Update 1/28/08 Guest Blogger!!!

Hello! Guest Blogger Whitney here!

Last night Nicole and I left the hospital around 9pm to check into our hotel on Middle Street. I’ve lived in China for over four years and had never stayed in such a posh place! We had our own robes! But before testing out the robes, we decided to go explore the area around the hotel for a bit. The hotel is located on a pedestrian shopping street with about three billion shopping malls towering above. We took a stroll down the street only to find that everything was closing up. “What’s that smell?” said Nicole. “It smells like rotting flesh!” It took me only a second to identify the unmistakable nastiness that is “smelly tofu”. The venders fry the stuff street side in select cities across China, unfortunately, Shenyang is one such city.

We decided to escape the smell and head back towards the hotel. Earlier, I had noticed an intriguing “alley way” running behind the hotel and suggested to Nicole that we explore it. My reasoning was that it probably had some delicious hidden secrets. Sure enough, I read signs for “potato noodles” in the windows of a few places. For only five kuai a bowl (less than one dollar) I had to try it. We entered the nearest restaurant and I ordered a bowl of the stuff as I stood in the entry way. After ordering, I took a few minutes to survey the inside of the restaurant. My excitement for the noodles made me forget to do this before placing the order. These are the things we saw while waiting for my “potato noodles”: A mangy white cat crawling over EVERYHING. A woman washing her hair in the sink. Bottles of Sprite sitting in a thick, gooey, brown liquid on a dusty shelf. Then the woman starting blow drying her hair. Nicole and I met eyes and I knew then and there that she had no intentions of trying the noodles. After a few minutes the man brought me the noodles in a plastic bag of noodle soup and we made our way back to the hotel. I figured it was hot enough to at least try a bite. The potato noodles were gummy and I stopped after the first nibble.

Nicole and I had a lovely sleep on the hotel beds although she thought they were a bit hard. The next morning we woke up to a broken toilette so we got ready in a flash and headed to the nearby Starbucks. We loaded up on coffees and hot chocolate and took a cab to the hospital to join Derek and Mom. After a delicious brunch of breakfast sandwiches, we made preparations to go to the market where we hoped to find some good gifts, etc. Derek started watching a movie and we went down the hall so Lucy could drill the Chinese name of the market into our ears for the taxi driver. Luckily, we got there with no problem. However, the market was anticlimactic. A bleak selection of things and when we did find something of interest it was difficult to bargain with the little shopkeepers! At one point, a shopkeeper said “hold on, watch my shop!” as she ran off to find a bigger sized shoe.

After the market was when the trouble began. We stepped outside into the bitter cold and tried to get a taxi back to the hospital in time to be with Derek for his 4pm stem-cells. The next 25 minutes included walking up and down the busy, freezing road, stepping out in front of traffic, begging taxis to take us back to the hospital, and feeling utterly confused as to why they wouldn’t. Turns out, it was the beginning of rush hour and the drivers were quite picky about their passengers. We got desperate and Nicole was offering 200 kuai for what is normally an 8 kuai ride. I had never faced this situation before and had no clue how to proceed. The thing that came to mind seemed logical at the time but in retrospect, it could have ended badly! The three of us had a “sit in” in the taxi. We ran up to one and opened the doors as it was still moving and jumped in. The driver kept saying “no no no! I’m not taking you! I have no gas! I’m not working! Get out! Get out!” But I yelled back, “YES YES YES! You have to take us! We need to get back to the hospital! We’ll come with you to get gas! We’ll pay you 200 kuai!” But he wouldn’t budge. He told us to get out. We wouldn’t get out. We commented how warm it was in the cab and I told him we’d wait until he came to his senses. He never did. He turned off the engine and just sat there watching traffic. I eyed his money bag and fantasized about shoving it into my clothes and holding it for ransom until he dropped us off at the hospital. But finally, we gave up and got out of the car. We finally found a guy who said yes, after I offered a bunch of money. But on the way to the hospital we decided to drop Katdog off and take the same driver to Pizza Hut. We knew we were taking a risk by letting our cabbie go but we needed pizzas for din din. Pizza Hut is a fancy affair in China. We ordered a few pizzas and waited in the warm, comfy waiting area dreading the second taxi battle we were about to suffer.

Luckily, it only took a few rounds of begging and near tears before a driver agreed to take us. I asked him what the problem was…why it was so difficult to get a driver and he said, “It’s not personal, it’s just the time of the day!” We’re still not convinced.

The pizza was good. But Nicole put in a terrible vampire/hunchback of Notre Dame/werewolf movie and it just went on and on as we played a few rounds of phase ten and Derek played some games on a cell phone…

We are winding down now. Katdog is sorting through the clean laundry that just came back and is checking for other people’s underwear.
Nicole and I will head back to our hotel room soon and will keep our fingers crossed for a working toilette.

I’m leaving to go back to Beijing tomorrow which saddens me. It’s been wonderful to be here for a couple of days with these amazing people. It is not easy for them…the language, especially. But I’m happy to see there is a mini support system of foreigners on the same floor. I will miss you three. Thank you so so so much for having me up here in Shenyang and letting me spend time with you in the “dorm”!!!! I love you!

From Kathy: Derek had an IV Stem Cell injection today around 4:00 pm. He is hanging out in bed, recovering from surgery still and watching lots of episodes of Family Guy.