TO EAT OR NOT TO EAT?

Chinese food - no big deal, we have all been eating in Chinese restaurants for most of our lives! We wondered what it would be like: better? Worse? Too different for our tastes? or just give me some good old KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), which they love to eat here, to get me through our three weeks in China. Well, just like anywhere else, it depends where you eat. We have had some really great Chinese food and we have had some really mediocre Chinese food and we've even had some bad Chinese food. Either way, there are definitely some difference...

1. Rice will NOT come with your food. If you don't order rice, you won't get rice. When you get your rice it comes in a small bowl. You do not dump your rice onto a plate placing your Chinese food on top. Instead, you leave the rice in it's little bowl and slowly move individual pieces of your meat or vegatable into your rice bowl and eat from there. It's a little bit of a challange.

2. Bones will come with your food - and lots of them. The meat in your dish is most likely still attached to it's bone, however, it is still cut into bite size morsels which means that the bones are in lots of little pieces. Allow extra time to eat!

3. I've always thought that Chinese food in America is pretty salty. That is not the case here. You will often need to add salt or soy sauce to your dish. If you want salt, just make the gesture of holding a salt shaker in your hand and shaking salt onto your food and you will get the salt. If you want soy sauce, learn the Chinese word for soy sauce as we can't seem to make them understand what it is we want.

4. We have seen no dish call Egg Rolls. They have spring rolls here and they come in a meat variety and a vegtable variety but the two don't ever seem to mix the two of them.

5. Speaking of not mixing meat and vegtables, unlike at home where dishes usually have meat and vegtables both, here there are meat dishes and there are vegatable dishes but almost no mixed dishes of meat and vegtables. Maybe it's a Chinese thing like Jews don't mix milk and meat.

6. Soup or no soup. When ordering a noodle dish you need to decide whether or not you want the noodles in soup or just on a plate. All noodle dishes require that this decision be made clear to your wait person.

7. Fried rice at home is good (or not so good in some restaurants). Fried rice here is not good. It's filling but it's tasteless.

8. You get no fortune cookies at the end of the meal. They must export all the fortune cookies to foreign countries and therefore have none left to hand out here.

9. Each dish you order is prepared fresh and one at a time. This means in order to serve your food hot, they bring out dishes one at a time. There could easily be a 15minute difference between when you receive the first dish ordered until you receive the last. This also means that if you want to eat your food hot, that you end up eating your dishes one at a time.

10. They eat everything here: chicken, pork, beef, duck, snake, rat, dog...and every part of it. Therefore when you see street food or an item on the menu that reads "Mixed Meat" you have to make the decision of whether TO EAT OR NOT TO EAT!

The Cycle of Talking

When we started our trip it was easier to get along with each other. Now, six and a half months out, we crane our heads over the crowd to look for people to talk to other than each other. That's okay, it works!! The only problem is, when we can't find someone that's open to talk to, it results in.......................constantly being bored with each other.

Every morning, I wake up and see Avocet sleeping in the same bed or in the bed right next to me. If she's awake, (most of the time she wakes up before me) we play with Seelia and Fuzzy or our dolls. Then Mom and Dad will come in to say good morning. We go out together, talk together, and see each other, EVERY SINGLE DAY!!! Seeing each other everyday results in more arguments, annoyance, calling each other names, frustration, etc., etc., etc.,.

Whenever we hear someone speaking English, we POUNCE!! I mean we don't literally, "pounce on them," we just go up to them and start talking. The good thing about this is that we now know a lot more travellers that are doing the same thing as us. The bad thing is that when we have apartments, we go crazy, as there is only our family staying at the apartment and no one to talk to but ourselves and the wall. The whole thing is just one, huge, endless cycle!

