The very first thing Chelsea and I did after hugging and laughing, was talk and talk about this and that and the other.
Isn't that how it is when you first see someone you love? No matter where you are you, first need to catch up, soak in the moment, reconnect… then you can enter into the reality of where you are: In our case China.
The very next thing we did was to declare, we were hungry.
Food, oh the comfort.
We headed towards one of the few remaining neighborhoods that hasn't been engulfed by a massive skyscraper.
Community life is evident on each inch of sidewalk.
I pointed, "Is that a bicyclist with a man sitting on top of a heap of Hershey's chocolate boxes?"
"We have a way of following our noses!" Chelsea laughed.
We had fresh sugar cane juice.
The street vendors peel the giant stalks, then squeeze it fresh.
Delicious.
Nearby on a wooden table a man made rice flour sesame seed flat bread. The interior had a sesame seed filling. The flat bread is cooked inside a large tiled, kilm like oven.
Standing side by side with Chelsea, on a small street in Shanghai; with the first sip of fresh sugar cane juice and a bite of hot-from-the-oven, sesame flat bread, I knew it was worth the journey back to China.
I asked Chelsea if she had a plan of action for the next two weeks…
"Eat and shop?" she said with her mouth full.
"Now shopping that is something Daddy won't miss out on…" I beamed,
and Chelsea added, "And we don't want him to feel left out!"
I felt like I was sixteen at that moment. Food, shopping and hanging out with a girlfriend.
Later in the evening, when we arrived at the hotel, a message from French Husband was waiting for us…
He mangled his finger while putting the Mosquito (his ULM plane) back in the hangar.
It is torn up badly.
Poor left handed guy.
It almost made shopping feel disrespectful.
Fortunately, he is not alone, he is staying with our dear friends Nathalie and Jean Bernard at La Madone.
_________
Note:
Thank you to the readers who caught and corrected my mislabeled fruit error this morning.
Not Jack Fruit, but Sugar Cane.
xx
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