|
China, September 2005 Day 3 Up at six unable to sleep, again. We cleaned up, packed and decided to go downstairs for breakfast as it was included with the price of the rooms. The Salley Palace western-style restaurant in the lobby had a breakfast buffet with a selection of Chinese and Chinese-style-western dishes. What do I mean by Chinese-style-western? Take for instance the hash-browns made of taro, or creamed fish with bones like fish-hook barbs. The toast was good, but the selection of cakes and pastries were dry as plaster dust. This perplexed me since there are any number of excellent bakeries in the area and the birthplace of Chinese baking just over the border... After breakfast Mr. Wong, our printer and the host of last night's dinner, picked us up and drove us to the airport in his fancy Honda Accord. The Shenzhen airport was nice and modern, reminding us much of the Ontario airport in SoCal. Our flight was on Shenzhen Airlines to Nanjing. Before takeoff, the announcements were made by recorded message and my mom remarked that the voices were very pleasant. We were served a small snack onboard consisting of some juice, a package of Chinese Chicken Crackers (very much like Chikin-in-a-Bizkit), some lightly sweetened puffed corn, and a sweet brioche-type roll. The flight took 1 hour 40 minutes and was largely uneventful. The plane was new, clean, and smoking was not allowed in either the airport or the plane. In Nanjing, my father's childhood friend Paul Chang met us at the airport and drove us to the hotel in his Buick (made in Shanghai). We checked into our room ($20/night) and found that there were only twin beds, not just in our room but all rooms. We also found out that Paul has been living in this particular hotel (part time, his family is in Singapore) for about 10 years. On our way into town we noted some tree-lined streets, conspicuously absent in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Nanjing is very proud of its city greening projects and especially their French "Wu-tong" trees (actually native to Yunnan and brought to France by a Jesuit missionary, then brought back to Chinese cities by Chinese exchange students). To settle in, we decided to go and get our hair washed across the street. My dad decided to get a haircut. The washes came with a half hour shoulder rub and head scratching by girls in yellow shirts. For the four of us it totaled about USD$12. After the washes, Poobie and I walked around our neighborhood, intrepid explorers and found the perfect little day-pack for RMB20 and a pair of light-weight pants for RMB68. The pants needed to be altered, so we went in search of a tailor and found Mr. Wu on the 4th floor of a department store. He was so amazing, altering two pairs of pants in under 7 minutes. It normally would have cost us RMB8 for the alterations, but Poobie wanted to take a picture with him and after the picture, he wouldn't accept payment. Dinner that night was as follows: Gizzard of Sparrow with Peanuts, Black Trumpet Mushroom Fricassee Chinoise, Thousand-Year-Old Quail Eggs, Ziggurat of Braised Pork-Belly Stuffed with Preserved Mustard-greens, Giant Meatball in Mustard Green Broth (delicious!), Morning Glory Greens with Red Fermented Tofu Sauce, Spicy Napa Cabbage Stalk Stir-fry, Duck Blood Stew, Steamed Salted Duck (Nanjing specialty also delicious), Poached Grass Shrimp, Herbal Soup, Soup Dumplings, Pork Ribs Muslim style (lots of cumin, red chilies and garlic). We did not know half of the people there, mostly Paul Chiangs mahjong buddies, but we were on our best behavior. We drank beer while everyone else drank "Endurding Pulchritude" by Yunnan Shangli-La Winery (a fine "Tibetan dry") red wine cut with Sprite. I kid you not. I even spelled it exactly as it was on the bottle. We were flabbergasted and hadn't seen anything like that since Budapest and the "Borosh colas." We went to bed that night stuffed and thankful for the AC.
|
