{"id":1816,"date":"2018-07-01T07:02:34","date_gmt":"2018-07-01T11:02:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/?p=1816"},"modified":"2018-07-01T07:12:06","modified_gmt":"2018-07-01T11:12:06","slug":"china-day-7-june-2-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/?p=1816","title":{"rendered":"China, Day 7 \u2013 June 2, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

We awoke at 4 AM and were in the hotel lobby, ready for our cab to the airport by 4:30 AM. We weren’t tired; we were excited to think about the schools we would be visiting in China! All airport procedures went smoothly.\u00a0 At our gate, we met a young\u00a0 American woman who had taken time off from her job to backpack through Southeast\u00a0 Asia. Our son has the same adventurous spirit, having done that a few years back. We conversed happily until boarding time.<\/p>\n

The flight from Hong Kong to Beijing takes three hours. On the plane we were served a snack of dim sum and noodles, two foods of which we will never tire.\u00a0 Upon leaving the plane, we went through immigration without problems.\u00a0\u00a0 We were really in China!<\/p>\n

Beyond the luggage carousel,\u00a0 we saw two people holding a sign that said “Barbara and Nick Pisarro.”\u00a0 They were our driver and interpreter! Liang, our driver, did not speak English, but our interpreter,\u00a0 Anna,\u00a0 is an English teacher at Pleasant School in Gu’an. We\u00a0 learned that she is originally from Poland. How wonderful to be fluent in several languages!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Anna asked if we were\u00a0 hungry. When we replied that we were, Liang took us to a Szechuan restaurant for lunch. \"\"<\/a>At home, when we go to restaurants with friends with the intention of sharing some\u00a0 menu items, we try to make sure that we order the right amount of food for us to finish. Liang had a different approach. He wanted us to try everything. If we were slow to finish something,\u00a0 he was afraid we didn’t like it,\u00a0 so\u00a0 he ordered more foods.\u00a0Our lunch consisted of\u00a0 kung pao chicken,\u00a0 duck in buns, pork riblets, pumpkin fries, deep fried fish, and a salad. He even ordered two desserts, both of which were delicious. \"\"<\/a>One was fried dough filled with bean paste and sprinkled with sesame seeds, and the other was\u00a0 custard \"\"<\/a>in a pastry crust very similar to pastel de nata,\u00a0 a specialty of Portugal.\u00a0 We tried to reassure Liang that we liked everything!<\/p>\n

After lunch Liang drove us to the hotel at which we would be staying for the night. It was absolutely beautiful. Because we had awakened so early, we felt that a nap was in order. Later, we went to the dinner buffet at the hotel. There were many choices of foods,\u00a0 but they were not labeled in English. That has never stopped us before, and it wouldn’t now! We tried many foods and ended our\u00a0 meal with ice cream, green tea for Nick and mango for me. Back in our room, we switched books that we each finished\u00a0 on the plane. Nick started my\u00a0 Montalbano mystery (Montalbano is a Sicilian detective who loves life, food, and being Sicilian),\u00a0 and I began\u00a0 his Sherlock Holmes adventure.<\/p>\n

5,600 steps<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We awoke at 4 AM and were in the hotel lobby, ready for our cab to the airport by 4:30 AM. We weren’t tired; we were excited to think about the schools we would be visiting in China! All airport procedures went smoothly.\u00a0 At our gate, we met a young\u00a0 American woman who had taken … Continue reading China, Day 7 \u2013 June 2, 2018<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china-2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1816"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1841,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1816\/revisions\/1841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}