Saturday Morning Update

Hello from the future. We slept well getting up at about 4 so we are almost back on our sleep schedule.

Had a weird dream last night. I went outside from our hotel in China to see this beautiful little park that was well manicured and full of picnic benches. It was coordinate off by a string of Chinese lanterns and at the center of this location was a trailer that served food in bowls and on sticks. All of the families were eating contently. The trailer was set like a 50s diner and had Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" blaring from a tinny speaker. The two Chinese women serving as waitresses were wearing poodle skirts --no roller skates though.

I walked into the park and I was carrying a Chinese to English dictionary and deciphered the name of the restaurant to mean:

"Animals that Americans keep as pets"

The last thing I remember was running around yelling: "Soylent green is People!"

And yes, I feel stupid for having such stereotypical dreams about China. The food is definitely exotic by most American tastes but they eat their U-Don Noodles with two chopsticks just like us.

Other musings include everyday items and their Chinese equivalents:

We were rushing through the airport and I grabbed a bottle of what I thought was water for the bus ride to the hotel. I opened it and took a long swig and realized it was way too sweet to be water. What I grabbed was a bottle of Gatorade-equivalent.


Yes, that is Pocari sweat I am not sure what a Pocari is, but it produces some decent juice and I now feel like I have my full day's supply of Ions. A frustrating part of Internet access is that many sites are not accessible here. I can publish these posts for you all to read, but I have no idea how they look when posted. Only by the comments left yesterday on the blog I know that it actually made it out there. The link was supposed to be to a Wikipedia article on the sports drink, but I am unable to access it.

Bare with me if it looks funny or the formatting is wrong, I am flying somewhat blindly. It should be an adventure to see if I can get the video working later. Comments that are left are moderated by me before they go on the site. This is so people don't clutter it up with spam ads and plus I am notified via E-mail when someone leaves something so I can check it out right away. I am having problems accessing this now, but they are E-mailed to us as they are left and are much appreciated.

This next picture is of beverages in the fridge:

















That is Sprite, Coke and Diet Coke. Again, no major revelation but it is interesting to see how items are presented differently. It is nice to place the clueless tourist for once. I snicker at some of the things people take pictures of in Chicago and here is me taking pictures of soda cans.

One of the most interesting things about these can is the tops:


That's right, old-school pull tabs.

Well, we are waiting for the breakfast buffet to open at 6:30 and then our tour leaves at 8:30 to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Our guides tell us we will be gone all day so it should be interesting.

Like I incoherently said in my entry yesterday we are just trying to get out arms around another country but our thoughts are drifting to Maya in two days.