Goodbye blue skys

Tonight's the night we hop on the midnight train.
Chris's students took us out to eat at the 100 year old restaraunt.

This place is suppose to be 100 years old. I was glad for the AC, we ate on the 3rd floor.

The original chef invented Gu Bao Ru when he cooked for the Emperor. It's like sweet and sour pork without the sauce or pinapple. It's good. But the big hit was the bugs.

Bugs and other chinese food

I don't know why the students ordered them because only about 2 of the 14 tried them. I think it is a status thing. Anyway, princess was facinated.

Got it.

They were cooked, sometimes they are served live. Chris ate one and then princess really wanted to eat one. She got it on her plate ands then realized everyone was staring at her,

MMMmm, princess really wants to eat it

and chickened out and fed it to her dad. She saw how much attention she got from that and immediately picked out the student who was most squeamish about it and offered to feed him. It was a good time. Chris dissected one of the bugs and taught the students all the moth part names in English. He was really getting into the dissection and afterwords the students said, "I now believe that you are a biologist".

The ph.d students

So the big ride is tonight.
Today we will take the cat to our friend's and give away all our plants and fish. I love my orchid, it's going to be hard.
Since we had the ticket swap, we don't have seats together. We don't have seats at all, actually we have bunks. Our previous journeys via the rails, we have had bunks 1, 2, and 3 and somebody else has the other 3. Tonight we have three level 2 bunks, 2 in the same compartment and one 5 compartments away. The problem with level 2 bunk it that you can't sit up all the way. Usually you hang out on the bottom bunk until it's time to sleep then move into your upper bunks. Not a problem for us if we have the bottom bunk, but this time we don't. So there is the tension of princess being a monkey on somebody's bed and the fact that we will have to socialize. The plan is to run her ragged today so she will be exhausted when we get on the train. This plan has never been successful for us. The train is just too exciting for a 4 year old. The second challenge is the squatty potty. I find that a challenge everywhere, but the train is an added element of difficulty. I, personally could go the whole journey (10 hours) without visiting that place, but princess thinks that public facilities should always be checked out.
And if you are in there, well, it's hard to not go. Not that it is easy to go! The key is to dress appropriately and carry hand sanitizer. Since the train is moving, keeping the clothes dry requires skill. I find that a skirt is the easiest traveling garment. Since we are on an upper bunk, it does have the drawback of climbing up while your bunkmates are checking you out. So, I'm wearing a big hippie skirt, managable in the WC and can be gathered to climb up. In the past, we have found that our bunkmates are not as modest as we are and won't think twice about changing clothes infront of us. We have had some unusual bunkmates before, so today I'm hoping for a student. All the colleges are letting out for the summer so there should be lots of them.

Tomorrow we have an interview for a gig after Anhui in Beijing!!!!!!! We have hope...

Harbin, China