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since my mom doesn’t blog, i can steal her material

my parents are in China for the next two weeks. here is the first email.

So not much to say about Beijing yet. Arrived late yesterday, somewhat comatose, and checked in to a gorgeous hotel All I can tell you is that I have never seen so many skyscrapers or bikes in one city.
So for my fans who think I speak an awesome Chinese at work… it’s clearly not the right dialect. Joined some other lawyers and spouses for dinner in the hotel last night at a Chinese style restaurant. Equipped with my food list I marched into the restaurant feeling very confident (and hungry) Nothing on the menu resembled what I had on my allowed/forbidden food list. There were translations on the menu, but those required someone to translate the English. For example, can anyone out there tell me what bran dough is? Sounded hi fibre and good for the digestion, but looking at the hideous grey color made it impossible to even taste. Mixed into a cabbage and lettuce concoction, it destroyed any potential that dish may have had. Excited to see lettuce wraps on the menu, I suggested we order 2 of those (Used to be a favorite at Donalda til it disappeared from the menu) It actually looked familiar and I was just about to jump in when I decided to check what the finely chopped meat in the dish was. “Chicken?” I asked pointing to the only waiter who spoke a bit of English..Smiling he said no chicken….. pigeon. Now friends, why didn’t anyone tell me to add “no pigeon” to the forbidden food list. And forget “sauce on the side” It has a function camoflaging the disgusting visual of a lot of the food. Even green tea seemed to have giant spinach leaves floating at the top making it impossible to drink unless you put a strainer in your mouth
OK Slept in 2 hour spurts.. Up since 5. Will hit the gym before the day starts and then off to the silk market before the conference kicks off at noon. Keep you posted
XXOO
Hungry in Beijing

Is it strange that my reaction to this note is a wave of jealousy? I so wish I was traveling right now to a silk market. I guess my bookclub is a pretty close second.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 6:41 pm and is filed under family, randomness, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “since my mom doesn’t blog, i can steal her material”

  1. Baron Says:
    October 9th, 2007 at 7:47 pm

    Sure sounds like a lot of complaining by your mom over there! Lesson 1 to trying new Chinese food: eat first, ask questions later.

    And the Silk Market only contains one floor of silk products. The market is a 5 or 6 story mall of authentic, made-in-China, direct-from-the-child-labourer, fantasticness. If you want a cheap mp3 player, watch, rug, couch, clothes, ANYTHING, that’s the place to be. I hope you put in shopping requests with your mom and she’s got some good haggling skillz.

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