Our partners at Tatung were working on some issues today, and there was little for us to do at the factory.  So, Sunday became a day off.

 

In one sense, it was a frustrating day.  I have not been able all day to reach Max.  I’ve tried email, telephone, cell phone, but no luck on any front.  I’m not brave enough, I’m sorry to say, to wade into Shanghai on my own speaking zero Chinese, so I spent the day at the hotel.  I don’t know why wandering around Tokyo speaking about fifteen words of Japanese (none of which can be strung together to form a sentence beyond “My name is Kobb.” and “Thank you.”) doesn’t intimidate me the same way.  Probably because I expect that I’m more likely to find somebody in Japan who speaks English if I’m really stuck.  And, because Dave has given me some tips on things to do and see.

 

I really hate the idea of coming to somebody’s country and having absolutely no grasp of the language.  But, this trip was on such short notice that there was just no chance to do anything but look up some phrases on the Internet.  And, I’m totally flummoxed by tonally inflected languages like Chinese, so I’m sure even my poor attempts to say “please” and “thank-you” are incomprehensible.

 

Lost in Translation

When I ate at the teppan yaki on Saturday night, I went alone, so I took my current book with me.  When I left, I was so dazed by the many delicious courses that I left my book behind.

 

I realized my mistake Sunday morning as I prepared to go and have lunch (I had hoped to have something like a cheese burger, but it was not to be).  So, I walked back down to the teppan yaki to see if they had my book.  Suffice it to say that the very friendly and helpful staff have a limited, job-specific English vocabulary.  I was rapidly escalated to the restaurant manager, who rapidly escalated via her cell phone to the front desk.  The front desk translated by cell, and I left wondering whether truly the message had been conveyed.  However, after returning to my room from my walk around the lake and grounds, my book was on the table with a note from the desk.  Hooray.

 

Speaking of Sunday lunch, it turns out that the restaurant does brunch on Sunday, buffet style.  I started with some shitake mushrooms and baby Chinese greens, added some veal (I think) scaloppini and a slice of pretty decent pizza.  On the side, some “Caesar salad” (romaine with Caesar dressing).

 

As I was walking back to my table, I spied a cold curried chicken salad that looked too tempting to pass up, so I went back for some of that for seconds.  It was really good, and not very spicy.

 

Breakfasts on other days have been buffet style at the hotel’s Western restaurant (the Ziga Zaga – named perhaps after the Zig-Zag bridge by the lake?).  They have a very nice breakfast buffet spread, as well as made-to-order omelets or scrambled eggs.  Additionally, there is a spread of Asian-style breakfast foods, which honestly were somewhat frightening so I stayed away.  (What on Earth did they do to those eggs to turn them that color?!)  I must say that my favorite was the plain “Dannone” yogurt with strawberry jam stirred in.  Yum.

 

Incidentally, China is awash in dot-matrix LED signs.  Obviously, this makes total sense given the writing system and its need for flexible displays.  It’s just sort of interesting that they’re all over the place, indoors and out.

 

Smell of the day.

Today, I spent most of my time out by the lake, so the smell of the day is lakeshore.  You know that smell -- sort of like the ocean but not salty.  The smell of water and plants.  The water in the lake isn’t very clear, but it doesn’t seem to be overly dirty and there were boaters and at least one person doing some kind of farming/fishing/something (see above!).