It has been another very interesting and busy week. I started with my Mandarin lessons at 7:30 AM Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Learning the pinyin sounds has been difficult but very helpful. Astri continues negotiating and now looking again at apartments and I flew 3 1/2 hours to Guangzhou on business. Had a fascinating tour of a 1500 bed TCM hospital that also gives Western treatments. They had 50 patients all with hematologic malignancies on one floor. More about this in an upcoming blog.
Last weekend we had a peaceful Sunday and just strolled around our neighborhood. We were told about the local park. The sign says Side Park. It was only later in the week when I was telling a Chinese colleague about the park that I was corrected about the the name. It is not English but rather pinyin Mandarin. "Si" means "four" and "de" in this case means "virtue". Four Virtues park- not Side park. Another interesting tidbit is that 4 is an unlucky number since another sign that sounds similar to "si" means death. Many buildings have floors 1,2,3,and 5. Jay and Bingbing please correct me if I have missed something here.It is a lovely park with pond for fishing (presently ice fishing), outdoor ping pong tables (need to supply your own net), playground, small amusement park, two nice tennis courts, football (soccer) fields, small restaurant and more. As Astri and I were watching some men playing ping pong I was invited to play. We played for about an hour and were a good match. I had a great time. He spoke no English but we were able to share telephone numbers and he is now securely in my phone and on my sim card as Mr.Ping Pong.
After our time in the park we walked over to the Lido Holiday Inn, which is very Western with many fancy restaurants, Vegetarian, Thai, Indian, Delicatessen,Chinese,Starbucks, and a Baskin Robbins!
Hope all is well with you and will post again soon.
Philip
Dear Philip
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for an interesting article.
I did read between the lines that you found it very funny that "Many buildings have floors 1,2,3,and 5."
That remains me on a question Geir asked me 30 years ago: Why is it dad, that the seatrows at this plain goes like this 10, 11 12, 14,15?
...learning about blogs while you learn about washing machines. I just wrote a long comment but can't find it now. Hope you get this comment...I need Siemens or Apple to sing to me. I 'll send email if I lose this again. Loved reading your blog. I just learned from Warren and Evelyn that the blog continues. I only had read the first week. Loved the ping pong player and the singing machine. Keep up the adventures...
ReplyDeleteMaxine and Eddie