Day Two - Changsha

Well it is 1:35 pm here in Changsha and Mom and Daughter are down for a nap. Our schedule today was breakfast, meet at the bus at 9:30 to go to WalMart. She is ruined already! I must say that overall these are very friendly and helpful people. They range from courious to where they come right up and start talking to Gracie to an appearance of almost anger. I want to say "What are you looking at" to some at times but I know that my reaction, not knowing the circumstances could very easily be the same. They have never been aggressive or rude however. Most just give a blank look as we walk by. Changsah is a busy city. From appearance it resembles most large cities in that there is a tremendous amount of traffic and people. I am sure in one of my previous blogs I noted there are about 3 million people here. It is amazingly clean. The people dress very Western with a tinge of local idenity. Our drivers in both Beijing and here in Changsha are marvels. These folks drive so close to one another you literally could touch the other vehicles. It is organized chaos and they do it quite well. In Beijing there was every type of food one could imagine. Here in Changsah it is pretty localized. You still have KFC and McDonalds, even Pizza but not much other international cuisine. Tonight we go to a "Famous" restaurant that's name translates to Red Eyes because it is very spicy. I was told that Susan our guide, who also happens to be our Helping Hand Representative, ordered "spicy fish head" as one of the dishes. Honestly, I can't wait to try it. Deena has done quite well in trying new foods and using chopsticks. Nothing Green yet however. The food is typically served on single item platters and at every table is a very large lazy susan to rotate the dishes directly in front of each of us. There is usually only one serving of any particular dish but there are no fewer than 5 or 6 dishes. This is all complemented by lots of rice. A point of interest is that you do not eat rice with chopsticks, they are used to shovel or push rice into your mouth by raising your bowl or small plate. Drinks are served only slightly chilled and there are no diet drinks with the meals as part of the service. Always a coke and sprite type of product, water, hot tea (which has not disappointed me yet) and beer. I find myself at night drinking a cup or small pot of the local tea in the room. In every room there is a water pot to boil water. This is used for tea and purifys what we need to make Gracies formula and wash/rinse our dishes. They are pretty cool. It's amazing how one makes do and becomes creative on ways to get things done as we have to rinse our tooth brushes in this water too. Needless to say we boil a lot of water. They supply you with drinking water in the rooms but it is only two bottles a day. We find our selves refilling them with the cooled purified water we have boiled. Well I need to sign off as "if the Girls wake up" we are going on an adventure to a drug store across the street from the Hotel to find "100 Year Old Chinese Formula". Later!

Rick <>< (copied that from pastor Chris)