The China Chronicles

I just survived a really long weekend. Kinda sad when you need the rest of the week to recover :) We went to Guiyang for Thanksgiving on Thursday, and we came back to Anshun Sunday evening. It was a really busy and really expensive weekend. On Thursday, we ate turkey (imported all the way from America! It was an expensive bird). We also had green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, stuffing, potato casserole, chocolate pudding pie, wassail, sweet potatoes...I think that might be all. Oh, and rolls. There were eight Americans all together, and our food was fabulous. I was scooping the stuffing out of the turkey when I discovered that not only did Kara and Susie stuff the stomach, they stuffed the neck. And stapled it shut. And they stuck an orange in the other end to keep everything in. And they cooked the turkey upside down. We never told them that, we just laughed to ourselves.

On Friday, we went DVD shopping and to Pizza Hut. It was sort of like being on a DVD diet and then finding a DVD buffet. I am the proud new owner of Pirates of the Caribbean, Ocean's 12, Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Shrek, and season 4 of The Simpsons. We saw a group of Americans adopting Chinese babies while we were at Pizza Hut. I think it must be a signal of having been in China for awhile, because we think that any foreigner should talk to us, and we were a little miffed that none of the parents came over to say hi. But that's life.

On Saturday, we had the longest day of my life. We left at 9:30 to go to Huaxi, a neighboring city. We ate lunch, some of the girls rode horses for 2 hours, we went to a bookstore, we got a snack, we went to the American-owned (!) coffee shop, and finally we went home. We probably walked a total of 7 miles that day, and our feet were killing us. However, the American-owned coffee shop, while close to ten times more expensive than any other restaurant, was exactly like an American coffee house. It was amazing.

On Sunday, we went to fellowship at 8:30, ate lunch, went to Wal-Mart, went to the cheese/butter place, and went to the cocoa powder place. That's a grand total of about eight city blocks' worth of walking, which is a looooong way, especially given our day on Saturday. We finally got home at 5:30 totally exhausted. Guiyang is a nice place to visit, but I always leave so wiped out, which I hate. The good news is that aside from a lunch banquet in December, we won't do it again until at least March. Man, I'm getting so old.

posted by Sara @ 11:39 PM