We had a glorious couple days of sunny weather this weekend. It had rained in Suzhou for over three weeks, so the sunshine was a welcome change. Today was a fairly typical Sunday in that we went to church, ran a couple of errands, and went out to a local restaurant for lunch.
Today's task was shopping to replace two failed appliance-type items. Our water cooler died this week and those speakers that we bought back in blog entry #33 also stopped working. We have found this to be a normal part of living in China - appliances do not last. We are on our third coffee maker, third toaster, second vacuum cleaner, second water dispenser, and second pair of stereo speakers. You can see a couple shots of Kathleen negotiating price and navigating the checkout counter with the help of Nash, our driver.
Lunch today was at a Xinjiang restaurant called the "Beijiang Restaurant" in Suzhou. Xinjiang is the large, northwestern-most province of China, home of the Uyghur (pronounced "eye-grr") people. It borders all of the "stans" in Asia - Khazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The region is home to a mix of ethnic Uyghur and Chinese people with a significant Muslim influence. There has been conflict between the native Uyghurs and the Chinese as there is a desire on the part of some to be independent from China. The name Xinjiang means "new frontier".
The Xinjiang cuisine seems to be more meat and potatos than Chinese food. Lamb, beef, and pork are big items, and I am told that horse meat is also common. Unfortunately, I did not see any horse meat on the menu today. We had some good roast lamb-on-a-stick and spicy lamb "fingers" - like chicken fingers. The food was quite good (Joseph disagrees - he ate only white rice).
Today's task was shopping to replace two failed appliance-type items. Our water cooler died this week and those speakers that we bought back in blog entry #33 also stopped working. We have found this to be a normal part of living in China - appliances do not last. We are on our third coffee maker, third toaster, second vacuum cleaner, second water dispenser, and second pair of stereo speakers. You can see a couple shots of Kathleen negotiating price and navigating the checkout counter with the help of Nash, our driver.
Lunch today was at a Xinjiang restaurant called the "Beijiang Restaurant" in Suzhou. Xinjiang is the large, northwestern-most province of China, home of the Uyghur (pronounced "eye-grr") people. It borders all of the "stans" in Asia - Khazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The region is home to a mix of ethnic Uyghur and Chinese people with a significant Muslim influence. There has been conflict between the native Uyghurs and the Chinese as there is a desire on the part of some to be independent from China. The name Xinjiang means "new frontier".
The Xinjiang cuisine seems to be more meat and potatos than Chinese food. Lamb, beef, and pork are big items, and I am told that horse meat is also common. Unfortunately, I did not see any horse meat on the menu today. We had some good roast lamb-on-a-stick and spicy lamb "fingers" - like chicken fingers. The food was quite good (Joseph disagrees - he ate only white rice).
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