Happy New Years Eve from Lishui, China

Gentle Reader,

Happy New Years Eve!!! We were in Lishui, staying at a lovely hotel called the Lishui Military Guest House. The grounds had a beautiful park setting, with trees and water and places to just sit and talk. Right outside our hotel room, the drying rack for the pork could be found.

We spent the afternoon wandering about town. Found some shopping areas that contained a great deal of china, statues, tea sets, etc.. Behind this area, we found a store which supplies dishware to restaurants -- rows and rows of plates and bowls. As we explored further, we found my favorite place to go in China ... the market! This was an extremely large indoor market, yet unheated. Every kind of meat could be found here, and the fish were so fresh that they were jumping off the counter. The vegetables were amazingly colorful. A lively place filled with people picking up ingredients for their dinner that evening.

On our way to the concert that night, we encountered a full wedding party entering the hotel, in very expensive cars. We felt a bit sorry for them, having to have this entourage of Westerners show up at the hotel later in the evening after the concert, but their party was over (or had moved to another location) by the time we returned to the hotel.

We had a beautiful dinner to ring in the new year. Heard all of the "how we met" relationship stories at our particular table, which were all quite fascinating. We were surrounded by couples very much in love with one another. A good place to be to welcome 2016!!! There were, as is custom in China, many, many toasts leading up to midnight. Bottle of champagne were brought to each table, so we even had some bubbly to greet the new year. This was not China's official new year, but they made it a special event for us anyway. I would love, love, love to be here sometime for China's Lunar New Year, which is usually sometime in February.

Happy New Year! May you find happiness, peace, and contentment in this new year... Gan Bei!!!!

Namaste,
Marianne/Bailing