HANUKKAH ON THE ROAD

Once we set up our itinerary and realized that we would be in China for the duration of Hanukkah, we pretty much gave up on the idea of any type of celebration. That was until I ran into two Israeli travelers at the acupuncturist who told me that there was a bar in town owned by an Israeli. I soon left to check out this story and sure enough, there is a bar in Yangshuo, China, The Alley, owned by 2 Israelis and a Chinese. Oren, Israeli #1 told us that they would be lighting Hanukkah candles at 8:00 PM. We all returned for a candle lighting on a menorah made out of beer bottle caps. It wasn't the prettiest menorah we've ever seen but it will certainly be one of the most memorable Hanukkah celebrations we will ever have. Oren, thank you for making Hanukkah 2008 one to remember.

Since Hanukkah is typically oriented towards children, Marty and I receive no presents at this time of year. Avocet and Siena, however, usually receive one present per night for 7 of the 8 nights of the holiday. On one night, they receive no present but instead, we all give a present to someone whose need is greater than ours. Given the gift that we all have of taking this one year trip around the world, we decided that all 8 nights of Hanukkah this year should be dedicated to giving to others. Based on our travels, we have chosen the following organizations for our donations.

Night 1. Tibetan Children's' Village (TCV) - A school and home for orphaned and refugee Tibetan people for the purpose of education, care and survival of the Tibetan culture.

Night 2. Elephant Nature Park - Provides a sanctuary and rescue center for elephants in Thailand.

Night 3. Malaria Foundation International - Supports awareness, education, training, research and leadership programs for the immediate and long term development and application of tools to combat malaria.

Night 4. The Hunger Project/India - An organization committed to the sustainable end of hunger in India. It seeks to end hunger and poverty by empowering people to lead lives of self reliance, meet their own basic needs and build better lives for their children.

Night 5. Dalai Lama Foundation - An organization that promotes world peace and is working for a free Tibet.

Night 6. Lao UXO (Unexploded Ordnance Program) - An organization created to reduce the number of casualties caused by unexploded ordnances (bombs and land mines), and increase the amount of land available for food production and other socio-economic development activities.

Night 7. Nightlight/Bangkok - To meet the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of women in prostitution and their children, by building relationships and providing a center that offers emergency aid, educational and employment opportunity, emergency child-care, language tutoring, literacy training, and biblical teaching and healing for their community.

Night 8. Spring Bud Plan - Due to uneven social and cultural development in China, there are a large number of illiterate children, predominately girls. Spring Bud Plan assists girls of poor areas of China to return to school.

It's a strange way of looking at it, but we have been blessed to have had the opportunity to see misery and heartache in the world. We hope that our decisions will make a difference. Change can occur one small step at a time.

THE LI RIVER

The Li River is famous. Go into any Chinese restaurant in America and you will see a painting where a lonely little river runs through pointy rock formations. It's right beside the fish tank and the little red lanterns for sale. That's the Li River. Kidding aside, this is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It's outer worldly. I have difficulty using words to describe it. You have to have a better camera than mine to properly showcase it. Simply breath taking.


We rode on the bus to Yangdi with our trusted Chinese guide Feng Ping. She was quite adept at English and we were helped into buses, boats, etc. without worrying that we were taking the wrong road, wrong river, etc. The river itself was calm but had a lot of activity. Big tourist boats from Guilin plied the waters, accompanied by smaller fishing boats. Our small craft was illegal on the waters being that only the large "ships" out of Guilin are allowed to carry tourists - the government collects large tax dollars from these businesses and not from the local fisherman. We had to stop at a stone beach partway in order to wait for the authorities to leave a section of the river before we moved on. Follow the money. Even in China!!



These "karst" or limestone peaks sometimes go directly up three hundred meters. They are partially covered in vegetation and their stone faces "peak" through. They don't just follow the water but go for many kilometers in all directions. The scenery is noted to be especially beautiful on the river from Yangdi to Xingping, our drop off point. One pretty view is so nice it's on the back of China's 20 yuan note.




Now when I eat my Kung Pao Chicken at Happy Garden (or any other Chinese restaurant) and glance at the paintings, I can think about the great afternoon we spent on the Li River.

