Odds and Ends

It' about 4 am here and my clock is still not quite right- so I thought I would add a little more about China.  First of all, the women are so beautiful!  The flight attendants looked totally spectacular throughout the flight - beautiful hairstyles that didn't droop or change, and lovely make-up.  When we landed in Shanghai, it was very apparent that my fashion backwards style was the new grunge look!  For someone who does not follow fashion very well (as my daughter Kate might attest to!), even I could see the fashion forward looks here.  Amazing styles and crazy shoes were everywhere - on simply beautiful women.  It definitely made my comfortable "sweats" even more sweaty looking, especially with the added blood stains!  Good thing I could throw my coat over the whole mess!

Our hotel is called the Lakeside, and is just beautiful.  It sits on the West Lake which has parks and amusement rides and little boats on it.  We are on the10th floor, so we have wonderful view of this area and the hillsides around it.  Karen's father made arrangements for us to have a large suite with a living room and bedroom as well as a small kitchen area, washer/dryer, etc.  Our bedroom is huge - extra huge by Chinese standards - with full wall windows in both the bedroom and living room.  The hotel and this area caters to travelers and business people, so it has every amenity you could image.

Yesterday we ate lunch here in the hotel at the buffet.  It was a huge feast, but certainly a reminder that we are not in Kansas anymore!  My tummy was still adjusting, so I wasn't too brave, but Dave was going for it.  I really couldn't watch him eat the pickled octopus - a whole one (they are small) and it was red.  I stuck to rice and some other starches. I knew we had a family dinner that evening and I wanted to see if I felt a little better then.  Actually, at that meal I can report that I did eat fish lips soup!

We took a walk yesterday into an area called something like "3 streets and 7 alleys".  It is a historic district in the city that has been revitalized for tourists. It is beautiful, and hopefully  I can post a photo or two.  There are many interesting shops along the way with some tourist items, but other stores like local pharmacies.  We went through one pharmacy that of course only sold traditional remedies - Shirley, we were thinking of you!  It was a trip, with jars and drawers of all kinds of things.  A  lot of the big jars had things floating in them -  in some kind of a preservative.  It was definitely not your Walgreens, to be noted by the snakes and other critters in the jars.

Fuzhou is a city of about 2M, but the region is approximately 4M.  It is bustling with commerce and universities and is on the coast across from Taiwan.  The city is  south  of Shanghai and north of Hong Kong.  Although the weather is cold right now - 40 to 50's during the day, it is actually rather tropical looking with Banyan trees and palm trees.  The difference between here and Florida is the mountains also in the area.  Most of the homes do not have heat - fortunately, the hotel does.  Karen and Jack were going to stay at her aunts home, but it was just too cold!  Jack was in about 4 layers of clothes while he was there yesterday.  Even the restaurant last night was cold, and everyone wore their coats to eat - even the waitress was wearing her coat!  We drank lots of warm tea!

By the way - the ginseng got though just fine, but the cheese didn't!  Karen's grandfather likes cheese, and we bought some to bring along.  Unfortunately, those little blocks shaped like Wisconsin are still in our refrigerator at home!!