Just a quick update …

I spent a lovely Sunday afternoon with the family and some neighbor friends at a hole-in-the-wall “dive” Chinese sidewalk restaurant with doll-sized stools to sit on.  The restaurant’s family owners cook delicious Schezuan cuisine despite our being in Yunnan Province.  Altogether 6 amazing vegetarian dishes ordered for five people cost us RMB 55 … or about US$ 9 total, service included.

The most exciting part of the weekend arrived late Sunday afternoon, when one of my brothers’ Chinese friends and business partner drove a new handicap-accessible “London Taxi” right into our driveway!  Our friend’s name is Shaojun, and his cross-country trip from Shenzhen covered 2,000 km in 3 days.  What a great family friend Shaojun is!

And yes, you heard right …  an actual London Taxi.  All London taxicabs are required by law to be handicap-accessible, and, despite being built in Shanghai in recent years, there were only two for sale in all of China!  Seems only 1000 of these hand-made cars are built each year, and obviously almost all of them are exported to England, because in London about 1,000 taxis are worn out and retired each year..

So, picture this … already it appears that I am the only blonde quadriplegic chick in a power wheelchair in a city of 6 million.  Now, I am almost positive I will be the only one tooling around in a black London Taxi … not to mention the gold dragons I intend to have painted on each side!

Sometimes I wish I could video for you all the looks the Chinese give me every day when I am rolling down the sidewalk in my Permobil wheelchair.  They usually stop and stare…  and then a huge grin comes over their faces as they give me two thumbs up and say in Chinese “hen hao,” which means “great!”

I’m headed over to the hospital to workout right now and should have an update on the exact details of the surgery shortly, which I will share with you all tomorrow.  Meanwhile, here are some snapshots from Sunday …

Shaojun + Family With Made-in-China London Taxi

Sidewalk Schezuan Restaurant

Tiffany diving into authentic Chinese food

The gang out for lunch with great new friend and neighbor, Pierre

Tiffany + Ali setting off for a “cigar stroll” … 🙂