10-17-2005
Our last visit with the friends we've made along the way.

I wore my new traditional Chinese jacket and it was a big hit. Our big Peking Duck dinner was good. I was expecting the meal to be like Christmas Story complete with headed bird staring at us on the table. It in fact was more like duck fajitas. We never even saw the bird. The lobby of the restaurant had numerous tanks featuring all the sea critters you could select for your meal – it also had a pool with three seals which I don’t believe were on the menu. The show that had been billed as Peking Opera was in fact just one (mercifully) short bit of opera and several folk culture performances. It was similar to the show we saw in Xi’an with the addition of some acrobatics. It was called Yellow Earth Cyclone. I can't help but think that something is lost in the translation.