To China, to China, to buy a fat pig

(by Suzanne)

As many of you know, Tom and I follow a vegan-plus-fish diet, for health reasons. It has done miracles for our cholesterol levels, but make no mistake, we LOVE meat. We consider food to be one of the great joys of traveling, so we decided to go off the diet for the duration of the trip.

Here are some of the things we ate in Beijing:

This is at a restaurant called Xian Lao Man, which I read about on a food blog called Beijing Haochi. You could almost miss the star of the meal, the homely little white blobs at far right. These dumplings filled with lamb and garlic chives were so good, they made me want to get up and dance.

Breakfast at the B&B. Good Chinese home cooking, different every day.

OK, this isn’t something we actually ate, I just had to show this. It’s a menu at the cafeteria in the Forbidden City. So, my Taiwanese friends, what is your Bad Side Meat, and why would we want to eat it?

A fried tofu dish and the World’s Best Bread, at a Uighur restaurant a stone’s throw from the B&B. It is brought to the table hot from the oven (probably a tandoor of some sort). It is pricked all over in the middle with some kind of swirly-patterned implement to keep it flat in the middle like a bialy, and then it's sprinkled with salt, sesame, and cumin seeds. It’s chewy in the middle, and fluffy-puffy around the edges. Aaaah….

A fine Cantonese meal at a restaurant recommended by Angela, our hostess with the mostest.

And a thank you gift for Angela from one of Beijing’s finest traditional pastry shops, Daoxiangcun.

And now on to Tunxi:

Lunch with our tour group on the trip to Hongcun and Xidi.

Possibly our favorite restaurant in China, Meishi Renjia in Tunxi. These are samples of everything available. You get a clipboard with a pad, and you write down the numbers of the things you want.

A meal at Meishi Renjia.

A bowl of wonton soup at a street stall. The wontons were filled right in front of us after we ordered. Cost: 5 kuai, about 73 cents.

The world’s finest xiaolongbao. Our friend Shan told us we had to try the pork-&-crab XLB at Din Tai Fung in Shanghai. She was right.

And on to Japan:

Party food at my sister's rented apartment

Kaiseki-style appetizers at a fancy sukiyaki restaurant.

Typical mid-range bentos from a department store.

Breakfast at the Daimachi Ryokan. Miso soup in the covered bowl and nori sheets in the covered rectangle.

Cooking okonomiyaki at the table in Kamakura.

Lunch made by Tomoko’s mother.

A custard-filled taiyaki, a kind of fish-shaped pancake.

A bento I made for Tom in his brand-new bento box from Tokyu Hands. Let’s just say I was inspired by the great eats we had on our trip.

Tomoko and Yuiko

Here is a picture of our friend Tomoko with her baby Yuiko and new friend Lillia at Tomoko's family home in Tokyo. Tomoko usually lives in Cusco, Peru, where she runs an eco-tourism agency with her Peruvian husband, Walter, and writes books and articles for the masses. But when she found she would need a c-section to deliver a baby that just would not cooperate and turn around, she decided to return home and give birth at the University of Tokyo Hospital. We just missed Walter, who flew home for work the day we arrived.

Yuiko is 3 months old and a delightful baby girl who does all of the baby things extremely well, including smiling, cooing, and eating.

Grandma is, of course, very proud of Yuiko. She let Lillia help care for the little girl.

We visited the Suzuki family home on Wednesday and were treated to a feast for lunch.

It was a great day.

A Perfect Day in Kamakura

(by Suzanne)

Kamakura is my favorite day trip from Tokyo. Just a short, easy jaunt on the train takes you from the teeming metropolis to this hilly, woodsy, ancient town full of temples and shrines.

Our first stop there was the obligatory visit to the Daibutsu (Big Buddha). He is magnificent.

And big.

Lillia is brandishing an ice cream cone in the first picture. She also got a Buddha-shaped lollipop. I tried to imagine a Christian church selling Jesus lollipops, but I couldn't quite wrap my brain around that.

Next, we took the Daibutsu Hiking Course, which runs along a heavily wooded ridge, to Zeni-Arai Benten. The thing to do at this shrine is wash some money, which supposedly brings you prosperity. It is in a tight little box canyon, and is reached by a tunnel through a hill.

