I am back in Changsha - I had a great time at home, ate all my favorite American foods and saw most of the important people in my life. So with a jet lagged brain I am now getting ready for our big trip.
We accomplished a lot of our "trip chores" today. Cynthia helped me move my extra luggage over to my old apartment and up the 4 flights of stairs (rumor has it – that we will move to the new apartment sometime before the 15th) (NUDT told us when we left that they would have already moved us BEFORE we got back- obviously not the case) I repacked my carryon for our 2 week adventure and then to the bank. That was the interesting part...
I needed to exchange dollars to Yuan so we actually did it with an illegal street deal with a 'Huang Niu Dang' person (word to word translation is Yellow Cow party - sort of like ticket scalpers) - We got a slightly better rate than what the bank was offering (12 Yuan - about 2 dollars extra for a 4000 dollar transaction) but the best part being that we didn't have to wait in a very long line, show lots of ID, fill out forms or pay any fee. The only negative was having to walk about 4 blocks to Cynthia's bank so that her bank could check out the Yuan in their fancy counter machines to make sure they were not counterfeit. It is strange how some things work here and even though the businesses are illegal they are fairly safe and widely used (The Huang Niu Dong people were boldly sitting on a ledge right in front of the bank with no one stopping them ) This same day we also encouraged another illegal activity. We used a Hei Che today - Hei Che translates to black car- which is an unlicensed cab. You agree on a price before hand and they take you where you need to go. If I am alone I can't use the "hei che" due to lack of language abilities. Of course there are many more – the DVD stores, knock off markets, and of course the well publicized “Apple Stores”.
Its Friday morning now - 4 am -- wide awake as per my usual "jet lag" symptoms- so that is why I am answering and writing emails at this time of the day. Today we are finishing packing and recharging all our electronic stuff. We need to head to town to shop in Watsons - sort of a version of a drug store without the drugs - mostly shampoos, facial masks, soaps, etc - I need to purchase some of my favorite travel size Japanese shampoo and conditioner- then we will lunch at Cynthia's parents house. We leave Changsha at 8 this evening. Sometime today when non-jet lagged Cynthia wakes up at a normal time - I will get her to translate our itinerary into English so I can send it to you - We stayed in an airport hotel before our flight to Tibet. We had to ration the toilet paper.
Side note I did get a great massage yesterday after a great lunch. Both were in a 5 star hotel. The lunch was what they called buffet style - but to me it was more 'cafeteria style' --you walked around looking at the sample displays of food and gave them your card with your table number on it - You picked what you wanted - they recorded it on the card, cooked it and then brought it to the table. There were four of us Cynthia and Cynthia's dad along with one of his PHd students (who treated us all) and myself. We ate most of 15 different dishes they brought ( How come they are all so thin and small...not fair...). Anyway we had fish, crab, beef, pork, 2 types of tofu, a mushroom salad, green beans, a really big white bean (looked like a lima bean on steroids), another vegatable dish, spicy noodles, one of my favorite pumpkin things, a "vegetable rollup", pear soup-like dish, a pineapple flavored pastry and of course they brought fruit for dessert. I feel full just listing it all - we both skipped dinner.
