Watermelons and Tomatoes

Part of the charm of traveling is noticing difference.  Here’s a few of them from the last few days. 

 

Badminton: It’s popular. The place where my workshop is held has several courts and their always full. I used to play a bit when I was a kid but can’t remember the last time I played. We have volleyball, tennis and now pickleball, but never see folks in Golden Gate Park (or anywhere) playing badminton.

 

Helmets: Hardly anyone wears them. Not people on bikes, on scooters, on motorcycles. Including kids riding with their parents on scooters. It’s like the 50’s— we took our chances and somehow survived.

 

Lazy Susans: Certainly not the name for it in China, but the round disk that rotates with different dishes on it is the way every lunch and dinner this week has worked. One restaurant has an automatic motor and I took a video of the 15 plus dishes on it, which took over three minutes to complete one full rotation! Something satisfying about not having to order from a menu and just pick and choose from the dishes put out on the rotation. 

 

Toasting: If you can’t reach everyone’s glass, the toast is swiveling the bottom of your glass on the Lazy Susan. All join in and it’s quite a merry tinkling sound.

 

Private Rooms: We’ve had one in every restaurant and it’s the perfect way to cut out the ambient noise that we older folks find so challenging.

 

Watermelon and Tomatoes: Every meal to date (and we go to a different restaurant for just about every meal) ends with a small fruit plate with two thin slices of watermelon, one small slice of cantaloupe and a cherry tomato. Yes, we all know that tomato is a fruit, but we rarely (if ever) treat it as such in the U.S. Here it is reunited with its family.  (8/20)