China #2

Let's see. That night after we pearled ourselves out...well, not really, my dad could talk/shop pearls the rest of his life. And I gotta hand it to the guy...he knows his stuff. It's kind of his hobby (in the 3 days he's been home) to go around to jewelry shops, see how much they are asking for their pearls (which he shows them in explicit detail, are MUCH WORSE QUALITY than his own) and feeling VERY good about his own purchases, and subsequent sales...

I digress. That night we ate at the hotel restuaurant, which was very nice and clean, and also specialized in live seafood...like every other "nice" place we ate at the entire time. I took some pictures of hilarious mis-translations on the menu...too good to pass up!

Shrimp with eyeballs... a favorite of my parents
Mom and I...

My wonderful parents!

"Broken Burning Flesh Vegetables" Now if that doesn't sound good, what does???

"Burning wax Gourd Family" Ummmm...another delicious sounding dish!!

Chicken...always a safe bet, right? WRONG! On top, the foot...inside... EVERYTHING ELSE!!!

I forgot to include this yesterday. Sometimes the pearls grow into the oyster shell, so it looks like this. They are not salvagable as pearls. But some of the prettiest jewelry I saw came from Mother of Pearl...which is the shell. I was looking at some jewelry in one of the shops and the Chinese lady said..."Uh...that is made from Pearl's Mommy"

This statue was in our hotel lobby. And everywhere we went had something like this. Every single one had a plate of fruit at Buddha's feet. Now, I am certainly not trying to be disrespectful with this question, but I really don't know... Obviously, a Buddha statue does not actually eat the fruit...so is it someones job to go around each night when no one is looking and take the fruit, to make it look like he ate it? Or do they just replace it each day, hoping that one day he will be hungry enough to eat it...and on that fateful day...there better be fruit at his feet!!?!?!

Day two we drove to...well...darn, I can't remember the name. (interesting side note...about 2 hours before we left the last city to head for this one, my head started to hurt, then pound, then...I have never felt pain like that in my head before. I was sure I was having a brain Anurism, I really mean that. (it was VERY humid where we were, and I didn't drink hardly any water...I'm sure it was extreme dehydration) I I laid down and thrashed for an hour before we had to leave in the oldest, bumpiest minivan you ever saw in your life. I threw up several times outside the van, then inside the van, but had about 3 seconds to grab the $10 bag of Walmart Beef Jerkey I had bought to puke in. Bummer about the jerkey...but...better than riding in a puke car for two hours) My mom gave me some Chinese headache medicine, which I threw up, and some more, which I threw up again. I rode the whole way with my head on my moms lap, bouncing about while she squeezed my temples as hard as she could....not pleasant!!!)

Anyway, this new city is the import capital of the world. And I promise you, I have no doubt, that unless you bought something homemade, then it came from this city in China. FOR REAL! Huge...building after building of anything in the world, one building for Christmas decor, one for leather, one for Kitchen Supplies, one for Shoes, one for watches...etc. etc. etc. You have to buy in Bulk...as in, by the 1000's. I don't care whether you bought something at Nordstroms or Walmart- it came here first. All different qualities and varieties...In this city were people of EVERY nationality...except America really...Didn't see (more like hear) any Americans the whole time. LOTS of Middle Easterners, some Europeans, and Some Africans. We didn't buy much here...you can buy ties in bulk...and we actually came to this city to see what the current trends in ties were, and to pick up some jewelry clasps. We bought a couple odds and ends from shops that would sell their "Stock" item if they had more in the back. Everything they had out was just to show what you could buy in bulk.

One Aisle (of 1000s) of one of 5 floors of toys.


Can anyone help me with what this possibly could have been mis-translated from? seriously??

Just An idea of the types of things you could find here... Each of those things listed in English had their OWN BUILDING!!! (Yes, one whole building for zippers and buttons!)

"Christmas Decor Building" I really wanted to go in but we didn't have time! Boo... Not that I need 1000 of any particular Christmas decoration...but it would have been fun to see...

You see this all the time...

This is hard to read but it was the sign in the all the taxi's...my favorite part is "No Psychotics or Heavy Drinkers allowed in this taxi."

One last tidbit...you saw people selling baskets of these fruits EVERYWHERE in China. I found out from the nice Isreali woman that I shared a plane ride (and a good cry) with, that it is only grown in this part of China, and only is harvested during June. They look like they have been rolled in little seed-beads, but they tasted delicious. Kind-of like a cross between an orange and a strawberry!

More tomorrow...