Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Hiatus!
In case you are wondering why I haven't posted on my blog in a while, it's because we are on a hiatus for a few weeks! This hiatus was a surprise for certain people in my life, so I didn't want to advertise it. I will write again when things start up soon, or ... whenever I feel like it! Check back...
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Day at East Lake
Yesterday was a Golden Day (day off, for those who don't know the lingo), so Christine, Oleg, and I went to East Lake for the afternoon. We walked along the edge of the lake, climbed stairs up the mountain to the pagoda, went down a giant slide, and had a generally good time. Here are some photos!
Monday, April 21, 2008
Loving the show
Have I mentioned how much I love doing this show nearly every night? What a wonderful, lucky life we all lead here! We had a 2-show day on Saturday, and Elita, our girl swing, was going in as Gretl for the matinee. This made the show so much fun, and such high energy, not only because she is good, but because there was a change that made things seem fresh and new. It was also probably the hottest day, at least inside the theatre, that we have experienced so far in China. My costumes now smell, thanks to our Saturday matinee performance.
Although we were all caricatures of the Wicked Witch of the West ("I'm mellllllting!!!"), the show was amazing! The kids all had extremely high energy, which rubbed off on other cast members, and it all came together perfectly. Everyone was just so happy! Between shows, a few of us decided to eat at the KFC (I know, shame on us) across the park from the theatre.
After we sat down with our food, three young Chinese girls came up to our table. Analisa, who has actually learned quite a few Chinese phrases, said to them, "Ni hao ma," which means "How are you?" The girls answered, and laughed, and said something back, and Analisa said in Chinese, "I don't understand." One of the girls scowled, and Analisa scowled back, and they walked away. But they kept coming back to our table, and Analisa kept practicing her phrases on them, which they would either answer (we couldn't understand), or repeat what she had said to them, laughing, or scowl. Then I said "Wuo ai ni" (I love you) to them, and another of the girls started laughing and said in a thick accent back to us, "I laff yoo! I laff yoo!" I remembered that I do know a few choice phrases in Chinese, taught to me by my beloved Chinese-speaking friends, Reed and Shuo, so I practiced them. I said, "You are sweet, like juice," and they repeated it back to me. Then I said to the scowling girl, "You are salty, like an elephant," and she knuckled me on the head with her fist. I guess I got that one right! Then I said, "Watch the ghost defeat you. Who is that ghost? I am that ghost!" And I don't think they understood it, because they just repeated it back to me, wonderingly.
Meanwhile, Analisa was practicing her (actually useful) Chinese phrases with them and trying to have a conversation. All of the other patrons in the restaurant were turned toward us, laughing, and some were sending their kids over to wave at us and say, "Ni hao!" It was a lot of fun. Also, I ordered the coffee sundae, which is not a sundae at all, but unsweetened coffee with soft serve ice cream in it, and it was soooo good. I was in a great mood, and wide awake, after that!
We had the second show that night, and we were determined to recreate the positive, high energy performance that we had had in the daytime -- and we did! I don't know what did it. Once again, it was sweltering backstage, and we were all sticking to our costumes and having trouble with quick changes because sleeves would stick to our arms, and so on.
The next day was Sunday, and we only had an evening show. There was a press conference in the morning for the seven von Trapp kids, two swings, and Captain and Maria. We were bused at 9:40 a.m. (ouch!) to an outdoor place, where a clown on stilts held a basket for us to shoot a basketball into, then another clown gave us balloon animals when we made the shot. We went inside and sat down for a bit, and autographed some CDs of the Sound of Music soundtrack, to give as gifts. Then we went back outside and sat in chairs. There was a dance performance - three little girls and three little boys, all about 8 years old, did a rather ... "mature" ... dance to the song, "She bangs." I think a dance teacher in the U.S. would be condemned for letting a child that young dance in that way -- but it was cute, in a strange way! The girls were dressed in flashy, tiny miniskirts, and halter tops or little tube tops, with lots of makeup, glitter, sequins, and glittery foil false eyelashes. The boys wore tight shiny pants and loose shirts with low, open necks. After that dance performance, we came up onstage and we sang Do Re Mi along with the movie soundtrack (which was quite funny), while children presented us with flower bouquets. Then we saw a family presentation: a man whistled songs with his fingers in his mouth, while his wife played the accordion, his adult daughter sang, and her 2-yr-old boy looked around in wonder. It was so cute! I wanted to take the little boy home. Then they asked Michael (Captain von Trapp) if he would like to learn to whistle like that. He said sure, put some Purell on his hands, and climbed onto the stage. The announcer said something in Chinese, and then the translator said, "You will sing Edelweiss, while he whistles -- with YOUR finger." Michael looked shocked, but being a good sport, he offered up his finger. The whistling man put Michael's finger in his mouth, and Michael attempted to sing Edelweiss and not be distracted by the fact that his finger was in another man's mouth. The whistler then whistled along to the song, in an entirely different key. It was the funniest thing I have seen in a long time, and I couldn't stop laughing! Afterwards, my cheeks hurt from laughing so much. Then, Michael shook off his hand, came offstage, and applied more Purell. There was another dance performance -- a little girl and boy performing to Latin music. Then we all went back up for the gift exchange: boys and girls brought us stuffed animals of the Olympic mascots, and we gave them our signed CDs (of the movie cast). Then we had a strange event: the Chinese kids tried to teach us all phrases, and we were supposed to act out a scene of children going off to school, leaving their parents. We learned "Mama," "Daddy," "Goodbye," and a few other phrases that weren't actually translated for us. We sang Do Re Mi with these kids, then grouped together for a big photo, and finally, the bus brought us back to our hotel.
Once we were back, I went upstairs to Skype-chat with my parents for a while, and I managed to get Oleg (our Ukrainian clarinetist) and Christine (Maria) on to meet them for a bit. That was quite fun. Then I had some time alone in the room -- my roommate was still upstairs using internet -- so I turned on some music and started making lists of things to do and think about -- the kinds of silly things that I think about late at night when I should be falling asleep, but am not falling asleep because I am thinking about things. Ah, insomnia, my friend. I was lazy in the room for the afternoon, which was quite nice, and then went to the evening show.
It hit me, during Do Re Mi last night, how much I enjoy doing The Sound of Music six million times. It never gets tired or old for me. This is my third time doing the show, and certainly the longest run, and I just love it. It puts me in a good mood, I love the cast, both onstage and off, and I feel so lucky to have this lifestyle for the next seven months!
Although we were all caricatures of the Wicked Witch of the West ("I'm mellllllting!!!"), the show was amazing! The kids all had extremely high energy, which rubbed off on other cast members, and it all came together perfectly. Everyone was just so happy! Between shows, a few of us decided to eat at the KFC (I know, shame on us) across the park from the theatre.
After we sat down with our food, three young Chinese girls came up to our table. Analisa, who has actually learned quite a few Chinese phrases, said to them, "Ni hao ma," which means "How are you?" The girls answered, and laughed, and said something back, and Analisa said in Chinese, "I don't understand." One of the girls scowled, and Analisa scowled back, and they walked away. But they kept coming back to our table, and Analisa kept practicing her phrases on them, which they would either answer (we couldn't understand), or repeat what she had said to them, laughing, or scowl. Then I said "Wuo ai ni" (I love you) to them, and another of the girls started laughing and said in a thick accent back to us, "I laff yoo! I laff yoo!" I remembered that I do know a few choice phrases in Chinese, taught to me by my beloved Chinese-speaking friends, Reed and Shuo, so I practiced them. I said, "You are sweet, like juice," and they repeated it back to me. Then I said to the scowling girl, "You are salty, like an elephant," and she knuckled me on the head with her fist. I guess I got that one right! Then I said, "Watch the ghost defeat you. Who is that ghost? I am that ghost!" And I don't think they understood it, because they just repeated it back to me, wonderingly.
Meanwhile, Analisa was practicing her (actually useful) Chinese phrases with them and trying to have a conversation. All of the other patrons in the restaurant were turned toward us, laughing, and some were sending their kids over to wave at us and say, "Ni hao!" It was a lot of fun. Also, I ordered the coffee sundae, which is not a sundae at all, but unsweetened coffee with soft serve ice cream in it, and it was soooo good. I was in a great mood, and wide awake, after that!
We had the second show that night, and we were determined to recreate the positive, high energy performance that we had had in the daytime -- and we did! I don't know what did it. Once again, it was sweltering backstage, and we were all sticking to our costumes and having trouble with quick changes because sleeves would stick to our arms, and so on.
