The Adventure Continues:

We've just finished our fifth day in China. Every single day, I still look around and say to myself (or whomever is nearby), "We're in China!" It hasn't sunk in yet for anyone, I don't think.

I have to pity one of our cast members who flew in late Sunday night and whose luggage did not make it onto the plane. She is STILL waiting for her luggage to be delivered to the hotel! How ridiculous! I can't imagine how she's functioning with just the clothes she wore, whatever she had in her carryon, and a few things she might have bought since arriving. I couldn't possibly stay as calm and patient as she appears.

Today I made a breakthrough: I was able to walk to the rehearsal space, and back, all by myself! AT LAST I AM INDEPENDENT! It's a good feeling. Of course, it won't last long because on Monday we move into the theatre, and my knowledge will be for naught. But today, after rehearsal and a costume fitting, I stopped off at the mall on my way home to buy more bottled water (nobody is drinking enough! Maybe this will inspire me), milk tea (I drink half a bottle every morning...I'm addicted...), some coconut wafer cookies for snacks at rehearsal, and a few Chinese-equivalent Cup-a-Soups. I can't tell what flavor they are, but the pictures on the lids looked interesting, so I got four different ones, and I'll see which ones I like. Those are for any time I don't have the energy to go out for dinner with a group, or if a group decides to eat American food and I neither want American food NOR want to seek food alone. While shopping today, my arms were dying from carrying the 4 quart water bottle and my three milk teas, but sometime when I'm not buying water, I need to go back and explore that store further - alone, if possible! So much less stress shopping alone. Now that I know I won't get lost walking next door from the hotel to the mall, I realize this is something I really can do! And I want to try the interesting foods and snacks that we don't have in the U.S.

Speaking of American food, I have broken down. I admit it. Two nights ago, I had Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner with a few friends. It was a matter of time and convenience, not particular choice, but my stomach was NOT happy about that! Last night I went with a group to Pizza Hut, simply to be with the group, and not because I needed pizza. It was very good pizza, but again, my stomach didn't want it! Apparently my stomach prefers the Chinese way of dining ... is there something to learn from that? Breakfast is my favorite meal, even though it's always the same, because it takes no energy to go downstairs and get it, there's a neat assortment of food, and the whole cast eats in the same place so you can go alone but still find people to eat with!

Yesterday we had a press event that involved going to see pandas -- real pandas! It was so much fun. The pandas looked like huge, motorized, stuffed animals, not real animals at all. What else can I say about them? They were cute. We did a lot of walking and my crippled ankle hurt. We didn't get to hold them, but after we left the area and walked to our bus, we were absolutely accosted by vendors selling panda paraphernalia! Our group had unfortunately stopped at the gift shop, so we couldn't please these vendors who came up to the bus windows holding little pandas the said, "I love you!" (in English, no less) or walked back and forth on the ground. As one mom said, "Yes, I'm really going to jump off this bus, which is about to depart, to buy your overpriced walking panda."

I'm starting to adjust to the time difference, finally. I've been waking up in the middle of the night (after getting tired each day around 4 p.m.), but not checking the time because I don't want to think about what little sleep I'm getting. Then I lie in bed, awake, until it's time to get up. I'm talking about hours, not a few minutes! For two nights I took Benadryl to force myself to stay asleep, but I still woke up. These times, though, I simply felt comfortably groggy and at peace as I lay awake in my bed. Last night I slept naturally from about 10:30 pm until 5 am! That's nearly seven hours, which is practically normal! Once we start rehearsing at night, we'll probably be forced to adjust because we'll be up so late (with adrenalin), and then will have to sleep in to make up for the lost sleep!

At least, that is my hope.

Rehearsals are going well and quickly. It can be hard to get things done because the kids have school every weekday afternoon, so we usually only rehearse kid scenes and music in the morning (10-1), then have lunch (at our favorite restaurant, more about that later), then I'm either free, or I have nun stuff. But as of today, we've blocked the whole show through the wedding scene! We also got props, so we can start adjusting to the bed, the toy chest, and so on. It'll be nice to move into the theatre for the dreaded tech next week, and actually have the staircases to work with, and such.

We gave away our secret about the incredible lunch restaurant, and we will forever regret it! Now we can't get fed. We have only an hour for lunch. Two days ago when we brought the huge crowd there, we didn't get served until forty minutes later, and had to gobble our food in ten minutes and run back to rehearsal. Today, again, a similar thing happened. The moms had been at the restaurant early to order, I guess, but we old folks can't do that. We arrived, sat down, and couldn't order because so much food was being brought out for the kids and moms. We also didn't know if the proprietor was going to bring out special food for us, without our ordering, which he had done before. We suddenly realized, sitting there waiting, that we were not going to be able to eat lunch that day -- and we all had rehearsal until 5 or 6 pm! Finally, a mom took pity on us and brought us an extra plate of spaghetti that they couldn't eat. It was GREAT! That was the special dish of the day -- Italian spaghetti at an authentic Chinese restaurant. It really was delicious, quite possibly rivaling my mom's spaghetti, although that would be quite a stretch. Three of us shared the plate, then the others who couldn't eat (or didn't want) spaghetti caught the waiter and said they wanted to order food to go, because they had to leave. He apologized profusely, and took their order. Then he brought out free bowls of fried rice and cooked greens for them to eat while they waited! Nice, right? I was very happy with my spaghetti, though. We gobbled it, paid, and went back to rehearsal for the rest of the day.

And that was my day! Does anyone want to know anything specific about the rehearsal process, the cast members, China, anything at all? If so, please send me a comment and I'll try to answer!