First snow and a hot pot

Shanghai doesn't get much snow, according to O, our friend who is also Mr. T's China-based colleague. So, because I subscribe to the "Travel is not so much about having fun as just immersing yourself in a completely different milieu" philosophy of globetrotting, we dragged O up to the Timberline Lodge yesterday. Mt. Hood received as much snow in an hour yesterday as Shanghai probably has in the last 25 years. O was surprised by the depth of the cold, but the shutter on his camera was tripping frequently, so I'm hoping the trip at least left an impression.

For my part, I was delighted to unearth my favorite winter jacket from the closet and feel the snow beneath my feet again. (It won't be long, though, before I'm whining about the loss of my beloved summer.)

After my gastrointestinal adventures in China last spring, I determined to do my best to take care of O on his most recent trip to the States. Mr. T and I both found Asian food almost unbearable even to look at toward the end of our trip. So expecting that O would have a similar reaction to Western food, we decided to get him more Asian food toward the end of his visit. To his great credit, O is willing to try almost anything (as Mr. T is when he goes to China). Since he arrived, he's eaten a smoked salmon omelette with hollaindaise sauce at a French bistro we frequent, Mexican tortilla soup, and a number of offerings on their brief trip to rural Arkansas last week to which he could only react with a shudder.

"How's O doing with the food?" I asked Mr. T over the phone during their trip to Arkansas.

"Oh, about as well as I do in Yangjiang," he snickered with a small but regrettable note of schadenfreude no doubt produced by one too many meals of sea worms and elephant snails.

O's chief complaint is that everything tastes the same here (and no doubt like crap, though he leaves this part out). So you can imagine the gusto with which he greeted the hot pot meal we had arranged with the same Taiwanese friend who had held it last year. Last night was the first time I saw him approach a meal without looking a wee bit like a man walking to the gallows. O takes great pains to be a polite, considerate guest, but you can see the weariness in his eyes.

After our meal last night (during which TK actually sampled a slice of lotus root), there was a definite spring in O's step. Today we left him in the care of one of Mr. T's co-workers who hails from mainland China, so I suspect he ate well again.

And after that, he only has two more days before he can go home and get some decent food.

I know just how he feels.