Our Italian Dinner in China

This morning we went to our friends' apartment, an couple from Italy, Stefania and Damiano who have been in a previous blog entry.  They fixed a wonderful Italian meal for us complete with delicious bottles of wine and we were in heaven! 

Stefania and Damiano live in a very modern, gorgeous apartment in Hangzhou.  We tried to see if they would trade apartments with us, but they weren't so interested :).  Here I am holding some plates while Stefania serves.


Damiano and Tim shooting the breeze over a bottle of delicious Italian wine.


Peter, Jack and Sophie loved hanging out on their comfortable couch, watching their big screen TV.


Sophie was happy to help Stefania with the dessert process!


The boys, looking at a map of America.  Stefania and Damiano took a 5000 mile drive across America (Kansas City to L.A.), and they traced their path for us.


Enjoying cake and wine for dessert...


Sophie loved being in their apartment, playing with their wooden Japanese shoes. CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP!  People always know when Sophie is around!
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Lately we've been having trouble getting money out of the cash machine.  It always gives us weird messages like the network is down, or our overdraft limit has been reached.  So we try to hit every one we see, and keep extra cash on hand.  One that works one day, may not work another day!

Since credit cards are rarely used here, everything is based on cash.  I bought 5 plane tickets to Guilin, and again I had to meet a man on a street corner with 9000 quai in my pocket (about $1100 US) which was more than 90 bills.  I had to plan several days in advance since the cash machine only allows us to withdraw around 2000 quai per day. 

On our way home from Stefania and Damiano's,  I went thru this "drive thru" machine :).  It was a cold, rainy night so luckily I  only had to visit one!  Thank goodness it worked!