The next day was Sunday, and we only had an evening show. There was a press conference in the morning for the seven von Trapp kids, two swings, and Captain and Maria. We were bused at 9:40 a.m. (ouch!) to an outdoor place, where a clown on stilts held a basket for us to shoot a basketball into, then another clown gave us balloon animals when we made the shot. We went inside and sat down for a bit, and autographed some CDs of the Sound of Music soundtrack, to give as gifts. Then we went back outside and sat in chairs. There was a dance performance - three little girls and three little boys, all about 8 years old, did a rather ... "mature" ... dance to the song, "She bangs." I think a dance teacher in the U.S. would be condemned for letting a child that young dance in that way -- but it was cute, in a strange way! The girls were dressed in flashy, tiny miniskirts, and halter tops or little tube tops, with lots of makeup, glitter, sequins, and glittery foil false eyelashes. The boys wore tight shiny pants and loose shirts with low, open necks. After that dance performance, we came up onstage and we sang Do Re Mi along with the movie soundtrack (which was quite funny), while children presented us with flower bouquets. Then we saw a family presentation: a man whistled songs with his fingers in his mouth, while his wife played the accordion, his adult daughter sang, and her 2-yr-old boy looked around in wonder. It was so cute! I wanted to take the little boy home. Then they asked Michael (Captain von Trapp) if he would like to learn to whistle like that. He said sure, put some Purell on his hands, and climbed onto the stage. The announcer said something in Chinese, and then the translator said, "You will sing Edelweiss, while he whistles -- with YOUR finger." Michael looked shocked, but being a good sport, he offered up his finger. The whistling man put Michael's finger in his mouth, and Michael attempted to sing Edelweiss and not be distracted by the fact that his finger was in another man's mouth. The whistler then whistled along to the song, in an entirely different key. It was the funniest thing I have seen in a long time, and I couldn't stop laughing! Afterwards, my cheeks hurt from laughing so much. Then, Michael shook off his hand, came offstage, and applied more Purell. There was another dance performance -- a little girl and boy performing to Latin music. Then we all went back up for the gift exchange: boys and girls brought us stuffed animals of the Olympic mascots, and we gave them our signed CDs (of the movie cast). Then we had a strange event: the Chinese kids tried to teach us all phrases, and we were supposed to act out a scene of children going off to school, leaving their parents. We learned "Mama," "Daddy," "Goodbye," and a few other phrases that weren't actually translated for us. We sang Do Re Mi with these kids, then grouped together for a big photo, and finally, the bus brought us back to our hotel.
Once we were back, I went upstairs to Skype-chat with my parents for a while, and I managed to get Oleg (our Ukrainian clarinetist) and Christine (Maria) on to meet them for a bit. That was quite fun. Then I had some time alone in the room -- my roommate was still upstairs using internet -- so I turned on some music and started making lists of things to do and think about -- the kinds of silly things that I think about late at night when I should be falling asleep, but am not falling asleep because I am thinking about things. Ah, insomnia, my friend. I was lazy in the room for the afternoon, which was quite nice, and then went to the evening show.
It hit me, during Do Re Mi last night, how much I enjoy doing The Sound of Music six million times. It never gets tired or old for me. This is my third time doing the show, and certainly the longest run, and I just love it. It puts me in a good mood, I love the cast, both onstage and off, and I feel so lucky to have this lifestyle for the next seven months!
Friday, April 18, 2008
Riverside Park
Yesterday I decided to go for a long walk by the river. Our hotel backs up to the Yangtze River, and that is the view we see outside our window -- so beautiful! There is a sort of pathway/park/walk that goes along the river for a long ways, and I decided to walk along it. I had a preview of it two nights ago, when one of our translators showed it to us before we went out to dinner, but we didn't see much. It's similar to Riverside Park in Manhattan, in that it is long and thin and runs down the edge of land ... but otherwise it's completely different!
I wanted to go incognito so that people wouldn't stare at me, the way they do here, so I put on my Sound of Music baseball cap and sunglasses, along with my trademark pink shorts, red toenails, and tall black flipflops. Out I went!
I walked slowly (!) along the river, just enjoying the pretty, cool, clear weather, and the nature around me. We haven't seen a lot of that, so it was quite nice to be in the middle of it. I walked for a long time, until I passed most of the people milling about. There were young couples sitting together on benches, families sitting in silence (I thought that was neat) together, people by themselves, like I was, and mothers or fathers with babies sleeping or small children playing. I passed the beautiful stone sculptures, a playground, a children's exercise area, and walked so far that I came to a huge empty swimming pool and mini water park.
Revelation of the day: deep, empty swimming pools are creepy. Yet I was able to walk past it.
The park has several levels -- a main path high above the water, then a lower path just near the water, with large stairs leading down every couple hundred meters or so (look at me in China, using the metric system!). I alternated walking on the main path, and hopping down to the more isolated, lower path, to be close to the water and the wind and away from civilization ... in a way. It was so pretty and nice!
My quest for the morning was to find a shady bench, sit down and think for a while, and read a book. The difficult bit was the first: finding a shady bench. I am from California, where people love the sun. Yes, this is true even in (the far classier) northern California. Apparently in China, people do NOT love the sun! Beauty supply sections in stores here sell skin whitening cream, bleaching cream, sunblock with whitener ... and many, many women carry parasols to stay out of the sun while outdoors. I am thinking of adopting this habit while I am here! I love it! Pale white skin is cherished. Not only does this make me feel special for my natural ghostly hue, it makes me happy that nobody will tease me for trying to avoid sunburn, or for not being tan.
Anyway, the point of my ramble is that I could not find a shady bench! All of the shady benches had people on them, and the sunny ones were empty. What a difference from California, and even New York. While I pined for a shady bench, I thought it was pretty neat that this situation existed here in China. This was the reason I walked so far along the river -- I had to go a great distance before I found an empty, shady bench.
I sat in silence for a while, feeling very Quakerly (and for those of you who don't know, my whole dad's side of the family is Quaker, so this was appropriate), then pulled out the book I got from the tour library and read for a while. I ran into Sarah, from our cast, but we were both having alone time, so we said hi and then went about our own business.
For some odd reason, sitting on that bench reading my book reminded me of my early teen years, when I would take a towel out into the backyard, spread it out, and read through the late afternoon, just to be outside for a while. My backyard in Davis, California is nothing like this park in Wuhan, China, but somehow, that is the memory that came to me.
After reading for a while, I walked even more, sat by the water for a while, then slowly walked back. What a beautiful morning! I ran into a few more people from the cast on the way back, doing their normal things, and it was actually kind of jarring to me after my being alone all morning with my thoughts. But it was all lovely.
Now I have a few hours to kill (and eat food) before our afternoon call for sound check, break, and then our first show in Wuhan. I love doing the show and I'm looking forward to it starting up again. These few days off have been so strange for me!
Addendum: I have a ridiculous sunburn on the tops of my calves and feet right now! Apparently I wasn't actually lying completely in shade when I thought I was. Or -- one can get burned in the shade. (This is true.) I suddenly noticed before the show yesterday that my legs and feet were fluorescent pink. At first I thought this was a result of how I had been sitting, but then I realized that the color didn't go away. I have my first burn of the year! I'm not proud, but I do feel like it's truly spring now.
I wanted to go incognito so that people wouldn't stare at me, the way they do here, so I put on my Sound of Music baseball cap and sunglasses, along with my trademark pink shorts, red toenails, and tall black flipflops. Out I went!
I walked slowly (!) along the river, just enjoying the pretty, cool, clear weather, and the nature around me. We haven't seen a lot of that, so it was quite nice to be in the middle of it. I walked for a long time, until I passed most of the people milling about. There were young couples sitting together on benches, families sitting in silence (I thought that was neat) together, people by themselves, like I was, and mothers or fathers with babies sleeping or small children playing. I passed the beautiful stone sculptures, a playground, a children's exercise area, and walked so far that I came to a huge empty swimming pool and mini water park.
Revelation of the day: deep, empty swimming pools are creepy. Yet I was able to walk past it.
The park has several levels -- a main path high above the water, then a lower path just near the water, with large stairs leading down every couple hundred meters or so (look at me in China, using the metric system!). I alternated walking on the main path, and hopping down to the more isolated, lower path, to be close to the water and the wind and away from civilization ... in a way. It was so pretty and nice!
