China Miscellaneous
I had a strained shoulder, so when I realised there was a qualified acupuncture doctor on board our cruise ship on the Yangtze, I had to try it.
Doctor Zhang inserting the Acupuncture Needles in my shoulder. They were very long needles!
The acupuncture however wasn’t too bad, but the deep massaging I had was extremely painful. The slightly built nurse had fingers of steel with which she twanged the tendons all round my shoulder.
Kids chasing our bus in Chongqing (I think). Seeing “Westerners” was a novelty for them. Thank goodness kids are kids the world over. Apparently they think Europeans look very strange and funny with our “big noses”.
On our last night in Beijing, rather than eating in the hotel, a group of us found this Korean restaurant. Even though they didn’t speak English, we still managed a good meal. The deserts in China are Melon, Melon, or erm…. Melon. So Ann & Mirena went next door & brought back ice creams for us. We didn’t know if the waitress complained or not, as we couldn’t understand her!
The same group of us also went to a small local restaurant in Wuhan before embarking on the Yangtze cruise. Here they were not used to serving “foreigners” & we couldn’t understand the menu. Luckily for us a student on a nearby table came to our aid. He selected a fabulous range of dishes for us & it was one of the best meals we had. When the bill came it was so low that we all chipped in & gave a good tip to the waitress & left the restaurant. She soon came running after us trying to give the “excess” money back. Apparently according to the student such tipping was unheard of. Times have most probably changed by now.
The flight back to London stopped over in Hong Kong, allowing us a few hours to explore the city. Even though it had by now been part of the People’s Republic of China for 4 years, if you looked anyway Chinese you had a long queue trying to get through customs. Europeans on the other hand just walked straight through.
Ann & I were struck by the contrast in the ostentatious wealth in Hong Kong compared to mainland China. I had never seen a traffic jam of Rolls Royce’s before.