Monday morning, Nov 30

Monday morning, Nov 30 in China means Sunday night November 29 at home. I am recovering from either a case of food poisoning or a 24 hour stomach bug. It wasn't too bad, but did include a fever and lots of discomfort. Soooo, ole Dane is home alone at the "gongyu" (apartment) today, keeping her own company. Sally got here last night, which is great. Momma and Poppa Nagle and sick Dana and Sally had a funny night in this small apartment, with various combinations of people being up and down all night and conversing for various reasons. I was in the weird world of fever, Sally was in the weird world of jet lag, and who knows what weird world the parents were in. Probably the weird world be of being super excited for another English speaking person to talk to. Fresh blood.
After I write for this blog I will probably entertain myself by sitting in the back window and watching restaurant
Sally and I are going to try to hire a driver to take us to a place called Shanhaiguan pass. It is the place where the Great Wall goes into the sea, and it's about 3 hours north of here. It will be nice to get out of Tianjin, which is very industrial and grey and ugly. I hate to call the home of 11 million people ugly, but it just is. Lots of days there is a haze of smog or fog or a combination of the 2 so thick it makes me feel like I am half awake all day. You can't see very far and the sun weirdly filters through (if it filters through at all). I am surprised Mom and Jenna are not suffering vitamin D deficiency for being here 3 months.
I am including photos of the city. I like a blur and foggy aspects of some of the photos, because that is sort of how it is here for me- foggy and blurry- the days smush into each other in a cold bizarre haze. The street shots are of the walk from the apartment to the hospital. The big pink building at the end of one of the photos is the hospital. It is actually called the First Teaching Hospital Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine International Medical Rehabilitation Mansion. I kid you not. I am also including a picture of the hospital at night, with the name all lit up in red. Did I already mention that they treat 4000 outpatients a day and there are 1000 inpatient sick beds? More people cram into the elevators there than I would have to a party...
The picture of the hazy skyline is the view from Jenna's room.