My quest for the morning was to find a shady bench, sit down and think for a while, and read a book. The difficult bit was the first: finding a shady bench. I am from California, where people love the sun. Yes, this is true even in (the far classier) northern California. Apparently in China, people do NOT love the sun! Beauty supply sections in stores here sell skin whitening cream, bleaching cream, sunblock with whitener ... and many, many women carry parasols to stay out of the sun while outdoors. I am thinking of adopting this habit while I am here! I love it! Pale white skin is cherished. Not only does this make me feel special for my natural ghostly hue, it makes me happy that nobody will tease me for trying to avoid sunburn, or for not being tan.
Anyway, the point of my ramble is that I could not find a shady bench! All of the shady benches had people on them, and the sunny ones were empty. What a difference from California, and even New York. While I pined for a shady bench, I thought it was pretty neat that this situation existed here in China. This was the reason I walked so far along the river -- I had to go a great distance before I found an empty, shady bench.
I sat in silence for a while, feeling very Quakerly (and for those of you who don't know, my whole dad's side of the family is Quaker, so this was appropriate), then pulled out the book I got from the tour library and read for a while. I ran into Sarah, from our cast, but we were both having alone time, so we said hi and then went about our own business.
For some odd reason, sitting on that bench reading my book reminded me of my early teen years, when I would take a towel out into the backyard, spread it out, and read through the late afternoon, just to be outside for a while. My backyard in Davis, California is nothing like this park in Wuhan, China, but somehow, that is the memory that came to me.
After reading for a while, I walked even more, sat by the water for a while, then slowly walked back. What a beautiful morning! I ran into a few more people from the cast on the way back, doing their normal things, and it was actually kind of jarring to me after my being alone all morning with my thoughts. But it was all lovely.
Now I have a few hours to kill (and eat food) before our afternoon call for sound check, break, and then our first show in Wuhan. I love doing the show and I'm looking forward to it starting up again. These few days off have been so strange for me!
Addendum: I have a ridiculous sunburn on the tops of my calves and feet right now! Apparently I wasn't actually lying completely in shade when I thought I was. Or -- one can get burned in the shade. (This is true.) I suddenly noticed before the show yesterday that my legs and feet were fluorescent pink. At first I thought this was a result of how I had been sitting, but then I realized that the color didn't go away. I have my first burn of the year! I'm not proud, but I do feel like it's truly spring now.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Day 3 in Wuhan
Photos! I haven't uploaded photos in a while, because our internet has been so spotty. So ... let's catch up a bit.
What have we here?
-Some press photos from the show.
-The "decorate bread" at the breakfast buffet in the Marriott. I loved this!
-A funny sign in a restaurant.
-A typical photo of our Gretl doing typical things.
-And a photo of me measuring my suitcase (on my leg). We were planning to buy new, larger suitcases in Chongqing, and I wanted to make sure I knew how big my old one was, so I'd be certain to get one even bigger.
Well, someone just told me that my blog is much appreciated by some of the cast members from the previous Sound of Music Asia tour. Thank you, cast members! I am honored! This makes me want to blog even more. But the pressure is on!
We are on our third day in Wuhan, and there is little to report because we haven't started our shows yet. We flew here on Tuesday, and the set and costumes are being transported by ferry, so they would arrive later in Wuhan, and then there would be a day and a half of load-in before we go to the theatre for the first time. That will be tomorrow, and I'm excited. Doing The Sound of Music puts me in a good mood! Not that I mind the days off, but it's nice to have something scheduled, once in a while...
The press conference on Tuesday was a lot of fun. I think many of us, myself included, were on the drowsy side of life, but that didn't matter. Nor did our casual clothes matter. One child's luggage had been lost on the plane, so he was even more casual than he wanted to be (he would have changed, if he had had his bag), but I don't think the press could have possibly minded.
We sat for a while at the beginning, while announcements and introductions were being made, and one of the younger girls immediately came and sat on my lap. (This usually only happens to Maria, which, incidentally, makes for good press photos. I don't know if they wanted photos of Louisa and a younger child, but who cares? I like the little kids and their affection.) We discussed what we were going to sing (Do Re Mi, always), and then we got up on the little stage platform to introduce ourselves and sing. Some of us were half asleep, and the younger kids didn't hide it very well, but that also didn't matter. They asked some funny questions, and we got some very amusing answers from the kids. For example:
We had arrived at our hotel in Wuhan at around 1:30 or 2 p.m., and the press conference was at 4:15 that same afternoon. Most of us, I assume, put our luggage in our room, tried to settle in a bit, then went to the press conference. The first question they asked us as the press conference was, "What do you think of Wuhan?" The stock answer, from most of the kids, was "Wuhan is very beautiful." This is a safe answer because we did see the city as we were driving in on the bus, and it was beautiful -- lots of nature and greenery, something we have not seen a lot since coming to China. When it was my turn, I explained that we had just arrived at the hotel and then met to talk to the press, but the view out my hotel room window was gorgeous (it is -- the Yangtze River!), and I was excited to see more of the city soon. Then our Gretl had the microphone, and she announced loudly, "I LOVE WUHAN." This led to many giggles and titters from the moms, the press, and Maddy, Christine, and me. It was very cute and amusing. How does she think these things up? Press conferences are fun just because we get to hear the things the youngest kids say to the press -- I love it!
Yesterday we had yet another day off, and I went with one of the moms to the big Walmart. It was not as impressive as our American Walmarts -- not that I'm an expert -- but it was neat to see what kinds of products they sell that we might need and not be able to find in other stores in China. We also went to a Dairy Queen -- in China!!! -- and got Blizzards, which tasted generically sweet but didn't have much other flavor. Not a problem though ... you know I like sweets, even generic ones.
Oh! I forgot to mention my new love: Haagen-Dazs Tiramisu flavored ice cream. I had some on our last evening in Chengdu and have been pining after it ever since. Well, on Tuesday when we arrived at the airport, what did I find, but a Haagen-Dazs cafe - at the airport! I dragged Christine over (she was also feeling the love) and we promptly ordered two scoops -- for seven US dollars! If I'm paying that much for ice cream in China, you know it's important to me! It was a special moment.
(I don't know if it's spelled Haagen-Dazs, or Haagen-Dasz, so I decided to just be constant in my choice of spelling.)
Yesterday, after Walmart and Dairy Queen, I came back to the hotel for a while, hung out with Christine for a while, then went out shopping for Pascha's birthday party. Pascha is one of the Ukrainians in our orchestra, really nice and a lot of fun, and our musical director wanted to throw him a big party -- just for the sake of having a party on one of our days off! So that's what we did last night, and it was a lot of fun. Nice to be able to do that and not worry about having to sing the next day (because today we are still off!). But I do love doing the show and I'm really looking forward to starting it up again tomorrow. We don't yet know where we'll be after Wuhan, so I must make the most of things here!
What have we here?
-Some press photos from the show.
-The "decorate bread" at the breakfast buffet in the Marriott. I loved this!
-A funny sign in a restaurant.
-A typical photo of our Gretl doing typical things.
-And a photo of me measuring my suitcase (on my leg). We were planning to buy new, larger suitcases in Chongqing, and I wanted to make sure I knew how big my old one was, so I'd be certain to get one even bigger.
Well, someone just told me that my blog is much appreciated by some of the cast members from the previous Sound of Music Asia tour. Thank you, cast members! I am honored! This makes me want to blog even more. But the pressure is on!
We are on our third day in Wuhan, and there is little to report because we haven't started our shows yet. We flew here on Tuesday, and the set and costumes are being transported by ferry, so they would arrive later in Wuhan, and then there would be a day and a half of load-in before we go to the theatre for the first time. That will be tomorrow, and I'm excited. Doing The Sound of Music puts me in a good mood! Not that I mind the days off, but it's nice to have something scheduled, once in a while...
The press conference on Tuesday was a lot of fun. I think many of us, myself included, were on the drowsy side of life, but that didn't matter. Nor did our casual clothes matter. One child's luggage had been lost on the plane, so he was even more casual than he wanted to be (he would have changed, if he had had his bag), but I don't think the press could have possibly minded.
