Spain/China 2023, continuing (17)

[aadler]

Third day in China – July 14 Friday

Up about 9:00AM, showered and shaved. We had our own breakfast in the apartment, rather than going out for anything.

Kevin came over somewhat after noon. He’d been thinking about our situation since the last time we were together, and he tried a new idea: getting an app called Alipay onto Susan’s phone, and linking it to her bank card. He got that in, and we went down to the nearby Burger King (not McDonald’s, because the one next to us doesn’t have any operating kiosks, you have to order through a particular app), and we selected our lunch and then paid via Alipay, so we know it works.

We ate our lunch, visited a bit, he returned to work. Susan and I both felt like getting a nap, so did.

I woke Susan at 4:30PM, and we relaxed and read some. At her recommendation, we started for the Yin apartment about 5:30, arriving shortly before 6:00. Mrs Yin and Amber were there, and the former returned to low-key preparations for dinner. Mei‑li got home, and we all started dinner; Kevin showed up shortly after 7:00 to join us.

So, this is a typical meal at the Yin household:

In the center of the table is a rotating turntable. In the center of the turntable is a pot of thin soup, and arranged around it are other dishes, never less than four but usually at least six of them, meat and vegetables and noodles and mixes thereof. Every person at the table is given two small bowls, a set of chopsticks, and an Asian spoon (kind of a small, shallow ladle, people who eat at Chinese restaurants should be familiar with them). The first bowl — the one with the spoon — is for soup, the second will be filled with rice. The rice is more ‘sticky’ than is common in America, clumping slightly, so it’s not a problem to eat it with chopsticks. You then rotate the turntable to get to whatever dish you want, and use a separate set of chopsticks (at least one set, usually two) to move some of that dish into your rice bowl, which you eat with the rice. You can get more soup, or more rice, if you wish, but generally speaking one of each turns out to be enough for a normal meal. Drinks are provided if requested, but aren’t standard, and usually the soup will serve for that unless there’s some specific drink you want.

Somewhat after dinner, all the others started their customary post-prandial walk to settle their digestion (around 8:00PM). Susan and I took that occasion to return to our own apartment.

Reading, relaxing, eventually to bed.