Entrance to Zeni-Arai Benten

Washing money in the grotto

Last, we visited a sight that I don't remember having been to before, Sasuke-Inari Shrine. Inari is associated with foxes, so the shrine is liberally sprinkled with them. There are dozens of torii forming a tunnel that runs up the hill to the shrine.

Tom, Lillia, and Foxy in the torii tunnel

Foxies

Lillia heading back down the stairs

On our way back toward the train station, we noticed a couple of totoros among someone's potted plants.

(Have I mentioned lately that you must all rent the movie My Neighbor Totoro?)

Near the station, there was a shop selling all things Totoro, where Lillia got a little plush totoro.

Then we had dinner at a cute little okonomiyaki place, where we cooked at the table.

And for dessert, Green tea and purple sweet potato ice cream cones.

We had such a wonderful day that Tom and I decided that if we ever win the lottery, we'll buy a house in Kamakura.

Ah, Fair Land of Yamato

(by Suzanne)

So, we are in Japan now. As much as I loved China, and was sorry to be leaving, it is really nice to be in a country where you can drink the water and breathe the air, and which is so very very clean. And it’s nice to not be in a police state anymore. We were surprised to find that China now blocks blogspot, the site that we posted from every day on our adoption trip. So, we’ve been writing, and saving our posts as Word documents, to be uploaded soon in the order they were written. So, if you want to read them in chronological order, you should go back to October 23.

Lillia is really loving Japan. My sister Janet, her husband Ken, and their daughter Molly are here, visiting my nephew Jacob, his wife Minako, and their adorable baby Hanae, who live here in Tokyo. So Lillia has lots of people to interact with, and she’s in love with the baby (as we all are).

Hanae

The day after we arrived, we visited the Studio Ghibli Museum, which was absolutely wonderful. Lillia had lots of fun climbing in and out of the giant plush catbus. (N.B. If anyone reading this is wondering what the hell I’m talking about, you must immediately put My Neighbor Totoro at the top of your Netflix queue. No excuses.) Here is Totoro himself at a ticket window:

There was a short film (a sequel of sorts to My Neighbor Totoro) called Mei and the Kittenbus (Mei to koneko basu), which can only be seen at the museum. It was a scream. Unfortunately, no photography is allowed inside the museum, so I can’t show you the catbus or any of the other exhibits. The gift shop was packed like the Tokyo subway at rush hour. I wanted everything I saw, but the prices were hair-raising (actually, all the prices in Japan are hair-raising). We did buy a couple of little pins. Here’s mine:

The next day, we all went to a chrysanthemum festival at a nearby temple. There were lots of kids there for Shichi-Go-San (Seven-Five-Three), when girls aged three and seven, and boys aged five are blessed at their neighborhood temple.

Lillia and my sister Janet with Chrysanthemum Man.

Lillia with chrysanthemums bigger than her head.

Children elaborately gift-wrapped for Shichi-Go-San.

A few days ago, Lillia said to me, “I want to buy everything I bump into!” I told her I understood that completely. Japan is so full of cute toys and exquisite hand-crafted objects. Moreover, I want to eat everything I bump into. Obviously, I am obsessed with food in general, but I’m realizing anew that Japanese food is my absolute favorite. I will do a whole post about food later.

The Intrepid Traveler

(by Suzanne)

I love watching Lillia striding purposefully through an airport terminal, pulling her carry-on behind her (it’s almost as big as she is). She is such a good traveler. This isn’t to say that she has never gotten into a snit or even thrown a full-on tantrum, but these have been no more often than at home. The first couple of days were pretty rough, as she was savagely jet-lagged and kept us up all night. We solved this by using the star system. For each night that she stayed in bed and didn’t wake us up, she would get a star sticker in a little book, redeemable for candy and other goodies. This worked like a charm.

As I expected, she adapted to the peculiarities of life in China very easily. I was actually surprised at how quickly she learned that you don’t drink the tap water, and that you throw the toilet paper in the wastebasket, not the toilet. Food was no problem at all. She would try absolutely anything as long as we assured her that there was no chili pepper in it. The squat toilets were not a big deal either, unless they were really dirty and stinky (not very often).

She was a little discomfited that she didn’t have enough Chinese to converse with people. Her natural charm made her a magnet for the Chinese, and they were forever trying to talk to her. Whenever she was more than arm’s length away from me when this occurred, I would hear “Mommy! They’re talking to me again!”, and I’d have to step in and translate, and explain that she only spoke Yingwen. But she uses the Chinese that she knows, ni hao, xie xie, bu ke qi, zao shang hao, etc., and a new one that she didn’t learn in school, maidan (check, please!) She also recognizes ji sui?, and correctly answers wu sui (How old? Five.)