We sat for a while at the beginning, while announcements and introductions were being made, and one of the younger girls immediately came and sat on my lap. (This usually only happens to Maria, which, incidentally, makes for good press photos. I don't know if they wanted photos of Louisa and a younger child, but who cares? I like the little kids and their affection.) We discussed what we were going to sing (Do Re Mi, always), and then we got up on the little stage platform to introduce ourselves and sing. Some of us were half asleep, and the younger kids didn't hide it very well, but that also didn't matter. They asked some funny questions, and we got some very amusing answers from the kids. For example:
We had arrived at our hotel in Wuhan at around 1:30 or 2 p.m., and the press conference was at 4:15 that same afternoon. Most of us, I assume, put our luggage in our room, tried to settle in a bit, then went to the press conference. The first question they asked us as the press conference was, "What do you think of Wuhan?" The stock answer, from most of the kids, was "Wuhan is very beautiful." This is a safe answer because we did see the city as we were driving in on the bus, and it was beautiful -- lots of nature and greenery, something we have not seen a lot since coming to China. When it was my turn, I explained that we had just arrived at the hotel and then met to talk to the press, but the view out my hotel room window was gorgeous (it is -- the Yangtze River!), and I was excited to see more of the city soon. Then our Gretl had the microphone, and she announced loudly, "I LOVE WUHAN." This led to many giggles and titters from the moms, the press, and Maddy, Christine, and me. It was very cute and amusing. How does she think these things up? Press conferences are fun just because we get to hear the things the youngest kids say to the press -- I love it!
Yesterday we had yet another day off, and I went with one of the moms to the big Walmart. It was not as impressive as our American Walmarts -- not that I'm an expert -- but it was neat to see what kinds of products they sell that we might need and not be able to find in other stores in China. We also went to a Dairy Queen -- in China!!! -- and got Blizzards, which tasted generically sweet but didn't have much other flavor. Not a problem though ... you know I like sweets, even generic ones.
Oh! I forgot to mention my new love: Haagen-Dazs Tiramisu flavored ice cream. I had some on our last evening in Chengdu and have been pining after it ever since. Well, on Tuesday when we arrived at the airport, what did I find, but a Haagen-Dazs cafe - at the airport! I dragged Christine over (she was also feeling the love) and we promptly ordered two scoops -- for seven US dollars! If I'm paying that much for ice cream in China, you know it's important to me! It was a special moment.
(I don't know if it's spelled Haagen-Dazs, or Haagen-Dasz, so I decided to just be constant in my choice of spelling.)
Yesterday, after Walmart and Dairy Queen, I came back to the hotel for a while, hung out with Christine for a while, then went out shopping for Pascha's birthday party. Pascha is one of the Ukrainians in our orchestra, really nice and a lot of fun, and our musical director wanted to throw him a big party -- just for the sake of having a party on one of our days off! So that's what we did last night, and it was a lot of fun. Nice to be able to do that and not worry about having to sing the next day (because today we are still off!). But I do love doing the show and I'm really looking forward to starting it up again tomorrow. We don't yet know where we'll be after Wuhan, so I must make the most of things here!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Arrival in Wuhan!
We have arrived in our third city, Wuhan. I don't know much about this city, but we are going to be here for nearly 2 weeks, which makes me very happy. The longer stays are better, both for getting to know the city, and just for settling into the hotel room.
Our remaining days in Chongqing were quite busy, but a lot of fun. We had a press conference that involved the Happy Families competition -- kids and adults competed in art and music to perform for Maria and the von Trapp kids. We saw a twelve-year-old boy play the flute with his nose, and play a traditional Chinese string instrument while his mother did martial arts. There were two boys who made paintings of scenes from the Sound of Music and gave them to Christine. One was a painting of Maria (a la Julie Andrews) on the mountain in the opening scene, and the other was a very interesting abstract painting of music. There was a woman who won the "Best Mother" prize for all of Chongqing, who sewed little dolls for us, and will be carrying the Olympic torch when it comes through Chongqing. And there was a trio of little children who sang Lonely Goatherd in Chinese and danced! It was a lot of fun. They took many photos of us and with us. I am always surprised that people want photos of me -- me, specifically -- rather than just the little kids. They like my skin! They like the paleness of me. At last I am in a location where pale is good, where people don't ask me why I don't try to get a tan. Amazing!
We had some great shows in the new theatre in Chongqing, which I really liked. Western toilets are a blessing when they are being used in costume during a show. There were a few minor glitches, because we went into these shows with just one dress rehearsal with the local crew and dressers, rather than with several weeks of rehearsal as we had had in Chengdu. Nothing major happened, except last night, our last show, Michael (Captain von Trapp) called in sick, and his understudy went on. That was exciting! We had already planned an understudy rehearsal for the afternoon, so James, the understudy, was able to go over most of the scenes that day, which was nice for him. I would have been terrified to go on like that! But he did a great job, of course, and now that he's done it, I'm sure he feels much more secure about the possibility of having to go on again.
The understudy rehearsal was very funny. It was for the children, and the understudies for Maria, Captain, Max, and Elsa. I was at the rehearsal, but Jen, my understudy, rehearsed the whole time as Louisa, so I got to sit and watch and help when help was needed. By the end of rehearsal, the adults were getting very silly/punchy, and the Max understudy was doing two roles: Max, and the role he would be doing that evening, taking over James' track while James stepped in for the Captain. It became like Noises Off -- people opening random doors and poking their heads in, reciting random lines out of order. I was laughing my head off, and was sorry that the rest of the cast wasn't out front watching with the few of us who were there!
Even though I didn't rehearse, I got fed Pizza Hut between the rehearsal and the show that evening, so it was all worthwhile. (I actually don't like the Pizza Hut pizza here all that much, but my motto is: Free Food is Free Food, and Pizza is Pizza. It was tasty.)
After the show last night I went to bed late, got very little sleep, and got up extremely early this morning for a 7:30 a.m. checkout time to fly to Wuhan. Yippeeee! Things went very smoothly. We had all loaded at least one suitcase onto a luggage truck that would be (and is now) driving to Wuhan, rather than taking everything on the plane, so we packed specially to leave behind things we wouldn't need for a few days. I carefully brought VERY few clothes, since we have several days off before our first show here on Friday. Of course, I then found out that we have a press conference this afternoon! Whoops! But everyone is in the same boat, so we will all be a little more casual than usual today.
The luggage truck was a nice idea because we had much less to deal with on the flight, and we trust that the truck will arrive here in Wuhan, while planes often lose luggage (temporarily). The flight was an easy 1.5 hrs or less, much less than we expected, and then a bus brought us to the Holiday Inn. Jen and I were lucky to get a room that does not smell of cigarette smoke (and I smelled one that does, so it's a big deal!), and we are both now camped out on our beds writing blogs. Internet isn't free here, but also is not nearly as expensive as at the last hotel (1 day here costs as much as 1 hour in Chongqing), so we might buy it sometimes. Haven't decided yet.
Today is Tuesday, and we are free until Friday afternoon! What a nice week! I'm going to try to rest and get a lot of sleep.
Our remaining days in Chongqing were quite busy, but a lot of fun. We had a press conference that involved the Happy Families competition -- kids and adults competed in art and music to perform for Maria and the von Trapp kids. We saw a twelve-year-old boy play the flute with his nose, and play a traditional Chinese string instrument while his mother did martial arts. There were two boys who made paintings of scenes from the Sound of Music and gave them to Christine. One was a painting of Maria (a la Julie Andrews) on the mountain in the opening scene, and the other was a very interesting abstract painting of music. There was a woman who won the "Best Mother" prize for all of Chongqing, who sewed little dolls for us, and will be carrying the Olympic torch when it comes through Chongqing. And there was a trio of little children who sang Lonely Goatherd in Chinese and danced! It was a lot of fun. They took many photos of us and with us. I am always surprised that people want photos of me -- me, specifically -- rather than just the little kids. They like my skin! They like the paleness of me. At last I am in a location where pale is good, where people don't ask me why I don't try to get a tan. Amazing!
We had some great shows in the new theatre in Chongqing, which I really liked. Western toilets are a blessing when they are being used in costume during a show. There were a few minor glitches, because we went into these shows with just one dress rehearsal with the local crew and dressers, rather than with several weeks of rehearsal as we had had in Chengdu. Nothing major happened, except last night, our last show, Michael (Captain von Trapp) called in sick, and his understudy went on. That was exciting! We had already planned an understudy rehearsal for the afternoon, so James, the understudy, was able to go over most of the scenes that day, which was nice for him. I would have been terrified to go on like that! But he did a great job, of course, and now that he's done it, I'm sure he feels much more secure about the possibility of having to go on again.
