Thumbs Up!

No matter what stage you are in life, people always tell you: be grateful for small things. Usually, this advice is ignored. However, in China, the really, really, really small things make you REALLY grateful. Catching the right bus, locating your hotel, understanding how much your bottle of water costs. . . .these are the highlights of my day. And it's awesome! Highly recommend it for anyone that finds themself sweating the small stuff. Here, the heat and chili sauce will have you dripping instead.

One of my favorite meals during my 2006 trip was in Guilin, southern China. My friend and I had taken a night bus and had bargained a hotel/bike deal with a guy on the bus. He took both of us on his motorcycle into town, where we got noodle soup for breakfast in a garage-like room. Great food, very memorable ambiance.

So, I have been trying to order noodle soup since my arrival. In shanghai, the first few times I forgot because they had soup dumplings in the window. Great distraction technique. Then, I ordered it, but evidently had only communicated the soup part--it was broth with beef and cilantro. We arrived in Nanjing yesterday, so there was far less soup dumpling to stand in my way. Last night, at a restaurant where virtually everyone was eating noodle soup, I ordered noodle soup, the cashier nodded, I paid, and she promptly handed me 4 lamb kabobs. Utter failure.

This morning, I was a woman on a mission. Went for a great run on the western side of the city--through several public parks, filled with people walking, doing tai chi, aerobics to peking opera. It was a lot of fun to watch so much activity at 6AM in the morning--the only weird part was that the parks were filled with birds chirping, which was normal until I realized they were all in cages and for sale! Post shower, I was starving, so Travis and I wandered in search of a satisfactory breakfast place (i.e. filled with people). And there is was: a noodle place, not too different from the place in Guilin. We entered, I said, "noodles". the waitress said, "noodles" (I think, it could have been lamb or kebab). then I said, "soup", and she said "soup noodles?" and I said yes. We pointed at the meat (or lack of, in my case) that we wanted, and were quickly served piping hot bowls filled with fresh homemade noodles, salty (but delicious) broth, cilantro, and a generous amount of garlic. It was good enough to make me forget that it was only 9AM. Hard to know what to do with a day in China when you have such a huge accomplishment early in the morning.

The day was really interesting. Nanjing was the capital of China for many years--essentially until the communist party took over. During WWII, it was an area that suffered an extremely brutal attack by the Japanese--approx 300,000 causalties in 6 weeks. A few years ago, they opened a memorial/museum here. Very thorough, it spares you no detail in how gruesome the events were; there is extensive photographic and narrative footage. We spent most of the morning and early afternoon walking through the various exhibits. We then moved to the Confucious Temple, which is in the southern part of town. It's an odd blend, that I'm realizing is probably common here, of old buildings which the traditional (or at least what I think of as traditional) architecture, with modern shops spilling out (Zara, H&M, several Lacoste ripoffs, my favorite is called Clio Coddle, but has the same logo). We sat on the lake and had bubble tea, wandered around and looked at the temple, enjoying the cooler breezes of the evening, and the young folks that fill the streets as the sun goes does. A very full, but fun day.

And of course, we found a place not far from the hotel that was open "late" (most places were closed when we started looking around 8:30) that had. . . . .more noodle soup! I ordered vegetarian, which had a nice array of greens and tomatoes. . . .and pork rinds. But again, I'm chalking it up as victory #2 of the day. Tomorrow I will have to move onto something new--scallion pancake, salted duck, and sesame bean cake are all regional delicacies that I've yet to try. One more day here, then to Beijing we go.

Hope you are all doing well!