At night sometimes we take a walk down the pathway beside the river. On the way home we sometimes walk across the ‘stone bridge’ which are a series of square posts sticking out of the water that you hop across. Somewhat un-nerving as the water is totally gross and I can’t imagine the number of diseases that would infect you if you fell in. We are careful. There are two rows so you can sidestep someone going the other way. The ‘bridge’ is used by young and old, the steps are about a foot square. I saw from an older photo that the water is actually quite shallow in this spot, the pillars are only about a metre high.

This is all very new development, and has enhanced the area a great deal. Our destination is a temple-like building, although I’m not sure if there is anything holy about it. I do know that it is also brand new.

This spot is a gathering place for the Chinese each night. They gather there to dance together. Not in couples, but en masse in what I’d call a gigantic line-dance. The music is modern, pop style. I’m not sure if there are specific dances for each song or if they go with the tempo of the song. Whichever, everybody seems to know which song goes with which dance.

On the way home Emily caught a tiny frog, note how hot it is, it was 31 degrees at 9pm.

We’ve discovered the ‘true’ Chinese markets. Up to now, we’ve been shuttled to the ‘Better Life Mall’ which is a large department store with a big supermarket adjacent. It has a KFC so we treat the girls to chicken and fries twice a week. A meal for 4 of us there costs about 100 yuan, or $15, three or four times more than any other meals. There is a price to pay for North American things here. Similarly, a bottle of nail polish is 70 yuan ($10), pricey considering the translators here only make 1000 yuan ($150) a month. I did the math, and it would be like a $200 bottle of nail polish to us, based on a $3000/month salary.
So we found where the Chinese shop.

This is the entrance to the open air market, with food on one side and household goods on the other side. The food is as fresh as it gets…live (or recently dead). The girls love looking around at the frogs, eels, fish, chickens, geese, ducks, and pigeons. I’ve fielded some interesting questions lately about the origins of our food. Yesterday they were eating chicken drumsticks and asked if it was from a chicken. We explained that it was, indeed, a chicken leg. To this, Maddie replied, “But the chicken will be lonely for it’s leg!”. I then had to explain that the chicken was already dead and probably not missing much at all.
Here is Emily with some frogs, and those are eels in the bucket behind her.

Ok, now I know why the driving is so crazy here. They let children of any age, get in a small vehicle and drive around. Granted, the vehicle is a giant inflatable nylon animal, but they’re in control (or not) and there are no brakes, just a gas pedal.
I totally understand their logic, it is just like real life here; you can drive anywhere on the road you want, in any direction, and all the pedestrians had better watch out for where you are going!
Click here to see the video!

Needless to say, the girls had a blast driving their giant Godzilla head!

Today we took the girls to the local pool. It is a really great place. There are 3 identical and adjacent waterslides, a kiddie-depth pool, a wave pool and another regular, but deeper pool. The whole area is surrounded by lush greenery so it’s a little spot of solitude and coolness in a sweltering and busy city.
Click here to see Emily on the slide with a new-found Chinese friend

Click here for Simon and Madeline on the slide together

Well, I’ve got a spare moment because apparently I’ve just been banished from the kitchen with a broad sweep of the hand and a mouthful of Chinese comments from Professor Yeung. He is the senior guy in charge of the doctors here at the hospital. Physically, not an imposing man, about 5’2″, balding, about 60 years old I would guess. He is a jolly sort, always laughing about something cryptic during my daily ‘interview’ about my progress. We seem to be a constant source of amusement to him. Back to the topic, the guy can cook. He cooks up a mean stir fry, and, true to the region, it is smoking HOT. The volatile oils from the chilies he throws in there make us cough and our eyes water, just from briefly entering the room. The guy must have guts of steel. Not to mention the end pipe too.
He’s come to our rescue today as we learned another key bit of wisdom about China. When you buy a nice slab of meat from the open air market, you have to cook it that day. Putting it in the fridge was apparently not good enough and yesterday’s purchase looked dubious today. The Professor saved the day by giving us the scrunched up nose face saying it was a no go, then throwing it in a pot of boiling, salted water. He cooked it for a while, gave it a good sniff and declared it edible again. Good thing, that big slab of pork loin cost us a whole dollar!! The reason for my banishment was that I added some ginger and green onion to the boiling water, and I guess he needed to be able to smell the meat to tell us whether it was good or not. I guess we’ll all find out tomorrow…

Simon and Richard celebrated the American holiday with an early morning hike up a local peak, Zhong Po Mountain. It had a lake near the beginning, that may have paddleboats on it they think.

