no room at the inn

Today we had to find a new hotel, but there’s hardly any room anywhere between some bicycle race and the fact that we’re foreigners. One place finally agreed but said no as soon as Uncle Tim and I walked in. After some yelling and negotiation and bribery, they let us stay.


We found a lovely non-Chinese cafe (run by local missionaries) that had real, non-powdered coffee and fresh food.  Finally something familiar!

We had a lovely day wandering the city. Walked around, stopped in some tea shops, then picked up some fresh fruit at the market for dinner and watched the sunset. A new one today- a monk was trying to discretely take a picture of me so we offered to get him in it too. We laughed- I’ll probably end up in between pictures of Kobe Bryant and some Chinese actress… my dream.

Uncle Tim and I went to a Chinese nightclub for kicks and giggles. Outdated hairstyles, paid dancers, fine American music, state of the art dancing, and the gender separation you’d see at a Middle school dance… oh boy! I just couldn’t take the place seriously!


tomorrow