Saturday I spent the day with Alice and Sawyer.  We started our day eating, what else would you do?  Eating is so much fun here.  Maybe shopping is as fun, but will save that for later.  My new favorite place is the JiMing Temple, today we light three incense sticks, put them in the sand table and said prayers.  We prayed for each other.  It’s raining so we scurry up the steps to the top of the temple where the restaurant is and order our vegetarian meal.  Today we have dumplings (like a bread ball with veggies inside) fake duck and beef, fried rice and their delicious plum juice.  Another wonderful meal with my new Chinese adopted grown children.

Sawyer says now we must have Coffee, so off to “Sculpting in Time” the western Coffee shop.  We order our Cappuccino and Lattes.  I notice a John Lennon paperback for sale and bring it to the table to ponder over.  It is philosophical sayings by John in Chinese.  Alice opens the book and translates to English for me.  It is about Communism and how John didn’t really believe that there was Communism.  The three of us have a long discussion on the Beatles and politics.  Off we go to a mall called MUJI, somewhat like the Galleria in Dallas.  So many cute and very fashionable outfits and hundreds of shoes.  At this time I realize sizes run small – if not tiny and many won’t fit my size 9 body.  I need to be thin as a pencil to wear Chinese fashion.  Shoes are hard to fit, Chinese feet are thin, I can find the right size but not wide enough.  Later Alice shows me a shoe shop by the University that carries Merrell’s’ and Timberline, American walking/hiking brands. (John Garrott you would be proud!  You trained me well about good walking shoes, thank you.)

Take the subway to a bus stop. Not so bad, but then I have translators with me.  The University street has many cute shops and I find a  jacket and sweater to layer with my T-shirts.  Then on the bus we go to Alice’s mom’s home.  Jump off and walk into a bakery.  Alice wants to order a birthday cake for her mom, will be ready in 15 minutes, so we walk up a back street and eye food while we wait.  I find a woman selling live frogs to eat.  We see all kinds of cooked meat to purchase, including feet,stomachs, colons, duck heads, gizzards and livers.  There were other  parts I couldn’t even guess where they came from.  Sawyer wants meat, so he gets a sampling of things boxed to go.  Up four flights of stairs to Alice’s mom home.  Mrs. Wong  is simply daring with chopped short hair and teeny tiny reader glasses half way down her nose.  She has lived in this home twenty years, where Alice grew up.  The kitchen is small but she has every space utilized, chopping all shorts of vegetables.  Sawyer’s favorite is a bitter gourd, which is bright grass green in color, long like a cucumber but has warty bumps all over it.  Xiao Wong slices it in half and then in thin pieces.  She pours boiling water on top and lets it soak, drains, adds salt and vinegar and that magic powered spice I saw Sarah use last night.  She stir fries snap green beans with a bit of chilies.  A second dish of sliced carrots mixed in a variety of mushrooms including a fungus mushroom is fried.   The last stir fried dish is a fresh chive like plant with long thin sliced mushrooms.  All of these were tasty except Sawyer’s favorite dish the bitter gourd.  I just couldn’t enjoy the taste like he did and he proceeded to eat the entire bowl.   We had a lovely bottle of 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon to toast to Xiao Wong’s birthday and new friends.

Time to cut the cutest birthday ever, with fresh fruit on top and in the filling.  I so enjoy the family style atmosphere the Chinese continue to cultivate in their homes and during their meals out.   This is something we as Americans have given up for fast food and always on the go lifestyles.

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