You must be allergic to China

Karl’s rash saga continues. He made it to the doctor again, who finally determined, “you must be allergic to China!” He’s on another dose of benadryl and non-scratch cream. We also switched to a new hypo-allergenic laundry detergent vs. the “Chinese Tide” (or so we think it’s Tide because of the packaging tho we can’t read a darn thing!).

We ventured out this morning around 10am for a Frommers walking tour of the French Concession. The book said 4-6 hours but we couldn’t believe there would be that much to see. Guess what? We were out until about 5pm walking around! Last weekend, we did the Frommers walk from the JingAn temple to the waterfront in 3 hours. The book points out where to stop and gives you the history and background of the main points. For example, today’s walk took us by the hotel where Zhou Enlai and Nixon met in ’72 when China opened to the West. We went to Sun Yat Sen’s (China republic) former residence. We went into the lobby of the Hotel Okura and around the corner to see the beautifully restored art deco work.

Last week Lila’s staff was in town for 3 days of meeting. Three of them arrived with goodies we had requested – magazines, healthy snack food, wine, and cereal! It was good to have everyone from the US, Brazil, and China all in 1 spot for 3 days. Some folks came early & left late, so we also enjoyed the social time with everyone. Lila also traveled to Taiwan on Monday. It should be ~3hr flight, but you can’t fly directly between Taiwan and China due to political reasons. That means transit is required in Hong Kong, turning the short journey into a 6 hour trip. Hard to do in 1 day, but can be managed w/overnight. The rumor is some upcoming election may resolve this in time for direct flights to start in July.

Our sea shipment finally arrived. We hung up some pictures and are kicking ourselves for not bringing more. Some of our clothes smell like “yucky sea” so we’ve put everything through our tiny washing machine. We did laundry all weekend, but saved the ironing/folding for Ayi (helper/maid). We’re also sending relevant stuff to the dry cleaners, which is fortunately a tiny fraction of the US cost.

In honor of mother’s day tomorrow, we cracked open a can of Cincinnati’s famous skyline chili that Karl’s mom Mary gave us before we left and sitting out on the balcony with a glass of Zinfandel in honor of Lila’s mom. The weather is fabulous, though it’s rained the past few days. The view is quite nice as pollution and heat haven’t hit yet. There’s a symphony building near us so sometimes – like now – we can hear people practicing. It’s a nice distraction from the construction that’s happening about 3 more blocks down. It’s 7:40pm on Saturday night and they’re working!

Sunday afternoon we went up to the 12th floor club room of our apartment complex. We didn’t even know this place existed! The owners keep it for Thursday Mahjong parties with their friends and as their own benefit. They made the mistake of inviting the tenants up for “tea time.” The building is only 1/3 full or so, and the tenants are really vocal about everything that’s wrong. For example, the TV signal dates back to America 1950s (but in color) and the utility bills are outrageous (because we are charged commercial vs. residential rates, and charged for common areas such as lobby). The group now wants to take the Chinese landlords to a disputes court to hopefully resolve the billing differences. If that doesn’t work, most of the tenants will move out when their lease is complete (one already left and just walked away from his security deposit). As an FYI: the difference in utility bills between consumer & commercial rates is about $150-300 / month (depending on personal usage).