The understudy rehearsal was very funny. It was for the children, and the understudies for Maria, Captain, Max, and Elsa. I was at the rehearsal, but Jen, my understudy, rehearsed the whole time as Louisa, so I got to sit and watch and help when help was needed. By the end of rehearsal, the adults were getting very silly/punchy, and the Max understudy was doing two roles: Max, and the role he would be doing that evening, taking over James' track while James stepped in for the Captain. It became like Noises Off -- people opening random doors and poking their heads in, reciting random lines out of order. I was laughing my head off, and was sorry that the rest of the cast wasn't out front watching with the few of us who were there!
Even though I didn't rehearse, I got fed Pizza Hut between the rehearsal and the show that evening, so it was all worthwhile. (I actually don't like the Pizza Hut pizza here all that much, but my motto is: Free Food is Free Food, and Pizza is Pizza. It was tasty.)
After the show last night I went to bed late, got very little sleep, and got up extremely early this morning for a 7:30 a.m. checkout time to fly to Wuhan. Yippeeee! Things went very smoothly. We had all loaded at least one suitcase onto a luggage truck that would be (and is now) driving to Wuhan, rather than taking everything on the plane, so we packed specially to leave behind things we wouldn't need for a few days. I carefully brought VERY few clothes, since we have several days off before our first show here on Friday. Of course, I then found out that we have a press conference this afternoon! Whoops! But everyone is in the same boat, so we will all be a little more casual than usual today.
The luggage truck was a nice idea because we had much less to deal with on the flight, and we trust that the truck will arrive here in Wuhan, while planes often lose luggage (temporarily). The flight was an easy 1.5 hrs or less, much less than we expected, and then a bus brought us to the Holiday Inn. Jen and I were lucky to get a room that does not smell of cigarette smoke (and I smelled one that does, so it's a big deal!), and we are both now camped out on our beds writing blogs. Internet isn't free here, but also is not nearly as expensive as at the last hotel (1 day here costs as much as 1 hour in Chongqing), so we might buy it sometimes. Haven't decided yet.
Today is Tuesday, and we are free until Friday afternoon! What a nice week! I'm going to try to rest and get a lot of sleep.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Dear everyone,
My internet has been intermittent (in fact, this is the first time I've been online since arriving in Chongqing), so here are some blogs I wrote earlier and was unable to post:
April 9, 2008
Welcome to Chongqing!
Our days in Chengdu are over. Yesterday we got on a bus for about 5 hours to get to our second city in China, Chongqing. From what we had been told, Chongqing is a mountainous city, similar to San Francisco. It is also the most populated city in the world, with 30 million people.
The bus ride was uneventful, for the most part. We each got our own row, so we were able to stretch out (a bit) and sleep for much of the ride, which was definitely needed! Unfortunately, the bus emitted an annoying beeping noise every few seconds, which we think was some kind of speed and gas monitor, and which can be turned off, but wasn't. Also, the bus driver highly enjoyed honking whenever we passed another vehicle on the road, which was often. Sleep was difficult.
We had a rest stop about halfway through, and most of us got off the bus to use the facilities, as they say, and buy things in the little inconvenience store. I bought some milk tea and some potato chips, which were quite good.
I got back on the bus, and the bus suddenly started moving! Not everyone was back on the bus - in fact - we were missing quite a few people. Someone went to the front of the bus to stop the driver, and everyone looked for roommates and buddies, trying to figure out who was gone. This driver really wanted to get out of there, regardless of leaving people behind. Finally, we had everyone back on the bus, and we proceeded to our destination.
We got to Chongqing and the bus stopped at the side of the highway. We didn't get off, but the company manager (who had been traveling on the other bus) got onto our bus and told us that we were waiting for a police escort into the city! We waited for a while, and finally a number of regular cars marked with "The Sound of Music" on the side joined us and followed us into the city.
When our caravan pulled up to the beautiful Marriott hotel, we were greeted by a horde of schoolgirls holding flower bouquets for us, as well as press photographers and videographers. I had not been on the bus with the kids, who had gotten off first, so I sort of tried to scoot past the people (smiling nicely all the time) and go into the hotel -- how does one walk up to a schoolgirl and take her flowers when not with the group the kids? -- but the moms stopped me, and pointed at me, and made it obvious (and easier for me) that I was one of the "kids" and was supposed to receive flowers. So I did, and it was cute!
Our new hotel is beautiful. I was in a weird mood when we got here last night, and promptly tried to rearrange the furniture. The room is big enough for two, but it is absolutely packed with lovely and unnecessary furniture! There is a loveseat, an armchair, a desk, a coffee table, a little bar table, a TV console ... we don't need all that! I was moving furniture like my life depended on it, trying to figure out how to fit all of our luggage into nooks and crannies so it doesn't take up too much space and fall out all over the middle of the room.
The perks: beautiful room, really comfortable beds, climate control, incredible bathroom with a separate tub and shower.
The cons: internet costs a huge amount of money, per hour, per day, or per week. Don't expect to find me online much this week! I guess when we stay in a fancy hotel, we pay. Too much furniture in the room ... the fridge is stacked with food (which we are charged for, if we eat it, of course, so we don't want to), we can't hang laundry in the window, windows don't open, and everything is expensive expensive expensive!
We often ordered room service in the Garden City Hotel (Chengdu) because it was so cheap -- about $3.50 for a club sandwich and fries, burger and fries, and so on. Room service here costs the same as room service in America, because yes, this is an American hotel! We often ate in the restaurant in the Chengdu hotel and a burger was about $4.50. I ate in the hotel restaurant last night, after the press conference, and my burger was about $11! This included a 15% service charge.
So ... lesson learned: the nicest hotels are not necessarily the easiest to deal with! I'm now grateful for all that we had in Chengdu, even though our hotel rooms weren't great. We had a Carrefour (like Walmart) right next door, as well as a Starbucks! There were a lot of cheap food options right in the hotel. Here, I feel that I need to explore outside the hotel just to find reasonably priced food, so I don't end up spending more than my daily per diem! The biggest problem is not having internet -- I will probably wait a few days, then pay for an hour of internet and try to catch up on everything, post blogs, read emails, and so on. I'm not desperate for it, and it might be nice to be without it for a while, but boy ... it was nice when it was free!
I hope this blog doesn't sound like one big complaint. We are VERY lucky to be staying in such a beautiful hotel, and I think most of our future hotels are going to be like this one. The beds are a dream!
Last night, shortly after we arrived, we had a press conference in the hotel with Maria and the Captain, the kids, and a few other adults (Mother Abbess and Herr Zeller). The best part was the fact that the press started out with this question for the kids: "Do you think your performances in Chongqing will be better than the performances in Chengdu?" We passed the microphone down the line, and each of the kids said something like, "I'm very excited to be in Chongqing, and the city is beautiful, and I think our performances here are going to be much better than in Chengdu." At one point Anissa (Mother Abbess) turned to me and whispered, "I hope people in Chengdu don't read these newspapers!" After everyone had spoken, Radar, the company manager, took the microphone and said, "I don't know what these kids are talking about! I think the performances in Chengdu were just great, and they will continue to be great here in Chongqing -- we have the strongest cast we have ever had for this show." And so on. So perhaps that cleared things up! It was very funny though -- at the end, they had each of us say a parting remark, and again, a number of the kids revisited the "It will be better here in Chongqing" theme. So funny! How bad did they think our performances WERE in Chendgu?
Today is Christine's (Maria's) birthday! She is going to be ... er... 22. We're having a big group dinner tonight in the top floor steakhouse to celebrate her old age. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHRISTINE!!!
April 9, 2008 -- later
What a successful day!
I am so proud of myself (and my roommate) today. We had such an eventful day! Nobody seemed to have any plans, so Jen and I decided to go out wandering. Actually, I asked her to take me out wandering, because she had been out wandering for a bit last night (while I was at the press conference), and I wanted her to show me around a little so I could try to become more acclimated to Chongqing. The unfamiliarity, paired with the curiously hot weather we've had since coming here, was making me feel irritable and strange, so I needed to get out and see part of the city in order to become accustomed to it.
And boy, did we!
I'm probably making this out to be much more than it really is, but here is our story.
On our way out, we stopped at the front desk and asked them where the Carrefour (Walmart-like store) was. The woman told us that it is pretty far, and she wrote it down in Chinese so we could take a taxi there. We asked if we could walk, and she said no, it is about an hour's walk away from the hotel, but ten minutes in a taxi. Well, we weren't about to go there today, but we had the address for a future trip.