Along the way it was bamboo forest, and spruce higher up.

At the top was an observatory with views of the mountains beyond.


Here is some interesting fungi with a beetle eating the ants that were attracted to the fungus:

Not to be outdone by the Canadians, the 2 American brothers organized a fireworks display on the evening of July 4. Richard bought a huge block of large fireworks, for only $15. He also got 50 roman candles, one for each state. We had fun setting them off.


Richard and Gene are finished their stay here in Huaihua on July 7, and we will be sad to see them go.

Every weekend, weather permitting, the willing (and able) participants are loaded into the van and cars and taken on a ‘field trip’. I kind of feel like I’m back in school on these. So our first field trip was to a village from the Dong Dynasty. For those of you unfamiliar with Chinese pronounciation (almost all of you I think) it is pronounced TONG. News to me, good thing we have interpreters!
Anyways, this was a spot about 40 minutes out of Huaihua beside a small lake. The village was made entirely of wood and had the cool architechtural style that we associate with China.


The girls enjoyed running along the long hallways and climbing the stairs to the upper levels. Emily thought the big iron wok looked like a giant’s soup bowl. I’d love to see the fire they light in that!

We were served a meal which consisted of no less than 10 different dishes. Seated at our table were 3 children and a Muslim couple so there was way too much for us to eat at one sitting. We were able to take a fair bit of it back with us since we really enjoyed it!
After our meal there was a cultural dance performance which was quite interesting. We couldn’t understand a word that the announcer was saying (there were many Chinese visitors as well), but that’s ok.

As most of you probably know, we LOVE a party. So, we decided to honour our country’s heritage with a Canada Day celebration here in China. I brought a small Canadian flag to the local bakery, Will Long Cake (nice name!), so that I could order a cake with the Canadian flag on it. Even with my translator present, this process took about a half hour. When asked if I wanted fruit on it, I mentioned that cherries would be nice, and anything else except the cherry tomatoes that seem to be present on many cakes. You know, a tomato is actually a fruit! I didn’t say anything about the parsley that is also seen on the top of cakes, and yes, I got some. We were very interested to see what the final product was, and I am happy to say it was a success! Pink IS a shade of red, so no matter that the flag is pink. It looked and tasted great!

We also ordered some pizza from ‘Champion Pizza’ the local pizzeria. I have to say they did a good job too, much better than the two pizza offerings we had in Shanghai. These guys should give Pizza Hut a lesson or two. Firstly, they DO included tomato sauce over the crust, and the toppings were rather similar to what we expected. We ordered a Hawaiian and an “All-American”, which is a pepperoni pizza. Other patients brought some crackers, chips, nuts and watermelon to the party too.

Simon put together a bunch of photos depicting our life in Canada and played them on his computer during the party, and one of the staff brought out their big speakers so we could listen to the audio of our going away party in Revelstoke when Simon’s band, The Sofa Kings, played.
It was great to get most of the patients out together on a hot summer night to enjoy some good stories and laughter together. Miriam brought some nail polish and did the girls and some of the ladies nails too!

The guys especially enjoyed Simon’s fishing photos and a few diehards stayed late to watch 2 of his fishing movies. I say diehards because as soon as the sun starts setting, the mosquitos come out. I ran for cover to the comfort of our room.

I think we would have done Canada proud by our celebration in a part of the world so far (physically and culturally) from where we call home.

I’ve already given a brief accord of my treatments, but did not have any photos to illustrate at the time. We’ve managed to take a few photos, which, according to our instructional manual, is forbidden. You know me, I don’t follow rules if I can get away with it.
Here is a photo of one of my acupuncture sessions. As you can see, they are concentrating on my legs and arms. There is also one on each side of my temple. It varies from day to day. I am constantly amazed at how deep the needles go. The needles seem longer than the width of my wrist and I am pretty sure I can feel them touching the skin on the other side.

The past few days my acupuncture has stopped. It seems they do not do acupuncture on women ‘at that time of the month’. Instead I have points that are warmed up with an incense-like candle made up of the herb called ‘mugwort’. It starts with my centre, over my belly and a few on each leg. This treatment, also called moxibustion, stimulates the circulation.
After that I still have the massage, or ‘tui na’, on my arms and legs. I think the purpose of the massage is two-fold; to stimulate circulation to the area, and to coax the muscles back into full mobility, much like what a physiotherapist would do.