From Grits to Chopsticks

We’ve heard that the northeast US is digging out from a blizzard and that the Atlanta area still has snow on the ground from a very rare white Christmas.  So depending on where you live, 46 degrees might sound pretty balmy.  But not for those of us who live in the unheated homes south of the Yangtze river.  A few days ago, we took this picture of the guest room clock/thermometer INSIDE our apartment:

Although our city is pretty warm for most of the time, the winter can be pretty brutal in our unheated, concrete-walled home.  For the last month, we’ve been wearing long underwear and sitting in front of space heaters (and Susan wears her “grandmother jacket”):

For the Christmas weekend, we were very blessed to be able to spend time with our sons in Lijiang, a beautifully preserved old city in the western part of our province.  We stayed at the Wang Fu hotel (not your normal Holiday Inn) that had been decked out for Christmas:

It was a nice place, and unlike our apartment, actually had heat in the rooms from 8PM to 8AM.  We were able to walk around the old town and eat delicious food at Pizza Hut (twice!).  One of the highlights of a visit to Lijiang is to climb “Jade Dragon Snow Mountain,” a nearby peak that rises to over 18,000 feet.  Here are the intrepid explorers nearing the top:

Fortunately, “climbing” Snow Mountain actually means riding a gondola most of the way.  But it was still quite high, and we gladly shared breaths from the disposable can of oxygen we bought for 70RMB (about $10) at the bottom.