We headed out, and Jen took me toward the little shopping district she had found last night. We were looking for a Starbucks, not necessarily to get drinks, but just to know where one was. Jen was positive it was in this central shopping area, but we didn't see it! We darted in and out of some stores, and found a really neat-looking clothing store (sort of in the style of H&M in New York), the same store where Jen, in Chengdu, had bought a funny shirt that says: Love Life. Spread Yourself.
We looked around a bit and then decided to come back and try things on during our walk back to the hotel. We wandered around some more, ducking into more stores and little markets. We wandered through a market that seemed kind of creepy to me, but I guess it is normal for China. The stores are tiny, the size of your average bathroom, so you don't even want to go in because you start feeling claustrophobic, and if you show any interest in something -- even just touching a piece of clothing on a hanger, the salespeople will start pulling other things off the rack and showing them to you, even if they are nothing like the item that you touched. I hate salespeople that hover, even in the U.S., so I try my hardest to show absolutely NO interest in anything in these markets. The other thing that seemed strange to me was that many of the markets have cloths and veils draped over the entrances, which really made me not want to enter and get "sucked in." I actually developed a clever technique to avoid these annoying, hovering salespeople. If I'm interested in an article of clothing, I take it off the rack and hold it up to Jen (or whomever I am with). That way, I can see how it would fit and how it would look without indicating my OWN interest, but Jen can shake her head as if to say that she's not interested herself, and that way NOBODY seems interested -- but I still get to look more closely at the clothing. I know that you are applauding my brilliance right now.
We found a main sort of "town square" in this shopping area, so we decided to traverse each leg coming out of the square, in three directions (the fourth was the direction from which we had come). As we were walking down one of the legs, Jen spotted a Starbucks sign up high on the building wall, which said "40 meters ahead." Starbucks! This was not the one Jen had seen the previous night, but we decided to get a snack. By snack, I mean Iced Signature Chocolate (i.e. a cold version of their hot chocolate, which is made with dark chocolate and is extremely rich and delicious). We chatted with the woman behind the counter, who spoke English, and asked her where there were other Starbucks' -- so that we could try to figure out where was the missing one that Jen had seen earlier. She drew a little map on a business card, and showed us one in the direction from which we had come, and one even farther away, which she said was near the river. We decided to walk that way and try to see the river.
We started walking, passing little storefronts that sold food, drinks, and other goods. To me, the city and the streets seemed much dirtier and grimier than those in Chengdu, but that may have just been the area we were in. There were also fewer, or no, stoplights, so we found ourselves darting across streets through surging traffic -- especially buses, which don't stop for anything and don't obey traffic lights when lights do exist.
All of a sudden, Jen said, "Did I just see a Carrefour sign?" My heart immediately started racing. (Let me remind you, again, that Carrefour is the Walmart-like store that was right next to our hotel in Chengdu, which we fell in love with for the purchase of all sundries, from body wash to bottled water to groceries! It is the very same store that was located, according to the hotel front desk, an hour's walk away. We had not walked nearly that far!) I looked, and there it was: Carrefour! Directly in front of us! We whooped and squealed and made other sorts of cheerful noises, feeling very proud of ourselves (and lucky!), and went inside. There, we purchased more body wash, ziplock bags (for stealing food from breakfast at the hotel), a few snacks, and bottled water, since the Marriott is much stingier in bottle size than the Garden City hotel was. (The hotel gives you bottled water each day.)
Then we headed out and started walking back in the same direction, in order to visit the cute H&M-like clothing store before returning to the hotel. We tried to memorize landmarks so we'd be able to direct other people to the Carrefour, but it was quite confusing. We could get to it, but I don't know if we could tell other people how to find it without us.
On the way back, in the main square, we actually saw the original Starbucks - the one Jen had seen last night. It was RIGHT WHERE WE HAD BEEN WALKING. But the sign was above us, so unless we were walking across the square from it, we couldn't have seen it. We did not get more drinks, though.
Then we went to our clothing store: Meters/Bonwe. We spent an age in there! This is the first time I have really been shopping for fun since coming to China: I usually get bored or tired or claustrophobic from all the people around and hovering, and want to leave. But this was a normal, large-ish store, where salespeople mostly left us alone or were friendly, and we could roam free, trying things on as we wished. They had a lot of cool, loose, cottony shirts, which we both wanted to buy because the weather has already turned extremely hot, now in early April! I ended up getting 6 shirts and a little cotton dress, perfect for the warm weather coming to torment us. Jen got some capri pants that she needed, as well as some shirts (and we actually got the same shirt, so we'll have to have a twin day sometime). My total shopping expenditures, I'm embarrassed to say, were roughly equivalent to $100 US! I consider that a good deal, and I'm very excited about my new Chinese clothes.
Then we walked back to the hotel, finding a faster way to get there through a side door. We took our stuff to our room, and joined some of the kids in the swimming pool for a while before coming back to the room to get ready for Christine's fancy birthday dinner.
What fun it was!
Oh, one more thing: I thought I was so smart and clever to pack my world into one large suitcase and one smaller one, for these 8 months in China. Boy, was I not! My bags are packed to the GILLS every time we move locations, and I know I'm going to accumulate more stuff over the next months, and really, there is no need to conserve bag size. We wheel our bags from our room to the elevator, then from the elevator out to the buses and luggage truck. We don't have to lift anything. So ... my beloved medium-sized purple suitcase is probably going to be left in China. I am planning to buy a second enormous bag from Carrefour sometime this week, so that I have extra space instead of not enough space. Just like everyone else. I have learned my lesson. (And they're cheap there, too!)
My internet has been intermittent (in fact, this is the first time I've been online since arriving in Chongqing), so here are some blogs I wrote earlier and was unable to post:
April 9, 2008
Welcome to Chongqing!
Our days in Chengdu are over. Yesterday we got on a bus for about 5 hours to get to our second city in China, Chongqing. From what we had been told, Chongqing is a mountainous city, similar to San Francisco. It is also the most populated city in the world, with 30 million people.
The bus ride was uneventful, for the most part. We each got our own row, so we were able to stretch out (a bit) and sleep for much of the ride, which was definitely needed! Unfortunately, the bus emitted an annoying beeping noise every few seconds, which we think was some kind of speed and gas monitor, and which can be turned off, but wasn't. Also, the bus driver highly enjoyed honking whenever we passed another vehicle on the road, which was often. Sleep was difficult.
We had a rest stop about halfway through, and most of us got off the bus to use the facilities, as they say, and buy things in the little inconvenience store. I bought some milk tea and some potato chips, which were quite good.
I got back on the bus, and the bus suddenly started moving! Not everyone was back on the bus - in fact - we were missing quite a few people. Someone went to the front of the bus to stop the driver, and everyone looked for roommates and buddies, trying to figure out who was gone. This driver really wanted to get out of there, regardless of leaving people behind. Finally, we had everyone back on the bus, and we proceeded to our destination.
We got to Chongqing and the bus stopped at the side of the highway. We didn't get off, but the company manager (who had been traveling on the other bus) got onto our bus and told us that we were waiting for a police escort into the city! We waited for a while, and finally a number of regular cars marked with "The Sound of Music" on the side joined us and followed us into the city.
When our caravan pulled up to the beautiful Marriott hotel, we were greeted by a horde of schoolgirls holding flower bouquets for us, as well as press photographers and videographers. I had not been on the bus with the kids, who had gotten off first, so I sort of tried to scoot past the people (smiling nicely all the time) and go into the hotel -- how does one walk up to a schoolgirl and take her flowers when not with the group the kids? -- but the moms stopped me, and pointed at me, and made it obvious (and easier for me) that I was one of the "kids" and was supposed to receive flowers. So I did, and it was cute!
Our new hotel is beautiful. I was in a weird mood when we got here last night, and promptly tried to rearrange the furniture. The room is big enough for two, but it is absolutely packed with lovely and unnecessary furniture! There is a loveseat, an armchair, a desk, a coffee table, a little bar table, a TV console ... we don't need all that! I was moving furniture like my life depended on it, trying to figure out how to fit all of our luggage into nooks and crannies so it doesn't take up too much space and fall out all over the middle of the room.
The perks: beautiful room, really comfortable beds, climate control, incredible bathroom with a separate tub and shower.
