Feelin' Hot Hot Hot

Guangzhou is HOT! It was 99 degrees today, the sweat rolling down our backs and heads was one of the first clues of the temperatures. Kunming is considered the ideal temperature, so I don’t think Nathaniel Weifeng has ever experienced heat like this before. His head was dripping eater any time we were outdoors. Yes, we had a name switch, more about that later.
This morning our group went to a temple that had been turned into a museum. The wood work was extraordinarily beautiful. Did you know that there are people in China who sleep on wood beds and use porcelain pillows? The wood is supposed to be good for your bones and the porcelain is cooler than a nice soft pillow. How could you even sleep like that? After the museum we headed over to a tea house, we really thought it paled in comparison to the experience we had in the Kunming tea house. We tasted monkey tea today. The leaves are so high up in the mountains that they monkeys have to pick it. Our group decided if you need monkeys to pick it, it isn’t worth drinking. It was terrible; the only way to get it down was to slug it back. Kit thought it was so bad he wouldn’t finish it, and no one was willing to drink it for him so that his cup would be empty. We are only really talking about 2 Tbs worth of liquid, that is how bad it was.
We spent the afternoon at the pool today. It was so nice, although this pool is rules out the wazoo. You can’t do anything that remotely resembles fun. 2 of the moms were wearing swimsuits with skirts and they were questioned if they were really wearing swimsuits. The pool attendants stand at the edge of the pool and are quick to tell you if you are breaking a rule.
This trip has been so much fun for the boys; they have really enjoyed playing with the older boys. They are very nice young men. If we aren’t sure where the boys are we only have to look for Tanner or Hayden to find our boys. We are with a really fun group of people. We have enjoyed eating together as a group, although we are a little intimidating in size. We had 28 people at a restaurant tonight and it was obvious we had overwhelmed them. Zach, Josh and Kit had to wait the longest for their dinners, they did remarkably well considering I had been finished my meal for a good 15minutes before they were served.
We are going to have to retrain Nathaniel on restaurant behavior when we get home. He takes the menu and just selects what the wants. This is easiest for the moment because he can’t communicate with words what he likes. Tonight he picks a pasta dish with lobster sauce and seafood. I questioned whether or not he would like this. One of the ladies in our group is fluent in Mandarin so I had her ask him if he liked seafood. He said yes. I should have gone with my gut instinct. He didn’t eat one single bite of that seafood, he liked the pasta. Never one to let good food go to waste, Chris decided he was going to try the squid that was on the plate. Yes, squid and octopus legs were the seafood! I have pictures of each of the men eating these little critters. The consensus was that it was rubbery. Joshua’s response to us trying to convince him to eat it…”no thanks, I’ve eaten a rubber band before”. Sensible me didn’t try it either.
I don't have the pictures downloaded at the moment but I will try to get them on our next post.
---Susanne