Dali, China
Patients fitted: 601
I had a really good night's
sleep last night and woke up ready to start our first day of fittings in Dali.
Breakfast was disappointing as it was mostly traditional Chinese food and I
have had enough of that (and fried chicken sandwiches) for the time being. I
just wanted a good strong coffee, some waffles, bacon, and maple syrup. Oh well.
Maybe in Lijiang?
Right off the bat I got lost
trying to walk to the stadium where the fittings were taking place. The
interpreter at the hotel pointed me down the wrong road (or I misunderstood
her) and I ended up walking for 20 minutes in the wrong direction until I saw
some government building and guards with machine guns. At that point I turned
around, walked back to the hotel, and saw the stadium about 2 minutes walk from
the hotel in the other direction. Sigh. At least I got some exercise.
Fittings today were a mix of
frustrating and normal. A couple of patients were unresponsive and had a
different dialect of speech which confused our interpreter, Helen. I was
working with Rosaline today and she managed to realize when someone was not
understanding and helped to communicate. I think we did rather well, and we
ripped through all of the patients by about 2:00 pm. Lunch was fried chicken
sandwiches (again) so I am really looking forward to something different for
dinner. We've had KFC so often that I am beginning to think I'd prefer Chinese
food (although not the pig brains).
We're going to go out for a
walk and explore a bit and try to do some more shopping. There is a huge Walmart here so I hope I
get lucky and they have some cheap costumes. Maybe I'll luck out and find an Assassin's
Creed costume for Drew.
Update: Rosaline and I ended
up going for a 2 hour walk around the town looking for shopping and just
generally seeing the sights. David joined us as we were walking along the river
and we all walked up onto the main bridge where we had an awesome view of the
lake and surrounding area.
David ended up heading back for dinner while
Rosaline and I walked...and walked...and walked. Eventually we decided to find
a place to eat on the way back to the hotel. Most places were closed still
(they don't seem to open for dinner here until really late - like 6 or 7 pm!)
but we managed to find a Korean BBQ place and man was it good! Some real meat
was a welcome diversion from traditional Chinese food and KFC.
Both Rosaline
and I were absolutely stuffed, and I went back to my hotel room early, had a
shower and watched two movies and went to sleep.
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