The 2020 coronavirus tour

During the planning for this trip it was identified more as the 80th birthday celebration for “Grandma and Grandpa”, Chinese New year tour. As time drew near reports began to come out of China of a new virus. By the time I got there on Tuesday the 21st it was a serious item although the temperature checking station at the airport was not manned. We spent Wednesday  just wondering around central Beijing and although it was slow and lightly crowded that is not unusual for the New Year period. There was not an unusual amount of mask wearing or anything like that but it did start to pick up later in the day as more news started to be reported about deaths and the spread of the virus. That night was the big birthday dinner about a block from Marys sister and Grandma and Grandpas apartment. Here is Mary on the way to prepare the table.

She got talked into the mask. As you can see here earlier in the day there was no mask. There is a reconstruction of old Beijing in the basement of a department store that we went to. The Buddha was in a refrigerated room with water and snow.

It had a replica of the type of house she lived in for 5 or 6 years with the wash basin in the front.The front door.

So we got to the room to prepare the table and order food (which in China is always an hours long event).

The bucket of roses was added to the center piece.

The long task of ordering food got underway.

This thing, which I’m still not sure what it is, got unwrapped.

I contemplated why tea cups never have handles thus burning your fingers.

The group photo was taken.

First of many toasting things.

A couple of the food items devoured.

Many pictures were taken.

The mystery centerpiece was packed up.

After event activities took place.

The next day we spent some time at Tiantan park (Heavens Gate) which is the park just over it’s wall from where Mary grew up. This was the day that Wuhan was put on lock down but the park was lightly populated (for China) and not a lot of masks being worn.

Mary’s apartment building is being redone or tore down or something. This is the rooms she grew up in (2 windows on the second floor).

Her grade school.

While on the walking street leading from Tiananmen square I noticed this China coffee chain sign that, in my opinion, for a Chinese sign maker that does not know English they would be just 2 small lines from disaster.

Thursday night we had a hot pot dinner planned at the hot pot place in the Beijing News building. When we got there we had to have our temperature taken to get in. We all got there in preparation to the big hot potting.

The pots got heated and the event was on.

A hot pot.

The many rounds of toasts starts.

and the finale.

New Years eve was spent just hanging out. When we went back to the hotel about 10pm there was absolutely no one around. Between not allowing fireworks anymore and the virus I guess everyone decided to stay home. The next morning it was back to he apartment for some dumplings and then on to the airport for the flight to Japan.

Everything went well until we got on the plane. We passed our temperature checks and were on time. We were almost ready to fire up the engines and leave when the cabin crew started going back and forth to the back of the plane. After a long time they took a bunch of people off and then after waiting for another half hour or so all of us had to get off and stand in buses while guys in the white environmental suits did stuff.

Then they took us back to the gate. It seems that a couple people had temperatures and/or someone knew someone in Wuhan, or something so they kicked 12 people off the flight, sterilized the plane and replaced the food. We finally took off and got to our hotel about midnight 6 hours late.

The next day we started touring Osaka. We hit the Koromon market a 2 or 3 block shopping street with food stalls and other type of stuff.

Mary had some seafood thing that I don’t remember what it was.

I took a picture because it was OK.

We had some Kobe Beef that is way to expensive to eat. It needs to be framed and hung on the wall.

While in Japan we had a couple teppanyaki dinners and a couple 2 hour multi course big plate small food dinners. Soup for the one in Osaka looked like this  as did the one in Kyoto.

 

The one  in Osaka was on the 10th floor of a random building in the back corner. It only had room for about 10 people and no one spoke English and the other in Kyoto in a little place near the hotel that was French Japanese, whatever that is. It also only held about 10 people and also basically didn’t speak English and the desert course was not pecan pie.

While in Osaka we did visit the Osaka castle which was basically another old big building.

When we got to Kyoto Mary had learned that the opening of the plants had been delayed for at least a week and that the city of Wuhu had been locked down. So we spent a couple mornings buying masks and going to the post office to mail them back to China so the plants would have them on hand whenever they started back up. About this time a run on masks was starting in Japan and many places were limiting how many you could buy. Also Chinese tourists were hitting the stores with their suitcases.

In Kyoto we spent quite a bit of our time in the small alleys where many of the restaurants were.

Friday we left for Tokyo via the bullet train.

Mary had an early Saturday flight. Her business in Europe got canceled as I guess they didn’t want to meet with any Chinese at this time and she couldn’t find a reasonable flight directly home so she revised her European flights to get home that way. My flight was early that evening so I spent the day in the lounge before boarding. I got home Saturday night and Mary got home Sunday night. Neither of us had any issues questions or searches coming through customs so I guess ol’ Trumpster didn’t get that worried about the virus after all.

One last thing. With the dinner we had in Tokyo we had a bottle of wine.

May have to get a bottle so that we can drink while sitting on Beauregard de bathroom.

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