WHO STOLE THE SUN?

When we were in Thailand, Marty and I were joking that our image of China was that it was gray and dismal. This image, of course, was derived from a period in time when China was closed off to the outside world and the portrayal that the US government gave of "Big Bad China" was bleak. Thank God that was just government propaganda and it wasn't really going to be that way.

So here we are in Yangshuo, freezing our butts off in the gray and dismal land of China. We left 90 degree and balmy Bangkok and arrived in Guilin where we had to promptly don our jackets. It's OK; it's night time; it will be better in the morning, right? - NOT! We awoke to unusually cold (freezing) temperatures, wind and gray skies. We transferred to Yangshuo where we will be staying the next two weeks but unfortunately, it's not any better here. Everyone keeps telling us how just last week it was warm and spring like (which it is suppose to be) but that doesn't do us a bit of good since we are here this week (and next) and it's cold! We are not physically nor mentally prepared for this and don't have the proper attire. We were going to southern China to stay out of the cold, not to be in it!

Yangshuo is a city of about 300,000 people. It is in the region that is known for it's karst formations - limestone hills that dot the landscape for about 1000 km. in Southern China. These karst formations are famous throughout China and are featured in many Chinese paintings. Because of Yangshuo's natural beauty, it is a popular tourist destination for the Chinese. Many westerners find their way to Yangshuo as well. It is a very picturesque city.












We have lovely accommodations here complete with a western flush toilet (versus a squat toilet which is standard throughout China) and heat, which even most homes in this area do not have. All of these will make our two week stay here much more comfortable. Shops and restaurants also typically don't have heat but many (not all) restaurants will set up charcoal pits next to the tables to make it warmer. It has become one of our criteria of whether or not we will eat at a particular restaurant.



Yangshuo is not big and gliltzy like Bejing or Shanghi nor is it rural China. It's in between the two and would be just perfect, if someone would just return the sun.

THAILAND'S TOP TEN (PLUS TWO)

We surveyed the four participants of the One World One Trip team for their Top Ten (Plus Two) of Thailand and the results are in:

12. Salakaewkoo - Nong Khai's Sculpture Park
11. Baan Thai cooking class in Chiang Mai
10. Flight of the Gibbon
9. The Atlanta Hotel in Bangkok
8. Lumphini Park in Bangkok
7. Tadkham Village Guesthouse in Chiang Mai
6. Our Thai and Foot Massages
5. Loy Kathong Festival in Chiang Mai
4. Baan Bakery in Chiang Mai
3. Elephant Nature Park
2. Siena and Avocet's 10th birthday celebration in Chiang Mai

AND THE NUMBER ONE FAVORITE OF THAILAND IS:

1. Mut Mee Guesthouse of Nong Khai and the wonderful friends we met there

Results of this country's survey were tabulated by Marty

INT'L STREET PERFORMERS FESTIVAL

For the second time on this trip we had the opportunity to see an International Street Performers Festival. The first was at Rynek Glowny, Krakow Poland's beautiful central square. This one was held in Lumphini Park, about a forty minute walk from our hotel. We stayed for about three hours and saw break dancers who “said” they were from New York, a juggler from New Zealand, a Thai person who could blow darts to break balloons and ride a bike only twelve inches high, etc, and finally a funny Japanese lady who performed a cool comedy mime routine. When the crowd grew large, the sponsors sold "periscopes" so people could see over the people in front of them.











This is also our first attempt at placing a video on the blog by way of YouTube. I credit my friend Erwan from Paris who instructed me how to do it. Thanks, Erwan!!! Enjoy.

OH, BY THE WAY, I DIDN'T KNOW THE CAMERA HAD TO BE SIDEWAYS...OOPS. TO STRAIGHTEN IT OUT, SIMPLY TURN YOUR LAPTOP ON ITS SIDE. FOR DESKTOPS, DON'T ELECTROCUTE YOURSELF.