Home! Hey Yall, got behind on the travelog, but Im home and slowly - TopicsExpress

Home! Hey Yall, got behind on the travelog, but Im home and slowly readjusting to CST. What a trip! Last entry we were heading to Nanjing. Had a great time there and stayed in a super fine Novotel near the University district there. The first day Sammy and Jesse Lege and Conni Castille and I took a cab into the old part of town to see an ancient Confucius temple. Did a little more trinket shopping, then we headed away from tourist land to find some lunch. We ended up on a side street at a place that advertised crawfish (we saw the pictures) and decided we had to try em, so we ordered that and several other dishes. Everything was, as usual, fantastic. No one there spoke English, but luckily the menu had some pictures so we chose and washed it all down a bunch of big beers. The crawfish were great! They were served piping hot in a big bowl in a spicy broth full of whole garlic cloves and big chunks of a mild green pepper. The server gave us little plastic gloves to wear and just like in Cajun country, there was a sink towards the back of the dining room to wash up after. We tore em up! On the way back Sammy realized he had lost his phone and although we went back to the restaurant and some shops we had visited, we never found it. Our performances all took place at a nice University not far from the hotel, so in the off hours we enjoyed the hotel amenities: swimming in the beautiful underground pool, played ping pong, and eating at the enormous Chinese/Korean breakfast buffet complete with a Christmas musak soundtrack (who knows why). In our classroom discussion, we got to meet and play with some local traditional Chinese musicians which was really cool! There were two Erhus (the Chinese Violin), a Pipa (sp?) (a lute-like fretted instrument), and a Chinese gourd flute. We heard them play and jammed a little and that was really fun! The next day we took the bullet train back to Shanghai for our last show! We settled into our beautiful downtown hotel and relaxed a little before heading out to On Stage Shanghai- a very nice club with a real sound system and great acoustics. The owners we shocked at how big the crowd was! I think there were 120+ folks crammed in this little club all dancing and hollering and having a blast! We put it to em and were sad to leave when it was all over. Conni and I had a smooth trip home Sunday, flying through Tokyo, then Houston. On the flight from Shanghai to Tokyo, Nippon Airline served us the craziest looking lunch Ive ever seen on a plane! I have no idea what any of it was except the rice, but it was all really good! Anyway, Im home and although my body still seems to be somewhere between here and China, Im very happy to be back. Although, as Jesse says, Id go back in a heartbeat if they asked! Thanks for reading all this, folks! Ill see you around, Im sure!