Thursday, January 2, 2014

A night out at the new Jazz Bar and Himalayan/Indian restaurant

We caught up with Amy's best mate and former colleague Alan at his latest and fourth establishment.

Being the owner he again treated us to beer and wine, every bottle decantered, and way too much delicious food. The food is of the highest quality and the best Indian style food I've had. Even a spicy crab!!! Best lamb chops I've ever had.

Amy drank a rare wine, even chugging on a cigar later on.

Lila looked right at home at the bar, 6yo turning 21. Her resemblance and social behaviour similarities to my mother is getting scary. She was happily flirting with the son of Amy's friends. "He would have been my boyfriend..." She said...

I briefly found hair.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Eel with onions home lunch today

more great cooking from Amy's mum

Driving in Nanjing

Lights are optional

Driving through a major intersection on your scooter with no lights, optional

Lanes, optional

Driving an old style cart with no lights in the middle of the road at night, optional

Turning into you from the right, legal

Amy's old secondary school

We happened to walk past Amy's old secondary school.

Quite a lot had changed since she was there. Only the front gate and small building library survived. New tall buildings are in place and the sports ground is now artificially turfed.

We had a look in the year 11 building. Each grade had about 14 separate classes. Each class about 50 students. Tables looked like primary school size.

The large tree has a sign below celebrating the 100 year anniversary 1888 to 1988. and Canberra just had it's 100 year anniversary...

Nanjing city observations

Book store on the children's level, more like a library

Street selling of live pet rabbits and turtles

Bread Talk. Looks the same as our Bread Top Taiwan style bakeries

Grand designs of tall sky scrapers

Interesting car park concept to save space. Unfortunately no-one wants to park in the top section because how are you going to get out if someone is below you? Usability fail.

Coffee experiences

Even with Amy doing the talking, my request for a latte in a small cup (so it will come out as a flat white failed miserably).

Aren't you going to drink your coffee says Amy? WTF? That tall glass is for me??? I don't want that!!!&£@#$%*¿

Seems I asked for a latte I get a latte. This is medium. I was straight up and into them. Grabbed a cup myself. Then the barista knew what was going on. But unfortunately still made a shyte coffee. Probably the beans and poor milkmanship.

Later had a Vietnamese style coffee made by Amy's brother and his son. The beans are great, flavours good, but just not espresso quality.

Looks like I'll wait until I get home, for me it's got to be the highest standard or none at all. Cafe snobbery, sure.

Lila's injury and the Chinese hospital experience

Poor Lila was injured by her naughty brother.

She came back from the children's hospital with some straps and pad not well placed. But at least no stitches.

These hospital pics are from the follow-up visit the next day.

One pic shows a long line-up to register again. The line was actually quick, but we found out we were in the wrong line. This was for the first visit.

The picture with the massive line-up was the correct queue. Instead of waiting again and be told go somewhere else, Amy went to a little info window. That resorted to the traditional Chinese push in and get served if you are louder and more pushy. No order.

After getting a ticket for line 4, Amy decided to jump the long queue like a few others did. Interesting to note that no one complained about ppl doing this. That's another cultural thing. I would certainly have spat the dummy at someone doing that.

Then we went upstairs. Thankfully the next floor, which looked more like a train station, wasn't our destination. The floor further up luckily was not so crowded.

This chaos is more unique to this place because it's the main Nanjing children's hospital.

Also different to our system is that you have to pay upfront to get the bandages, antiseptics, swabs etc. And yes you have to pay for the service.

Australia it seems is much more 'communist' than China with our Medicare.

When comparing the experience to Lila's recent trip to Canberra hospital for her dog bite, the Chinese system wins hands down. Yes more chaotic, but so much faster and efficient. The doctors aren't farting around and the nurses aren't sitting around waiting for slow paced doctors. We didn't sit their waiting for ages between consultations like in the Aussie public system.

The Australian medical system really needs a shake up for general injuries and illnesses. Yes they are caring and friendly, but way too slow placed. Just like the public circus.