Although she generally tires more quickly than we do, she displayed incredible stamina at the Great Wall and at Huang Shan, where we went up and down literally hundreds of stone and concrete steps. My legs were shaking by the time we got back to the top of the cable car. She’s really been a trooper. I am so proud of her.

So, if you’re thinking of taking your Chinese child to China just for fun, here are my thoughts.

1) Five is certainly doable, but allow some slack in your itinerary so that you have a day of down time every once in a while. Lillia needed some time occasionally to hang out at the hotel and draw or watch cartoons on the computer.

2) Bring plenty of Kleenex packs (toilet paper is usually not provided at public toilets), and Wet Ones (paper towels and napkins are also usually not provided).

3) Keep outings short. Many of the sights are very large and overwhelming. You may want to spend hours at the Forbidden City, but your 5-year-old’s eyes will probably glaze over after an hour or so.

4) See an acrobatic show. I think the highlight of China for Lillia was watching 12 girls arranged in an inverted pyramid riding a single bicycle.

5) Stay at the Mao Er Hutong Bed and Breakfast.

Having said all this, I think six or seven might be a better age. I think Lillia is just too new to the world to recognize the extraordinariness of the things she was seeing. Can a five-year-old even conceive of a 3000-mile-long wall? Or buildings that are 600 years old? On the other hand, you don't want to wait too long, so that they will have formed more prejudices. A good friend of mine took her eleven-year-old daughter to Japan a few years ago, and while she had a great time, her verdict on the traditional Japanese breakfast was "No FISH for breakfast!". So, they went out to Starbucks every morning. This would absolutely drive me nuts. Lillia dug into the Japanese breakfast with gusto.

Fly the Friendly Skies of ANA!

(by Suzanne)

We’re flying now from Beijing to Tokyo on ANA (All Nippon Airways). It’s our first time on this airline, and boy, it beats the hell out of United, which we took on the trans-Pacific leg. The stewardesses helped us with our luggage, and then came around with a choice of little toys for the kids. Then they lined up and bowed deeply to us in unison, before giving us the pre-flight instructions. Breakfast was actually tasty, and came with free booze (French wine). The meals on United were simply ghastly. There’s also more legroom than on United. Halfway through breakfast, Tom leaned over and joked, “Can we fly ANA in the States from now on?”

Breakfast (oh, that little carrot cube is out of place, tsk tsk)

Water Town

(by Suzanne)

Just south and east of Suzhou, there are a cluster of very old small towns with canals running through them. They all sounded lovely; we chose Tongli because it had a bed-and-breakfast on the bb-china website.

We arrived in smoggy Suzhou Tuesday morning during rush hour, after an overnight on a train. Apparently I was the only one who got a decent night's sleep, but even I was a little dazed and disoriented. Fortunately, we ran into a young couple we'd met on the bus from Huangshan the previous day, and they lived just a little past Tongli, so they led us to the bus station.

The little photo on the web site of our room at the b-and-b (Zhengfu Caotang) didn't look that special, so we were astonished at how beautiful the whole place was. We instantly regretted only booking a single night. Not only was it furnished with Qing dynasty antiques, but everything was arranged in a very spare and thoughtful (almost Japanese) way. It was probably the most beautiful hotel I've ever stayed in.

The lobby at ZFCT

A hallway at ZFCT

View of roofs across the first courtyard

The second courtyard, with koi pond

Zhengfu Caotang is in the Old Town, which is closed to motorized traffic, so it is incredibly peaceful. After relaxing briefly at the hotel, we went out for a walk, and soon came across this street musician straight out of Central Casting:

Although there were few Bignose tourists, there were lots of Chinese tourists, also having their pictures taken with him.

The Tongli equivalent of gondolas

Next we went for a boat ride, which was incredibly dreamy. Here are some images from the ride:

Later we went to Tuisi Yuan ("Withdraw and Reflect Garden"), at a Qing dynasty official's retirement home. It was the most beautiful garden I've seen in China.

Tuisi Yuan

Lillia feeding fish at Tuisi Yuan

After eating breakfast the following morning under the benign gaze of the Buddha, we regretfully left for Shanghai.