Now this is a Christmas tree

Lobby at the Howard Johnson Hotel

On his last trip to Ning Hai Big Daddy took some books and movies for the guys at the tool shop. Their favorites were the movie 127 Days and a funny book on a guy's travel through China. I could not watch the movie and it gave BD nightmares. Nan had been looking for it for some time. He and Jason were fighting over who got to read the book first. Nan actually lived in Germany for a few years and Jason has traveled quite a bit, so they are both aware China is very odd to visitors.

Forgot to ask Punkin Head this morning if he got my email about a book I am looking for, These Entertaining People, it is from the 60's and written by Florence Pritchett Smith. She was the wife of the Ambassador to Cuba during the evacuation. Sounded very interesting in a review.

Funny of the day, I asked BD to bring home some shampoo as I had run out. He said he would call down to bring some up. Huh, BD's hair length is measured thousandths it is so short, what happened to the shampoo? He took a bubble bath with it. I gotta get him out of here.

Mrs. Sir is at it again

 Well we had a little dust up this evening.

Big Daddy is having to work all kinds of hours as the "shall not be named" German and Indian yahoos cannot agree that they are equally the stupidest ass-hats in the universe. When someone tells you it won't work, then when it does not work, and then when you do it again and it still does not work, WTF, call it a duck. So BD comes back to the hotel and I told him order dinner now as it takes forever and he has to go back to work and convince the peeps they really are stupid.

 So at 5:30 we order dinner, 2 burgers and 2 salads. Promised in 30 minutes and that is normal delivery. The dinner arrives and the room service dude tries to take the food off the rolling table and serve it on the bed. That is when we chase his ass out the door. Then we notice it is not really a service for 2 and the table is broken. So me being a literal white woman, I decide I can fix this. Wrong. Took 2 more hours for any food that was edible and on a flat surface.

This time instead of a committee of 4 it took a management meeting of 8. I learned a few things.

It is a cultural norm to eat your meals on your bed in China.

It is okay to bring a broken table to your room if you apologize.

Some of the managers will hide in the hall and cry if you ask for a manager. BD found Daisy in the hall when he went to look for a manager.  She is the manager.

The hotel does not want me to assist in training.

The night manager wants to take me to the Hot Springs as a treat.  (Asked twice in front of hubs)

A very expensive bottle of wine and fine chocolates will make anything better. If you are Chinese. Sent by the manager with another request for the Hot Springs trip.

Bad news of the day, when BD sent the first broken table back he also sent back my rose. I am now short a rose and only have 3.

Please, are you kidding

Bad News, I am traveling there on Monday and will have to navigate the bears.

Good news, Big Daddy found me drawing paper and pencils and such. I did not remember to bring them from the states and have been wanting to draw and sketch.

Pity pays

That is what they are saying on CNN International. That is why a sister cut off part of her brother's penis. I wish we would get another channel here because I am goint to have to hear about this penis for 4 to 6 months.

This is my tiger. Look at those teeth. Forget about the penis.

20 quai and I gave the guy a 5 quai tip.

It also appears I need photography lessons, maybe it is good that the teeth are blurry.

These are the buffalo next to the 5 star hotel that provide the prized shit you rub on your head.

And this is the butler that takes mommy's wine up to her room after dinner. He was tired of telling people to put their shoes on. And you know all this fun was not that much more than a Hampton Hotel in Iowa.

Ning Hai

This guy sat in the restaurant all night hand making marzipan figures. That is a live bird on the table.

I am guessing these are not for consumption, only for decorations. What do I know.

The Howard Johnson was actually a very nice hotel. Very new and very clean. Great gym. Peculiar though, on the televisions in the gym you could not get CNN. Think it is because you can pay to use the facilities and they don't want the locals watching or seeing that "they" shut it down all the time whenever China is mentioned in a not so friendly way.

We found out why the first dinner was so crazy, the locals eat there and eat early for some reason. The smoking section was packed, kids running all over, bread plates used for spitoons, and these tiny people packing it away. And like many buffets in the U.S. huge plates of food with half of it left to be thrown away. I was surprised the Chinese acted like that, wasteful. And a lot of the food was cooked to order, especially the fish, which was alive when you picked it out. They also had a guy handmaking noodles which I had the third night and they were great.

