Hard Beds, Big Noses and Cow Oil

Hard Beds, Big Noses and Cow Oil
 (this is the final posting for this trip.)
  
Tuesday evening On board UA 436 five hours from Shanghai somewhere over the Aleutians  

Just as I was falling asleep last night my eyes snapped open as I thought, "I've packed all my shoes!" Thank heavens our luggage wasn't to be picked up until the next morning so mini-flashlight (thanks, Cass) in one hand I frantically dug through my bag with the other until I managed to unearth two matching shoes. Oh, yes. It's time to go home.  

Instead of just taking our trusty bus to the airport, the tour company (in other words the Chinese government) decided to have us take the MagLev train (magnetic levitation) to the airport instead. This is a 30 km route built as a show case for the world's fastest train. So they put our checked luggage on the luggage van to the airport and us and our carry on onto the bus to the MagLev station. It's a big (what else) modernistic building that serves just two trains that go back and forth to the airport. The trains run precisely every 15 minutes. You stand by a gate on the platform and suddenly, swoosh! There it is. The arriving passengers leave through doors on the other side and then attendants open the doors and gates on your side and on you go. Two minutes later, you're off and the train goes faster and faster until it reaches 300 km per hour (there is speedometer in each car so you know when it's hit 300). The scenery is just flying by and 7-1/2 minutes later the train glides into the airport station. It seemed like a Disney ride.

 Even more miraculous: the bus w/ our carry on was at the curb alongside the pile of our checked bags. I have no idea how this worked but it did. Then it was good bye to Kevin and Alex and hello check in. Once through immigration and security (I was prepared to have them search for that stupid invisible knife again in my purse, but evidently it had vanished) we dedicated ourselves to spending the 84 Yuan we had left, about 16 bucks and managed to unload all but five Yuan bills and two 1 Yuan coins, about $1. Even in China you can't get much for a buck.

 I've enjoyed writing about this trip. It's helped me keep track of what we've seen and done each day. As I look back, we really covered a lot of territory and checked off a lot of those bucket list items as we encountered some interesting, amusing and just plain crazy things.  

Even though you see lots of short dresses and short shorts on young women, the Chinese culture prefers a more modest, covered look, even in their food. Our local Shanghai guide Alex said that while we put our toppings on top of our pizza, the Chinese prefer their fillings hidden inside their dumplings.

 They consider English the common language of the world and study it from early childhood yet they readily admit that although they can read and write it most don't speak it well at all. The Chinese characters on store signs, billboards, street signs are spelled out in ABCs. The guides were constantly spelling out Chinese names and words. Kevin taught us a new Chinese word or words every day but it works both ways; some words we just could not pronounce. Like school kids we gleefully cried out "knee-how" to greet him every morning. Yup, after two weeks, Hello was the only word we could say with confidence.  

And now for hard beds, big noses and cow oil:  

The Chinese like hard chairs, hard beds, hard pillows. In fact, throughout their history they've used "pillows" made of wood or ceramic, even jade. While we get "into" the bed they go "on to" the bed. At our last hotel the beds were so hard they had special soft  mattress pads available for westerners.  

The Chinese generally have round, flat faces without much of a nose. They think westerners have 3-D noses (much better for keeping glasses on) thus the nickname, Big Noses.  

One day Kevin was explaining the difference in the preparation of some foods. One was made using peanut oil and the other...he stopped, searching for the word and finally said, "You know, cow oil." For ever more I will see butter and think cow oil.  

When you go to China and you really should, train hard running up and down steps and pack lots of kleenex (Thanks, Chris) and Wet Wipes. You can never do too much of the first or have too much of the latter.  

A big thanks once again to Jay for posting all the blogs for me.  

I'd say good bye in Chinese but I just realized that we never learned that!