China 2011: Day 16 Sunday Sept. 18

It's Sunday morning and I'm sitting here watching the sun rise on what looks like a beautiful sunny day in Beijing. The weather has been getting cooler but not cold like you are experiencing at home. We still haven't worn a jacket, even at night.

We have not been as busy the last couple of days which has been nice. Brad and Chris (our helpers) arrived on Sat. afternoon and we went out to the airport to get them. The airport is about a 45 minute taxi ride if traffic moves well. Yesterday it appeared that all of Beijing was out driving on a beautiful weekend and the traffic was a mess. We learned that there are 2,000 new cars a day added to the roads here. Also that there's 20,000 buses on the roads and that they put on 1 million miles per day! No wonder traffic is so bad. On Friday we learned how to take the subway so we will do that more often, however the nearest station is a 45 minute walk away.

On Friday we went back to the little massage hospital (that's what it's called) for my 2nd acupuncture treatment. We went on our own this time because we knew where it was. Ha, false confidence. The taxi driver dropped us off 'not far' from the hospital. Well, we felt like we were on the amazing race trying to find this place. We kept trying to ask people first of all where we were and where the hospital might be by once again pointing to the map and gesturing and looking confused, which of course we were. We were sent here and there and and even dragged on a bus which we laughed and thought 'oh well we're already lost, how bad can it get'? So it only took us 1 hour 20 minutes but we found it! I had my treatment which was easier since I knew what to expect, we found a neat little restaurant and took the subway back. We were quite proud of ourselves. On our walk home from the subway stop we came upon a group of at least 1,000 people line dancing in the park. It was so much fun. I joined in and Bob watched. This place is such an adventure - you just never know what you'll find.

Eating here is adventure in itself. Some restaurants have picture menus and some even have English. It's the ones that don't have either that are a challenge and we just point and hope. Here are some of my favorite descriptions of food.
Black fungas with mustard sauce
sauce fragrant pigs front trotters
spicy and acid fern root powder
braised hairtail
the sauce explodes the duck piece
pumpkin fry lillies
tribal insects
fried bamboo worms
And my favorite: the daily family activity fries the bean curd

And so it goes here in China. We are loving this opportunity to immerse ourselves in this culture and to get to know these wonderful people.