What a day it’s been! The sun finally came out today, and I could remove 2 of the 5 sweaters I was wearing yesterday!
Now I don’t go to Walmart at home, so I can’t really compare, but I think it must be very different. I was quite excited to go to Walmart. It’s about a 15 minute walk from where we live, and everybody was out on the streets. The contrasts are amazing. The iphone 4 was being sold on the streets as were barbecued sweet potatoes and roasted chestnuts. One old woman had an antiquated singer sewing machine parked on the sidewalk, and was fixing things for people as they walked along. I now know where to go if I need some buttons sewed on etc.
Walmart is huge, with 3 floors, about a mile long. Everything is available, with one floor for clothing, another for cosmetics,and household thinga, and the tird for food products. Lots of interesting stuff – especially the meat – chicken feet are very popular, and there were a number of things I did not recognize, nor did I really want to know! We did get some really good yogurt though to go with the granola I brought from home!
Later we sat outdoors and enjoyed a beer at the French Cafe, where we met a very interesting dutch couple, who run a business (exporting handicrafts to America and Europe) and have lived here for 5 years. One learns so much in talking to other expats who have so much more experience in this “other” world.
Tonight we had dinner at a place called “Heavenly Manna”, and it really was heavenly!. When we got there, it was packed, and the girl at the door was asking us for something, but of course we couldn’t understand. A young American guy came to the rescue, and said we should give her our phone number. This posed a dilemma for us – Howard had been given a cell phone from the university, and we have used it a number of times, but we didn’t know our own number! So the young man, Steve, said give me a call, and your number will come up, and then I can give it to the girl for you! So that’s what we did, and she phoned us 30 minutes later, so we had a table!
Now this restaurant is very popular, and fortunately happens to be next door to us! We would never see anything like this at home. The ceilings were very low, we had to stoop to walk upstairs to our table, and we could barely stand. Along the way were some pipes no more than 4 feet from the ground that we had to duck under!
The food was amazing! We had “grounded beef with mint,” crispy beans with mint, and a fantastic vegetable soup – not your ordinary vegetable soup that you or I would make! Along with that we had tea and a beer. The bill was $10.00!! I can’t wait to go back and work our way through the menu! No cutlery – just chop sticks. We’re learning how to slurp along with everyone else!
After dinner, it’s 80 steps back up to our apartment which is really good for us after a hearty meal!
Our apartment door has a lovely big Santa with a Merry Christmas sign on it! We see Christmas decorations everywhere, but to the Chinese it doesn’t represent a seasonal thing, rather just pretty decorations!
Enough for today – we’re soon ready to go to bed, and you are all getting ready to go to church! (We’re 13 hours ahead of you).
Good night/ good morning – we’ll talk again soon.
Maggie
ps I’m adding 2 pictures – one of our granddaughters in Taipei, and the other of a fruit market just down the street.
Maggie's Musings 
That market looks fantastic! Are you finding a lot of new exotic fruits/vegetables that you haven’t seen/tried before?
Well Maggie you and Howard seem to be packing in a lot of activity in a short period of time. Remember to keep your camera with you as photo’s add so much more to your commentary.
Good to hear about your first two days in Kunming.
Hi Maggie – I ran across Howard’s website some time ago, where he said you would be going to Kunming for 4 months or so. My first thought was ‘nice, they’ll be that much closer to the girls’ 🙂 I recall Kunming was not a tourist town so I am smiling as I read about your adventures. I will also laugh when Walmart becomes your new best friend for shopping – similar to coming across a MacDonald’s when you can’t face another dumpling in eastern Europe. There is a restaurant in Kunming that had the most incredible soup, it was within walking distance of the hotel we were in, but that is all I can remember about the location. Some of us were enjoying that delicious soup and missed the photo shoot. That soup was well worth it! You should have a very interesting few months, I’ll look forward to reading about it. Take care and I imagine that Howard will have very enthusiastic students, which will make it so much more rewarding. Cheers, elizabeth
Liz ,How fondly I remember that trip. Maggie and Howard were oblivious to our shinanigans , well maybe not. That pic of the ‘Group of Six’ remains one of my favorites. Did we ever see the official pic?
Mike G