My OperaFINDING OUR LUGGAGE
Sunday, June 1, 2008 5:59:57 PM
We awoke early the next morning and although a continental breakfast was offered in a building adjoining the hotel, we chose to go across the street to the small market Pam and Clay had shown us the night before to buy some food supplies we could eat in our room.
A survey of the food offered was daunting and we opted for ramen that we could fix by using the hot water pot found in our hotel room. We added bottled water and Coca Cola that we found in a cooler to our purchases. The cooler had been left off all night, so the Coke wasn't exactly cold, but it was still a taste of home.
The hot pot BOILED the bottled water in about 30 seconds flat. I was amazed! We poured it over our smalled bowls of ramen which had come with several small pouches of seasonings. I experimented with my pouches, since I couldn't read the Chinese words telling me what they were. Ken, who is braver than I, dumped the contents of all of his pouches into his noodle bowl and discovered at least one pouch was filled with HOT peppers. He love it!
Pam was a blessing, to say the least. She arrived at our hotel at the stated time and off we went in a taxi to the airport. Pam had bargained with the taxi driver and got the price of a ride down from 50 Yuan (about $6.95) to 30 Yuan, which is about $4.15. It was an hour ride, so that was a huge bargain!
When we got to the airport, no one knew anything about any bags that had arrived from Hong Kong. I had almost resigned myself to never seeing our bags again, but Pam persisted, talking first with one person and then with another, and we were ushered past a roped-off area and were presented with our bags without much delay. We couldn't have done that on our own. Her Chinese is quite good and she doesn't take "No" for an answer.
One of the suitcases was filled with baby clothes that I had brought from America for Pam's orphans. I did NOT want to lose them, so I was greatly relieved when we had them safely back in our hands.
A survey of the food offered was daunting and we opted for ramen that we could fix by using the hot water pot found in our hotel room. We added bottled water and Coca Cola that we found in a cooler to our purchases. The cooler had been left off all night, so the Coke wasn't exactly cold, but it was still a taste of home.
The hot pot BOILED the bottled water in about 30 seconds flat. I was amazed! We poured it over our smalled bowls of ramen which had come with several small pouches of seasonings. I experimented with my pouches, since I couldn't read the Chinese words telling me what they were. Ken, who is braver than I, dumped the contents of all of his pouches into his noodle bowl and discovered at least one pouch was filled with HOT peppers. He love it!
Pam was a blessing, to say the least. She arrived at our hotel at the stated time and off we went in a taxi to the airport. Pam had bargained with the taxi driver and got the price of a ride down from 50 Yuan (about $6.95) to 30 Yuan, which is about $4.15. It was an hour ride, so that was a huge bargain!
When we got to the airport, no one knew anything about any bags that had arrived from Hong Kong. I had almost resigned myself to never seeing our bags again, but Pam persisted, talking first with one person and then with another, and we were ushered past a roped-off area and were presented with our bags without much delay. We couldn't have done that on our own. Her Chinese is quite good and she doesn't take "No" for an answer.
One of the suitcases was filled with baby clothes that I had brought from America for Pam's orphans. I did NOT want to lose them, so I was greatly relieved when we had them safely back in our hands.
