Days Go Slower and Slower

It seems time is taking some time because days, hours, minutes don't seem to pass. Most of our friends have returned home already and it's only four of us who usually get together to go out. The new people that have arrived here are from different countries and do not socialize at all. I guess that there are no more families with kids so it's a little different. When we got here, we where five families with kids and basically treating our kids for the exact same condition.


We went out last night to a local market where we could find Chinese arts and crafts among other stuff. I have become a fan of green tea, so I bought different kinds to try them out. I bought green tea as well as Jasmin tea which in particular caught my attention. The Jasmin tea comes from a flower, so basically the tea consists of the dried flower that looks almost like a little ball, a marble perhaps, but when mixed with hot water it opens up and delivers the flavor. It is very good and I was told it is very healthy.


The main difference with the tea they drink here is that forget about the little tea bags where the crushed leave is inside. Here, you will find the leaves themselves and sometimes seeds that you just mix directly with water. There are of course drinking cups in which you put these tea leaves inside a filter so you don't end up chewing them. Not the case with me, I am drinking green tea a la Chinese, leaves and all floating around my glass. I feel I am going to get some between my teeth and end up looking as if I ate guacamole with too much cilantro. Do you get the picture? Imagine one smiling after that!


A funny thing happened yesterday and I had to capture it on video. Remember how I mentioned that for the Chinese we are completely strange people and that they will stare at you just as if you where Matt Damon walking by Sawgrass Mall any given Sunday? Well, it happened to us yesterday, but they don't just stare at you, they gather and block you and start taking pictures and everything, it's very weird but very interesting to experience. Some even want to touch the babies which we of course do not allow; it is not a racism reaction, is just that we don't know where those hands have been, specially with a flu going around. First there is a picture of how the local market looked like, then the video so you can understand what I'm saying:

After going shopping around there, we went to a pizzeria located on West Lake. This is the same place we went for lunch last Sunday but let me tell you, there are few places where you can have a pizza as they do in this place! It's a thin crust, oven baked to perfection with just the enough amount of cheese and toppings. After all, I have to let go of the Chinese food for a while, it's what I have for lunch and dinner almost everyday at the hospital. By the way something I didn't mention before and you might be asking, is why do we spend so much time at the hospital when there are no injections. They have restrictions in terms of us going out one day before and one day after an injection, so we have to take advantage of those days that allow us to go out. The treatments for stem cell transplantation are done only Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, so if we have treatment tomorrow, we can't go out today or Saturday.


Another thing I discovered is the rooftop access for this hospital, so I went up there and took a short video of how this part of Hangzhou looks like. This area is called Xiaoshan and it is within the city of Hangzhou.

Marujita is having her sixth stem cell treatment tomorrow (fifth spinal), and the last one will take place next Wednesday. I guess everything will be good because she can be properly sedated now and shouldn't feel a thing. All I hope is that she will sleep because if she sleeps, we sleep; if she doesn't sleep, we don't sleep, very simple. And FYI, I think I have slept not interrupted two nights only, so I will take revenge when I get back to Miami. I'm tired, really tired.


Here's a picture with one of the nurses (there must be around twelve in total) taken on the night we had a little party for Pedro who was going back home the next day.

All I can say right now is that I miss my kids very bad. I miss my family, I miss my friends, my house, my bed, my shower, my car, my office, damn, I miss everything so much! Hopefully this eight days remaining will pass quickly so we can go back home and rest for the weekend while we get our lives back to schedule. It took me around three days to get used to the twelve hour difference, and I am not expecting something different once we are back in Miami.


I will tell you all about the spinal tomorrow, but for now, love you all unconditionally, always and forever.

Tuto.38