The cons: internet costs a huge amount of money, per hour, per day, or per week. Don't expect to find me online much this week! I guess when we stay in a fancy hotel, we pay. Too much furniture in the room ... the fridge is stacked with food (which we are charged for, if we eat it, of course, so we don't want to), we can't hang laundry in the window, windows don't open, and everything is expensive expensive expensive!
We often ordered room service in the Garden City Hotel (Chengdu) because it was so cheap -- about $3.50 for a club sandwich and fries, burger and fries, and so on. Room service here costs the same as room service in America, because yes, this is an American hotel! We often ate in the restaurant in the Chengdu hotel and a burger was about $4.50. I ate in the hotel restaurant last night, after the press conference, and my burger was about $11! This included a 15% service charge.
So ... lesson learned: the nicest hotels are not necessarily the easiest to deal with! I'm now grateful for all that we had in Chengdu, even though our hotel rooms weren't great. We had a Carrefour (like Walmart) right next door, as well as a Starbucks! There were a lot of cheap food options right in the hotel. Here, I feel that I need to explore outside the hotel just to find reasonably priced food, so I don't end up spending more than my daily per diem! The biggest problem is not having internet -- I will probably wait a few days, then pay for an hour of internet and try to catch up on everything, post blogs, read emails, and so on. I'm not desperate for it, and it might be nice to be without it for a while, but boy ... it was nice when it was free!
I hope this blog doesn't sound like one big complaint. We are VERY lucky to be staying in such a beautiful hotel, and I think most of our future hotels are going to be like this one. The beds are a dream!
Last night, shortly after we arrived, we had a press conference in the hotel with Maria and the Captain, the kids, and a few other adults (Mother Abbess and Herr Zeller). The best part was the fact that the press started out with this question for the kids: "Do you think your performances in Chongqing will be better than the performances in Chengdu?" We passed the microphone down the line, and each of the kids said something like, "I'm very excited to be in Chongqing, and the city is beautiful, and I think our performances here are going to be much better than in Chengdu." At one point Anissa (Mother Abbess) turned to me and whispered, "I hope people in Chengdu don't read these newspapers!" After everyone had spoken, Radar, the company manager, took the microphone and said, "I don't know what these kids are talking about! I think the performances in Chengdu were just great, and they will continue to be great here in Chongqing -- we have the strongest cast we have ever had for this show." And so on. So perhaps that cleared things up! It was very funny though -- at the end, they had each of us say a parting remark, and again, a number of the kids revisited the "It will be better here in Chongqing" theme. So funny! How bad did they think our performances WERE in Chendgu?
Today is Christine's (Maria's) birthday! She is going to be ... er... 22. We're having a big group dinner tonight in the top floor steakhouse to celebrate her old age. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHRISTINE!!!
April 9, 2008 -- later
What a successful day!
I am so proud of myself (and my roommate) today. We had such an eventful day! Nobody seemed to have any plans, so Jen and I decided to go out wandering. Actually, I asked her to take me out wandering, because she had been out wandering for a bit last night (while I was at the press conference), and I wanted her to show me around a little so I could try to become more acclimated to Chongqing. The unfamiliarity, paired with the curiously hot weather we've had since coming here, was making me feel irritable and strange, so I needed to get out and see part of the city in order to become accustomed to it.
And boy, did we!
I'm probably making this out to be much more than it really is, but here is our story.
On our way out, we stopped at the front desk and asked them where the Carrefour (Walmart-like store) was. The woman told us that it is pretty far, and she wrote it down in Chinese so we could take a taxi there. We asked if we could walk, and she said no, it is about an hour's walk away from the hotel, but ten minutes in a taxi. Well, we weren't about to go there today, but we had the address for a future trip.
We headed out, and Jen took me toward the little shopping district she had found last night. We were looking for a Starbucks, not necessarily to get drinks, but just to know where one was. Jen was positive it was in this central shopping area, but we didn't see it! We darted in and out of some stores, and found a really neat-looking clothing store (sort of in the style of H&M in New York), the same store where Jen, in Chengdu, had bought a funny shirt that says: Love Life. Spread Yourself.
We looked around a bit and then decided to come back and try things on during our walk back to the hotel. We wandered around some more, ducking into more stores and little markets. We wandered through a market that seemed kind of creepy to me, but I guess it is normal for China. The stores are tiny, the size of your average bathroom, so you don't even want to go in because you start feeling claustrophobic, and if you show any interest in something -- even just touching a piece of clothing on a hanger, the salespeople will start pulling other things off the rack and showing them to you, even if they are nothing like the item that you touched. I hate salespeople that hover, even in the U.S., so I try my hardest to show absolutely NO interest in anything in these markets. The other thing that seemed strange to me was that many of the markets have cloths and veils draped over the entrances, which really made me not want to enter and get "sucked in." I actually developed a clever technique to avoid these annoying, hovering salespeople. If I'm interested in an article of clothing, I take it off the rack and hold it up to Jen (or whomever I am with). That way, I can see how it would fit and how it would look without indicating my OWN interest, but Jen can shake her head as if to say that she's not interested herself, and that way NOBODY seems interested -- but I still get to look more closely at the clothing. I know that you are applauding my brilliance right now.
We found a main sort of "town square" in this shopping area, so we decided to traverse each leg coming out of the square, in three directions (the fourth was the direction from which we had come). As we were walking down one of the legs, Jen spotted a Starbucks sign up high on the building wall, which said "40 meters ahead." Starbucks! This was not the one Jen had seen the previous night, but we decided to get a snack. By snack, I mean Iced Signature Chocolate (i.e. a cold version of their hot chocolate, which is made with dark chocolate and is extremely rich and delicious). We chatted with the woman behind the counter, who spoke English, and asked her where there were other Starbucks' -- so that we could try to figure out where was the missing one that Jen had seen earlier. She drew a little map on a business card, and showed us one in the direction from which we had come, and one even farther away, which she said was near the river. We decided to walk that way and try to see the river.
We started walking, passing little storefronts that sold food, drinks, and other goods. To me, the city and the streets seemed much dirtier and grimier than those in Chengdu, but that may have just been the area we were in. There were also fewer, or no, stoplights, so we found ourselves darting across streets through surging traffic -- especially buses, which don't stop for anything and don't obey traffic lights when lights do exist.
All of a sudden, Jen said, "Did I just see a Carrefour sign?" My heart immediately started racing. (Let me remind you, again, that Carrefour is the Walmart-like store that was right next to our hotel in Chengdu, which we fell in love with for the purchase of all sundries, from body wash to bottled water to groceries! It is the very same store that was located, according to the hotel front desk, an hour's walk away. We had not walked nearly that far!) I looked, and there it was: Carrefour! Directly in front of us! We whooped and squealed and made other sorts of cheerful noises, feeling very proud of ourselves (and lucky!), and went inside. There, we purchased more body wash, ziplock bags (for stealing food from breakfast at the hotel), a few snacks, and bottled water, since the Marriott is much stingier in bottle size than the Garden City hotel was. (The hotel gives you bottled water each day.)
Then we headed out and started walking back in the same direction, in order to visit the cute H&M-like clothing store before returning to the hotel. We tried to memorize landmarks so we'd be able to direct other people to the Carrefour, but it was quite confusing. We could get to it, but I don't know if we could tell other people how to find it without us.
On the way back, in the main square, we actually saw the original Starbucks - the one Jen had seen last night. It was RIGHT WHERE WE HAD BEEN WALKING. But the sign was above us, so unless we were walking across the square from it, we couldn't have seen it. We did not get more drinks, though.
Then we went to our clothing store: Meters/Bonwe. We spent an age in there! This is the first time I have really been shopping for fun since coming to China: I usually get bored or tired or claustrophobic from all the people around and hovering, and want to leave. But this was a normal, large-ish store, where salespeople mostly left us alone or were friendly, and we could roam free, trying things on as we wished. They had a lot of cool, loose, cottony shirts, which we both wanted to buy because the weather has already turned extremely hot, now in early April! I ended up getting 6 shirts and a little cotton dress, perfect for the warm weather coming to torment us. Jen got some capri pants that she needed, as well as some shirts (and we actually got the same shirt, so we'll have to have a twin day sometime). My total shopping expenditures, I'm embarrassed to say, were roughly equivalent to $100 US! I consider that a good deal, and I'm very excited about my new Chinese clothes.
Then we walked back to the hotel, finding a faster way to get there through a side door. We took our stuff to our room, and joined some of the kids in the swimming pool for a while before coming back to the room to get ready for Christine's fancy birthday dinner.
