The bed at my AirBnB was like sleeping on a board. I actually looked under the sheet to see if there was any kind of mattress going on. Indeed there was. Four fine inches of no give. I say I prefer firm, but this is like lying on the floor with only my yoga mat. I think its designed to promote industriousness.
I bought my second cup of coffee at a 7-Eleven nearby. It was no better than the first. Then I went to a Dim Sum restaurant right around the corner from my room. So busy at 10am that I had to share a table. Pretty good food. I ordered crispy rice flour roll with shrimp and blanched vegetables in season. The blanched vegetables turned out to be iceberg lettuce (yes, blanched.) With the dipping sauce it was pretty good but a little slippery with chopsticks. Two days in, I have not seen a single fork and I’m starting to get chopstick fatigue.
I migrated to the hotel that is the meeting place for our group, dropped off my things then set out in search of Starbucks. A little hike away and the coffee only marginally better, and you know me, I like almost any coffee.
My roommate for the trip is Sigrid, a woman from Munich who speaks English very well and is quite friendly. She wanted Dim Sum for dinner so we went back. I tried the pork sparerib and pumpkin. It tasted ok but was quite a challenge as you had to gnaw the bones while holding the slippery devils with chopsticks. I then had a couple very nice shrimp dumplings as pictured above.
It hardly seems possible but the bed at my fancy hotel is even harder than the bed at the AirBnB.
We cross the border tomorrow and take a couple high-speed trains and a bus to beautiful and rural Yangshou.
