I thought I would do a post about our life in the hotel Grand Soluxe here in Lanzhou. This is a 5 star hotel so the breakfast buffet offers a wide variety of food, elegantly presented. There are fresh flowers and this morning the music was a soothing version of What Child Is This.
This was my breakfast earlier in the week--I have a seperate plate for dessert, and then a plate with fried potatoes, noodles, tofu, tomato things, and even lotus root.
I also have a bowl of oatmeal to soak up all that grease. Chinese food seems very greasy to me, but at home we follow the McDougall diet so most food is more oily than what I am used to.
There is a whole section for desserts and breads. And over by the wall are cereals and hot milk, both cow and soy.
Hannah makes more modest selections for herself, but she always eats several croissants.
Here is another one of my breakfasts, since I know my kids at home want to know what we are eating. Here I have tofu, noodles, broccoli, and baked beans. Yes, they had baked beans at breakfast! I also tried the lotus root, since that is something I have never had at breakfast. (Actually I have never had it any other time of day either!)
Hannah has gotten more adventurous each day. Today this was her plate. She even tried the lotus root.
This was my plate--yes, I normally eat a vegan diet, and yes, that is a fried egg. It was for Shi Wu, but I did taste a bit of it. It is very difficult to be vegan in China. Even if you can avoid meat, egg shows up in all sorts of food. My new thing today was the Homely Fried Dragon Beans.
I am feeling very strong and fierce after eating these! I haven't started breathing fire, but maybe if I eat them often enough?
Shi Wu has started to bond more with me and wants to eat on my lap, with me feeding her. This is great for bonding. It is hard for me to go to the buffet, because she starts yelling, "MAMA!!!" at the top of her lungs. The first few days it didn't bother her if I went to the buffet. She doesn't have any qualms about yelling in public, that is for sure. It will be interesting to get her trained to sit through the Latin Mass.
The first few days she ate so much I didn't know how she could hold that much food. Now she is starting to be more selective. She doesn't like meat--yes I did try to feed her steak. She had a nosebleed the other day and I thought she must need more iron. She also rejects any green vegetables. She hasn't had much fruit probably, and rejected banana and some other fruits like peaches, but she does like watermelon. Her standard is of course a bowl of congee and I always get one for her.
We spend a lot of time in our room, and Hannah and I take turns struggling with the internet so we can upload photos. It takes hours. We would have to be in the room anyway, since Shi Wu really needs her nap. She isn't fun to be with when she is tired. She also usually has a major meltdown whenever we say goodbye to our guide, and I have to carry a wailing child through the ornate lobby of the hotel and up 19 floors in the elevator while people stare at me and wonder what I am doing to the poor child. Shi Wu is a strong little person, but she is under a lot of stress, not being able to communicate with us very well, and she clearly sees the guide as a lifeline.
We have lots to do in our room. First of all, we have funny English warnings to keep us safe. This is the one that is by the faucet. I know we aren't supposed to brush our teeth with anything but bottled or boiled water, but I'm not sure how you deal it.
Then there is this gem on the shower door. In the US, whenever I see a warning label that seems humorous, like on a ladder a label saying, "do not climb this ladder when you are asleep," I assume the warning is there because some dimwit actually did use the ladder while sleeping, or use an electric drill to clean their ears. I don't think China has the same level of lawsuits, but I wonder if they have had problems with hotel guests getting sloshed in the shower and getting injured.
I didn't have any wine handy, and don't like the taste of it anyway, but just for the experience I poured a glass of grape juice and had a good long drink in the shower. It is probably a good thing we are leaving town tomorrow, since now this is out on the internet, people will know what kind of people are staying at this hotel.
Since we are not acutally 5-star people, of course we didn't send out our laundry to be done, but used the sink. Here is Hannah doing laundry. We have lots since the Chinese diapers leak. I won't elaborate, but you wouldn't want to eat out of our sink.
Since our air-dried clothes were quite wrinkled, we managed to procure an iron and ironing board. The board looks like it was made for people even shorter than the Chinese, but maybe it would be a good idea to iron on your knees, and pray while you do it. In spite of the appearance from these pictures, I did do my share of laundress duty, and I didn't make Hannah do all the ironing either.
We ate most of our meals in the room. Here is our Thursday night meal. Noodle cups, crackers, and peach juice. A very interesting combination but cheap and easy.
Notice the huge jug of water--we got it at the grocery store, and I think our guide thought it was crazy we wanted so much water. Chinese people seem to drink very little fluid of any kind and I don't know how they survive. It is kind of funny to buy water at the grocery store instead of using the extremely expensive bottles of Evian from the minibar, and then the bellboys all run to carry it up for you. Even after tipping them it is still half the price of the minibar. There is one very cute little bellboy that tries so hard to be helpful. He studied English and hotel management and he wants so badly to be able to talk to us, but he always looks like his circuts are overheating from the effort as he struggles to remember some words he wants to use. It is so comical and painful to watch.
