Dinner for Lin Qing and Minhua

Linda gave me and Joyce the best present we've received this trip: the afternoon off. She took care of Juliet, and we scurried off to shop and rediscover each other. I found it quite a relief--the woman I married, once again paying full attention to me! For a large chunk of the last week and a half, she's been mommy more than my Joyce. It was nice to have her back.

When we returned from shopping, Linda told us that the other two families were taking Lin Qing and Minhua out to dinner at the Silk Road, the French restaurant in the hotel. So we scurried down and met up with them just in time. Here's a couple of photos of the sorbet palate-cleanser between appetizers and entrees, whose presentation was a knockout (see for yourself).



Sorry that the photos are so dark; Joyce disabled the flash to avoid spooking babies. In the first photo, Paul is on the left; Christine is the blur left of the candle, Minhua is the very dark outline right of the candle, and Heidi is on the right (Steve is behind Heidi, and Maeve and Tara are in strollers below the table, so you can't see them). In the second photo, I'm on the left with Juliet, talking (in my fubared Chinese) with Lin Qing.

Over dinner, Lin and I talked a bit; it was nice to get to know her better. She has a nine-year old daughter and lives with her husband in Wuzhao, which is about a five-hour bus ride upriver from Guangzhou. She also hosts an orphan girl with what sounds like a scholarship from Alliance for Children to attend a local college. I fumbled terribly, and eventually failed to explain to Lin that my Aunt Jean is a terrific cook in part because she trained as a chemist. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to explain "chemist" to Lin--the closest I could come was "a person who makes medicines for their job, but not someone who sells them." Which is an indication of how bad my Chinese is, I'm afraid.