An Evening Along the Yao River

The group met at 6:00 p.m. in the lobby. This has turned into a prettyregular occurrence. Every evening the question is, "Where should we eat?" We've tried many of the little restaurants around the hotel and as the days go by we are getting braver. There are quite a few tiny restaurants, 4-6 small tables and pictures of various dishes (or not) on the walls. Greg has a little spiral notebook and when he eats something he likes he motions for the waitress to write it down in Chinese. This has been very helpful. We know we can get pork with noodles, pork and rice, beef with noodles, beef and rice, egg and rice, tomato and rice and beef with peppers!

Tonight the plan was to head down to the river. Greg found out that people gather along the banks of the river every night... we thought we'd check it out. On our way, we spotted a tiny restaurant.. it looked clean and there was a little girl in the doorway. We were the only customers in the place and the owner was very welcoming. In about 5 minutes, we were all enjoying a Chinese beer and several baskets of small dumplings... very tasty with soy sauce and hot sauce. Several people ordered plates of some kind of fried rice. The total bill for the 6 of us was 60 RMB which is about $10.00. Apparently, tipping is not expected... I wonder how the owners can survive.

After dinner, we headed down to the river. We could see a line of water fountains pulsing up and down and groups of people doing what looked to be a kind of line dance to beautiful music. Crossing the bridge, we walked to the other side and joined in! It was very fun!! I was waving my arms around and trying to fit in with the natives!! People are so welcoming and smiled at our efforts to follow the moves.

Many groups of people were milling around. The atmosphere was a bit like a county fair... balloons for children and some roller blade activities. Another group of dancing couples reminded me of "Dancing with the Stars".... all in sync with each other... some of the couples were clearly excellent dancers and many of the women were very well dressed in flowing dresses and high healed shoes. It was a pleasure to watch.
We were all impressed by the sense of community and the evident enjoyment experienced by all.... There were easily five to six hundred people...

We're going to have to go back and see if this type of gathering is really a nightly affair. After the long hot day, the breeze along the Yao was so welcoming. I have been surprised by the number of people with dogs for pets. Until recently, I know that dogs have been used as a source of food, but clearly that is changing.

Time to call it a night... might get up very early and see if I can catch the opening ceremony of the Olympics... 4:30 a.m. in China!


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Location:Yuyao, Friday, July 25th