What fun it was!
Oh, one more thing: I thought I was so smart and clever to pack my world into one large suitcase and one smaller one, for these 8 months in China. Boy, was I not! My bags are packed to the GILLS every time we move locations, and I know I'm going to accumulate more stuff over the next months, and really, there is no need to conserve bag size. We wheel our bags from our room to the elevator, then from the elevator out to the buses and luggage truck. We don't have to lift anything. So ... my beloved medium-sized purple suitcase is probably going to be left in China. I am planning to buy a second enormous bag from Carrefour sometime this week, so that I have extra space instead of not enough space. Just like everyone else. I have learned my lesson. (And they're cheap there, too!)
Monday, April 7, 2008
Massage in China
You must excuse my lack of blogging recently: I came down with a bit of a cold last Thursday, and I've been spending more time resting than being on internet since then. We had a 5-show weekend (Friday night through Sunday night) and now we finally have a day off!
Fortunately, my cold did not prevent me from performing, and only really attacked my head and voice today. Our next show is Thursday, so I have to thank my body for timing things so well and giving me these few days to recover.
I have recently discovered that massages are a big deal in China. Not only are they a big deal, but they are cheap! Yesterday, Sunday, we had two shows. Because we had the next day off, a few of us decided to go to our beloved foot massage parlor after the evening show.
When I first heard about the foot massage, I have to admit I balked. I, who have pretty, small feet, balked at the thought of a foot massage. But I gave in and joined the group last week, and it was one of the smartest decisions I've made since coming to China!
The group that went last night was me, Christine (Maria), Emily (Frau Schmidt), Oleg, Pascha, Yascha, Ostop, and Sergei. What are all those Eastern European names, you ask? Those are members of our wonderful orchestra, mostly from Ukraine. Christine, in particular, has befriended a number of them, so we found ourselves in their company for massages last night.
We took cabs to the massage place, and got a room that would fit all of us together. You just wear your regular clothes, so there is no monkey business going on.
The very state of things was funny: three Americans who were speaking like Borat, with faux Kazakhstanian accents (because the Ukrainians rubbed off on us), five Ukrainians with varying abilities in English, and seven Chinese women giving massages. (Yascha disappeared into a different room for a different massage when we arrived ... no, not that! Clean up your mind!) So there we were, with three different languages in one room. The Americans were putting on accents, the Ukrainians were imitating the Chinese women, and the Chinese women were laughing hysterically at us and trying to teach us how to say things in Chinese, but since they didn't speak English, they couldn't tell us what we were saying!
The massage starts off with washing the feet in boiling tea (to clean them, I guess), then leads to an extensive foot massage, then calves, thighs, ... backside ..., back, shoulders, arms, and neck. All of this is included in the foot massage! Many of the men were ticklish, so guffaws and childish giggling would erupt at any moment, which would send the Chinese women into gales of laughter! I admit some of us had had a bit to drink before coming (not me!), but you really didn't need alcohol to make yourself silly in this situation.
I got the longest neck massage of all, and I think this is because I am smaller than the average American (or Ukrainian), so my massage therapist would finish each part of me first, and when she got to the neck, she just kept massaging and massaging until everyone else caught up with her. She was concerned because I have black marks all over the back of my neck: sticky residue from the microphone tape we use on our neck and cheek! (It doesn't stick on my cheek because I have makeup on.) She exclaimed "Aiya!" and similar things, and I couldn't possibly explain what the marks were. How do you mime mic tape?
So she proceeded to try to RUB the marks off my neck as part of the massage. At the time, it felt quite good -- a deep neck massage. But later, I woke up in the middle of the night, and my neck hurt. It wasn't a muscle soreness, but a hurt like a bruise or a poisonous bite: a surface hurt! I still have mic tape - she did not succeed in rubbing it off - but I think she did succeed in rubbing a nice bruise onto my neck. My roommate couldn't see anything today, so I don't know if it will turn into a mark. But what fun, a nice ending to a funny massage!
Anyway, after the massage, they leave you in the room for a while to rest. We did not rest. What we did was try to "fly" each other. If you have never been a child, you will not know what this means, and I will explain. One person lies on her back, with her feet in the air. Another person bends over and puts his stomach on the lying-down person's feet. They hold hands. The person lying down "flies" the other person in the air like Superman! We tried to do this with a number of different combinations, including me trying to fly Pascha, the 6'3" Ukrainian man. (It was unsuccessful.) After a long time, we all pretended to calm down and headed home. It was about 3 a.m. I went to sleep (got to fight this cold! heh heh...), but some of the others stayed up and played cards until breakfast time. Yikes!
I must say, we are lucky to have today, tomorrow (travel), and Wednesday (load-in) off.
Fortunately, my cold did not prevent me from performing, and only really attacked my head and voice today. Our next show is Thursday, so I have to thank my body for timing things so well and giving me these few days to recover.
I have recently discovered that massages are a big deal in China. Not only are they a big deal, but they are cheap! Yesterday, Sunday, we had two shows. Because we had the next day off, a few of us decided to go to our beloved foot massage parlor after the evening show.
When I first heard about the foot massage, I have to admit I balked. I, who have pretty, small feet, balked at the thought of a foot massage. But I gave in and joined the group last week, and it was one of the smartest decisions I've made since coming to China!
The group that went last night was me, Christine (Maria), Emily (Frau Schmidt), Oleg, Pascha, Yascha, Ostop, and Sergei. What are all those Eastern European names, you ask? Those are members of our wonderful orchestra, mostly from Ukraine. Christine, in particular, has befriended a number of them, so we found ourselves in their company for massages last night.
We took cabs to the massage place, and got a room that would fit all of us together. You just wear your regular clothes, so there is no monkey business going on.
The very state of things was funny: three Americans who were speaking like Borat, with faux Kazakhstanian accents (because the Ukrainians rubbed off on us), five Ukrainians with varying abilities in English, and seven Chinese women giving massages. (Yascha disappeared into a different room for a different massage when we arrived ... no, not that! Clean up your mind!) So there we were, with three different languages in one room. The Americans were putting on accents, the Ukrainians were imitating the Chinese women, and the Chinese women were laughing hysterically at us and trying to teach us how to say things in Chinese, but since they didn't speak English, they couldn't tell us what we were saying!
The massage starts off with washing the feet in boiling tea (to clean them, I guess), then leads to an extensive foot massage, then calves, thighs, ... backside ..., back, shoulders, arms, and neck. All of this is included in the foot massage! Many of the men were ticklish, so guffaws and childish giggling would erupt at any moment, which would send the Chinese women into gales of laughter! I admit some of us had had a bit to drink before coming (not me!), but you really didn't need alcohol to make yourself silly in this situation.
I got the longest neck massage of all, and I think this is because I am smaller than the average American (or Ukrainian), so my massage therapist would finish each part of me first, and when she got to the neck, she just kept massaging and massaging until everyone else caught up with her. She was concerned because I have black marks all over the back of my neck: sticky residue from the microphone tape we use on our neck and cheek! (It doesn't stick on my cheek because I have makeup on.) She exclaimed "Aiya!" and similar things, and I couldn't possibly explain what the marks were. How do you mime mic tape?
So she proceeded to try to RUB the marks off my neck as part of the massage. At the time, it felt quite good -- a deep neck massage. But later, I woke up in the middle of the night, and my neck hurt. It wasn't a muscle soreness, but a hurt like a bruise or a poisonous bite: a surface hurt! I still have mic tape - she did not succeed in rubbing it off - but I think she did succeed in rubbing a nice bruise onto my neck. My roommate couldn't see anything today, so I don't know if it will turn into a mark. But what fun, a nice ending to a funny massage!
Anyway, after the massage, they leave you in the room for a while to rest. We did not rest. What we did was try to "fly" each other. If you have never been a child, you will not know what this means, and I will explain. One person lies on her back, with her feet in the air. Another person bends over and puts his stomach on the lying-down person's feet. They hold hands. The person lying down "flies" the other person in the air like Superman! We tried to do this with a number of different combinations, including me trying to fly Pascha, the 6'3" Ukrainian man. (It was unsuccessful.) After a long time, we all pretended to calm down and headed home. It was about 3 a.m. I went to sleep (got to fight this cold! heh heh...), but some of the others stayed up and played cards until breakfast time. Yikes!
I must say, we are lucky to have today, tomorrow (travel), and Wednesday (load-in) off.
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