On the last day the front desk told Big Daddy they wanted to take our picture. I figured they don't see many white people. That is what they call us, white people. Sure enough when we went down for drinks this lady runs up with the camera. She said she wanted my picture because I was so pretty. Isn't that sweet? I think she had never seen a blonde with bad Farah Fawcett hair before. I had a problem with the curling iron.

The hotel has a fabulous coffee service in the lobby so the morning we checked out, very early, I headed down for the coffee. Everyone wanted to chat and when I got the take-away cup I started to walk to the area where smoking is allowed' they chased me down to grab my roller bag so I would not be burdened with pulling this bag 20 feet.

And once again when I was leaving I saw the best thing, they were having a silk convention and it was in a tent about 5 minutes from the hotel. Oh well. No silk for me.

I have had it, just had it

Must have woken up on the wrong side of the too hot and sweaty bed today because I feel like I am gonna blow.

Latest indignity: I cannot do the NYT crossword. They say I do not have access and need to set up an account. Those MF's have been taking my money for years and now they say I am dogshit. And I have logged in with my account to get this nasty little message. According to my American Express statement they  got some 'splaining to do and they are lucky I am far, far away right now. Don't fuck with my puzzle. It keeps me sane. So I guess this is what sent Charlie Sheen down that path, the NYT crossword.

I cannot regulate the heat in this room. Tried the snowflake icon, tried the sun icon, does not matter it just keeps getting hotter. Turned the damn thing off and have the window open. Next will be the hall door. Would call them for assistance but cannot take the friendly jabba jabba right now. Afraid I will bite them.

China must be really lively or really paranoid because CNN is off more than usual. I would not know as the NYT is full of shit and not telling me.

We are in podunk, bfe also known as Ning Hai. It is an hour drive from Ning Bo which is also bfe but with bigger slums. When we drove in the sun was red and it was really smoggy. Could have something to do with all the open fires I saw. It also appears to be one of the capitals of stone work as there were many places selling stone statues of animal that were 30 feet tall.

Hotel is really nice, the Howard Johnson, very new and quite friendly. Friendly in the Chinese way of wanting you to know they speak English. Incessantly. Insultingly. The Chinese of have no concept of western style manners and civility. They are actually worse than the Austrians and they shocked me at what they will say and ask. And they never shut up. When we arrived we needed a smoke and accordingly went to the outdoor ashtray stand before we went inside. 3 people asked us 7 times to go inside with our luggage. And they are impervious to the steam beginning to leak from my ears.

At the check-in there is the usual cluster, taking 3 people to check us in, Big Daddy has to call his supplier get them to talk to the hotel, and then Mr. Shithead (as I named him) wants to know our entry date to China. We tell him and he has the passport in his hand. He can't read it. BD is trying to help him find it and the steam coming out my ears is getting larger. IS IT ME, or if your job is to read dates from passports shouldn't you know how to do that? During this entire debacle we got the lady bringing us tea and hot towels at the counter and now I am thinking about shoving the towel down Mr. Shithead's mouth. Thirty minutes later I go to the room with the bags and BD goes to get me some wine.

The room is very nice, pictures to follow, and the bell boy keeps jabbering about God knows what and telling me if I need anything to ask him. Now keep in mind, the bell staff in China never shows you the lights, heat, TV controls, nothing-they put your bags in the room. So he is hanging around doing nothing and telling me to ask if I need anything and I tell him, yep, I need ice. He is flummoxed. He does not know ice. I show him the ice bucket. He is aghast that I would want ice in the ice bucket. He tells me to call zero. So much for his help.

BD arrived with the wine, someone arrived with ice and now it was time for dinner. I cannot describe dinner right now and do it justice. For one thing I took no pictures. Also I was exhausted and surely it was not as bizarre as I recall. Dinner in the room tonight and a nice bath and I will take a fresh look tomorrow and post pictures.

Now I am freezing so need to play with the thermostat some more.