was what they were saying, but he was getting worried.) Busses don’t load this early, just relax. At 10 minutes before, he wanted me to get up and ask. He would guard the suitcases. (Big whoop!) Finally, to shut him up, I went to the gate with our tickets. She shook her head, no.

With about 1 minute to go, she waved to us, and took us across a parking lot filled with busses to the correct one. I had Hefei written down in Chinese, so showed it to the driver, just to make sure. (I really always crosscheck when other people are in charge of our lives.) We stowed our luggage in the compartment under the bus. Chuck insisted on keeping his briefcase which he put on the floor in front of his feet. (Even though there was a small overhead storage area also.) The seats were very comfortable and there was a lovely amount of leg room if you weren’t Chuck.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We passed an accident, which didn’t halt traffic, but the car’s passenger side had run into the back of a truck. The trip took about 2 ½ hours. Hefei’s bus terminal was another parking lot filled with busses. We grabbed a taxi and were soon home. (4 + 3 I had to help Chuck with the suitcase up the stairs.)

Needed stuff from Carrefour, so went there for lunch. Chose the rbt which is a sort of tea room. The picture of the sandwiches looked like a club sandwich. It may have been tofu & something. Quite unidentifiable, but tasty. Chuck had cold jasmine tea and I had cold blueberry tea. The sandwiches came with frites. Did our shopping and taxied home. On the way home, Hongfang called. She had been worried and was relieved to hear that we were back safely in Hefei. (4 flights.)

Chuck worked on the Computer and I did laundry and other chores in the afternoon.

For dinner we went to Meng Cheng. We had greens and pickled cukes for cold dishes, and octopus, beef, soup and asparagus (but it turned out to be bamboo shoots.)

(4 flights) 15 flights

Nanjing Presidential Palace

May 9, 2007 Wednesday

Started our day right with another trip to Starbucks. It started to rain, so the next thing on the agenda was to buy umbrellas. (Do you notice a theme in my blogs? I spent most of the trip to Warsaw and Budapest looking for umbrellas. Then after I found one, it never rained again. That was the one that broke in Shanghai.)

This time it was much easier. We found 2 right away in the department store. Mine is green and Chuck’s is beige with flowers.

M & P had said that we should go to the Presidential palace. It wasn’t in either of the guide books, but they were right. It is huge and very interesting. It has a whole section on the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom history and then another whole section about the beginning of the Kuomintang. Plus some great gardens.

A stone boat in the garden.

Many meeting rooms and pictures of the people who came to China for meetings. (4 flights)
I loved this. Being the incredibly bad speller that I am, I can appreciate spelling it two different ways and still being wrong. (Recyciabie & Non-recycldble)

There were many little restaurants just down the street from the Presidential palace museum. We chose the Tea Station. Chuck had lasagna & I had a beef, bell peppers & onions with lots of black pepper spaghetti. Who knew that it was going to serve Italian food?

We have driven by this building several times. It is the Nanjing library.

In the afternoon we went to the Taiping Museum. It showed the history of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom rebellion in the late 1800’s. The philosophy of this group was a combination of Christianity and communism. (1 flight)

Ming had written down the instructions for where we were to meet him for dinner. Douglas had sent the update info for the phone, so I planned to have Ming add the minutes when we met him. We were supposed to meet between 6 and 6:30. A problem – it was getting close to 6:30 and no Ming. I went into a shop and asked if anyone spoke English. 2 girls pointed at the 3^rd. She was horrified & said “Shop English”. I showed her the phone, punched in the card access number and then when she listen, the comprehension suddenly came. She obviously explained to the others, because they all chanted the password numbers that she needed to punch in.

I have a working phone again, so I called Ming. He said that he was almost there. (He tried for 20 minutes to get a taxi.) After about 5 minutes he called me. “Where are you?” “Under the big gate.” “No, I’m under the big gate and you aren’t here. Give your phone to someone so I can ask them which big gate you are under.”

I gave the phone to a young man passing by. He chatted for a few minutes and handed it back and said, “Wait here, he comes for you.”

It turns out that this place has 5 gates, north, south, east & west and CENTER. He wanted us at the center, but the cab had just heaved us out at the North. Cell phones are fabulous for these kinds of things – even when you have to get strangers to help you out.

His restaurant has a fixed menu of many many many small dishes. It changes with the seasons. We think that there were 25 different things, but we really aren’t sure. He said that because there are so many tastes, if you don’t like one, you just put it aside. For cold dishes, we had corn on the cob, Nanjing duck, scallions, ham, and edename. Then came the hot - lima beans, chicken, little crayfish, shredded tofu, lentils, puff pastry on a scallop shell with a scallop inside, one steamed vegetable bao in a baby steamer, pot stickers, 3 kinds of soup, tofu with nuts, and potato pancake. The waitress explained that one of the steamers had a tomato under it, and that person received a prize. I won. It was a little red box with 2 polished stones.

