Takin' a break!

Ross got a great restaurant gift card from Chris and Amy for his birthday in February.  Tonight we used it and it was wonderful - we both agreed it was a much needed night out for a super dinner.  We were full but told the waitress we would like to order the Key Lime pie for dessert, have a couple bites and take the rest home - you can guess the outcome of that one!
Notes that were highlighted by me from my little China journal:

• Walking on Godliness, now cleanliness can wait - note on that as God has stepped in a couple times this week once finding a lost paper with all my new passwords on it - Praise God!!!
• Robert Capon:  "the single of greatest temporal blessing was a long evening of old friends, dark bread, good wine, strong cheese" - we are moving forward on that one.
• Annie our travel director on Oct 1 National Holiday in China:  "At least you won't have to wear a football helmet" - 1.4 billion people all on government mandated vacation week in China - they are thinking of other options!
• 29 Oct 2013 - "censored" presented as "harmonized"; 100% of antiques are "recently manufactured"
  - per guide in Beijing:  the city bird should be the crane as in construction crane! - regarding the 2008 Beijing Olympics - the gold medal should have gone to "elbowing" in line.
• Beijing guide on bus:  "Don't look outside - you will be nervous"
• 2 October 2013:  A resident in conflict with "urban management officials" was executed yesterday - the information was "expunged" from the internet and now there is no more information.
• Guide:  "Chinese hate their government" - our travel director on the US government shutdown:  "We hate our government too but at least they aren't doing anything"
• Guide:  "I got a book in grade school about how miserable life was in the United States" - guides were always very open about the propoganda presented to them.
• Guide on the day's activities:  ""Up ahead a very big case of stairs".  He has 50 m2 (appr 450 sq feet or about 20x20 feet) condo on 50th floor of a high-rise and said the elevator was broken for a "long time" and had to take the stairs.
• "We eat every part of the pig except the oink" and "we eat anything with 4 legs except the table"
• Shanghai guide whose father worked for 20 years on the huge Three Gorges Dam"  He was off 2 months each year and one time she did not see him for 3 years.  She has a younger brother who is an "illegal son" - i.e. past the one child limit - so the father had to pay a huge fine for this.  The fines are larger in the larger cities.
• Mandarin oranges are exported all over the world
• "Woman so beautiful she make men to produce goosebumps"
• One time zone in China since the Cultural Revolution of Chairman Mao in the 1940s and 50s - there were actually 5 time zones.
• It costs $13,000 for a car license in Shanghai; the average annual income is $8,260
• Guide re Bazaar for shopping:  Super quality knock-em-backs like "Folex" or "Relax" for Rolex
• Shanghai life expectancy is 82 years old, USA is 79, Minnesota is 85 - go Gophers!

Nice break to get back to my blog and a seminormal break in the identity theft process!