There was also an egg on a divided dish. The egg was on one side and on the other salt, pepper and a small straw. This was strange, so I asked Ming about the straw. He explained that there was a baby chicken inside the egg, but he didn’t eat these. Both Chuck and I decided that we didn’t eat them either. (If he had been willing to demonstrate the correct technique – I might have given it a try.)

I almost forgot the sweet. There was the red bean and rice sweet gruel, and black sweet rice, and watermelon. (1 flight.)

The area that this restaurant is in has boat rides on the canal, and lots of bright lights after dark. It also has rikshaw pullers dressed in yellow silk costumes. We walked around awhile before getting the taxi back to the hotel.

(6 flights today)

Chuck's talk day

May 8, 2007 Tuesday

We have a meeting with Ping at 9:00, so decided to make a quicky trip to STARBUCKS downtown. It was CLOSED!! Back to the guest house for a really gross breakfast. You haven’t lived until you have eaten cold fried egg with chopsticks. I think that a lot of the things on the buffet are leftovers from the dinner before. The pumpkin puffs aren’t too wonderful the next morning either.

The maids came to clean just as we were leaving our room. Both this guest house and the one in Hefei are incredibly stingy with toilet paper. The roll is ¼ size and just lasts one day. (If you have any problems, it doesn’t last the day.) I signed that I would like 2 rolls. Much giggling. I tried to take two rolls, thinking that perhaps they misunderstood. They would only give me one. (But, it turns out that they had already put one in the bathroom, so at least I had 2.)

Met, looked over the meeting room, and checked our email. Then back to STARBUCKS. I am sooo excited. I hadn’t realized how much I was missing my lattes until I saw the possibility of having one here. They taste exactly the same, the menu is exactly the same, and the crappy pastries are exactly the same. They look so good and taste like sawdust all over the world. (Trust me – I have checked.) One problem – we were dropped on a different street. Oh, no. Luckily, I spotted a big building a block over that I recognized, so was able to get us to where we wanted to go.

We wandered through the downtown department stores. There are many really large ones here. Notice the timely decorations. They also had signs in English about Mother’s day.

I saw a China Mobile counter and decided to see about recharging my phone. The guy spoke English and was really helpful, until he discovered that I had China Unicom. (Sort of like Cingular & Verizon). He said that there was a CU near the Wal-Mart. We kept wandering, came across the Wal-Mart but didn’t go in. Found the CU next door. Not the right CU. That girl actually took us to the right CU. But they couldn’t put minutes on the phone. I had two choices. Get my friend in Shanghai to buy a card and send me the info or take a taxi to a hospital (she said it was close) and perhaps buy a card there. I decided to take option one and email Douglas when we go back to Ping’s office.

We found an underground restaurant court (lots of little restaurants, all with their own seating) and ate a light lunch of dumplings and noshes.

Went back to the university for Chuck’s talk. I get to sit and click on the screen when he wants to move to a different slide. I can knit while I wait. I am not sure how much the students understand when he talks. They do seem to be reading the slides.

Dr. Ming Qi came to the talk from another university in Nanjing. He works with a colleague of Chuck’s at UCLA. He told us to call him Ming (his first name, because his last name is hard for us.)

So, after the talk we went to dinner at the guest house with Ming and Ping (his last name – because his first name is hard.)

We had Nanjing duck, (which is different from Peking duck. It is salted, not crispy and is served cold) clear, wide, very slippery noodles, (I think that sometimes they just want to test our chopstick skills. We are always complimented on how well we do.), crunchy noodles, lima beans (these taste and look like large limas with a dark line on them. They come arranged in the bowl all lined up with the dark lines on top – like a flower arrangement.) spicy beef, “tastes like chicken tofu” (developed by monks who didn’t eat meat) steamed & fried buns, pancakes, pumpkin buns, soup with croutons, sautéed green vegetable and buns shaped like seashells that you pull open and spoon in a filling.

Ming and Ping decided what we are doing tomorrow and wrote down all of the instructions for us. We are meeting Ming for dinner after our day of touring.

After saying goodbye, Chuck and I walked up the street looking for a place to buy water. Besides being stingy with toilet paper, the guest houses don’t provide water. We had brought 3 bottles with us, but had to buy 2 yesterday in the dining room. They charged us 30¥ for 2 bottles, that would cost 2¥ in the store. So tonight we walked 2 blocks to a small store. I bought 5 bottles.

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.)