Chinese Version 01-08-2024, Monday, Sunny
Last night, one of my daughter’s coworker S and her husband invited us to their house to have hot pot. S put a cooked cuttlefish ball in each of our bowls. My daughter and Alex didn’t eat it, so I ate three at a time. The cuttlefish ball was a very new thing to me and I liked the chewy texture and the seafood flavor. I looked at the black ping-pong sized cuttlefish balls floating in the boiling hot pot and gradually picked up and ate three more balls during the dinner while drinking a mango-flavored beer for the first time.
While eating hot pot, we were chatting casually about work and pleasure. S asked me how was my trip to Peru. I am happy to share my trip so I quickly said a lot: “This is my first time traveling in a group and I had a great time! Machu Picchu is spectacular and worth a visit! Most of our 30-people tour group were empty-nest couples over 50 years old. I also got to chat with many of them who were from South Africa, Australia, Romania, Greece, Malaysia, and Singapore.” These words refreshed my memory of my trip to Peru last November…
I spent the 2023 Thanksgiving in Cuzco, Peru.
On Thanksgiving, people who continued on the group touring left the hotel at 6 a.m., and rest of us who already completed the 6-day group tour needed to check out of the hotel before 11 a.m.
I went to the hotel cafe for the free breakfast buffet at 8:30 a.m. There were more than ten tables but just a few people dining in the cafe with many Christmas decorations. I poured a glass of fresh papaya juice, sat at an empty table and slowly drank my newly discovered favorite juice as I liked its soft thick fresh taste and its soft bright orange color.
I thought it would be a quiet Thanksgiving breakfast alone, but thanks to like-minded people, I enjoyed a chatty Thanksgiving breakfast with three of my tour group members.
After drinking two glasses of papaya juice, Leann who is from South Africa came over. We exchanged names on the first day of the tour and got to know each other through casual chats over the past few days’ traveling and eating together. She is single, a doctor, a lecturer at a medical school, a great cook who enjoys cooking and entertaining. After saying good morning to each other, she sat next to me on my right side. While I was drinking papaya juice and eating scrambled eggs and baby potatoes, she was tasting her plain coffee. She said to me: “Have you noticed that the coffee here is very strong?” I replied: “Oh, I haven’t had any coffee yet as I only drink fresh papaya juice.”
Then, Mag and Paul, a tall couple from Australia, came. Mag is lean with light brown shoulder-length straight hair and Paul is muscular with a white beard. I haven’t had a chance to chat with them yet, but Leann knew them well and invited them to join us at the same table. When they went to get their food, Leann told me: “Mag runs a wedding ceremony service（not a wedding planner service), and when they travel, they put their house on AirBnb for rent.” Hearing this, I said with admiration: “I can imagine they must be very good at management!”
When Mag and Paul brought their food and drinks sat down on my left, I turned my head and introduced myself: “I am retired and on vacation from taking care of my two young grandchildren. Do you have any grandchildren?” Mag said with a noticeable British accent: “We have five children and four grandchildren and our eldest grandson is 14 years old.” At this time, a familiar song was playing in the cafe and I asked hesitantly: “Is this Adele’s song?” Leann firmly replied: “Yes, it is hers!” Mag said: “It doesn’t sound like Adele is singing.” I also said: “Yes, it is not her voice.” Leann smiled and said: “That’s not surprising, re-singing a famous singer’s songs is common in South America.”
There was no wine for breakfast in the cafe, but the well-known Adele brought us closer together and also made me want to chat. I showed them my grandson and granddaughter, the cover photo of my phone. Mag also showed us photos of her four-year-old granddaughter dressed up on her phone. I looked at Mag’s doll-like granddaughter and said, “Her pink dress is so pretty!” Mag said, “This is the dress I made for her and she also asked me to make a small flower basket of the same color.” I looked carefully in the photo and saw the little girl is holding a pink basket. I said to Mag: “You made pretty dresses and nice flower baskets. Unfortunately, I can only make short skirts.” I found a photo of the three short skirts I made for my daughter a few years ago on my photo and showed it to Mag. Mag looked at the short skirts on the photo and said: “The patterns of the skirts are very unique, especially the one with angel pattern.” I said: “My daughter also likes this angel pattern skirt. But I haven’t touched a sewing machine for a while now as my eyesight is getting worse.” Mag said: “After I had my eye surgery, I have no trouble using a sewing machine and often use it.” She talked about the eye surgery she had done. I smiled and said: “I’m afraid of pain and surgery. Because of this, many years ago, I didn’t get a laser surgery to correct my nearsightedness.” Mag laughed. Leann was not interested in sewing so she and Paul were chatting about our travel experiences.
After chatting about sewing, we all talked about afterthoughts of our six-day group tour. Leann said: “I think the people in our group are very nice and we had a good time together for a few days.” Mag said: “The tour guide also said that our group is a easy one to handle as everyone agrees on the trip schedule.” I said: “This is my first time join a group tour, I had great time chatting with people from many different places.”
At this time, Paul looked in front of him and said, “That lady is about to collapse.” I then turned my head and saw three people sitting around a table on my right. One of them, a young lady was swaying her upper body, seemingly about to lose consciousness. One of her friends fed her something, I guess some medicine, and she quickly stopped swaying. After watching this realistic short drama about altitude sickness, I asked casually: “Have you experienced altitude sickness?” Leann said: “No, because I took medicine in advance.” Mag said: “We didn’t take medicine and didn’t feel much discomfort..” I said: “My altitude sickness is much worse than I expected, so this trip to Machu Picchu is my first and last.” Mag said: “Oh, I wouldn’t mind visiting Machu Picchu again.” She turned to look at Paul and said, “We wouldn’t mind visiting Machu Picchu again, right?” Paul nodded with a sweet smile. Mag said again: “We may not come again. The world is so big and there are so many other places we still want to visit.” I thought for a while and said: “The world is big and I had wanted to visit Machu Picchu for a long time. I brought the photos of my late parents and nanny with me on this trip. After visiting Machu Picchu, one of the seven wonders of the world, I realized that even if they are still alive, they would not be able to visit Machu Picchu in person as they cannot bear the altitude sickness and the bumpy journey.” Mag said: “The tour guide also said that you brought the photos of your late parents with you to visit Machu Picchu. Would you mind showing me the photo?” At this moment, Leann’s phone rang, she said it was her mother calling and left the table to talk on the phone.
I took out the color photo of my late parents and the black-and-white photo of my late nanny from my small satchel and handed them to Mag. She looked at the color photo of my parents and handed it to her husband. She looked at the black-and-white photo of my nanny carefully and asked curiously: “How many years ago did your nanny pass away?” I said: “More than ten years ago. Oh. Recently, my brother went back to our hometown and visited her grave. We found on her tombstone our names were side-by-side with her sons’ names and we were treated as her children on the tombstone.” Mag asked carefully after thinking about it: “Was it your nanny’s idea to put your names on her tombstone?” This was the first time I heard this question. I thought about it and said, “It was probably not her idea as she had Alzheimer’s disease a few years before she passed away. Maybe it was her sons’ idea.” I explained more: “My brother was just half a year old when my nanny came to our house. She lived with us for more than ten years, and she left after my brother and I went to college, so she had taken care of me since I was born.” Mag commented: “You are a family!” Mag asked those questions because she was really interested in my nanny on the photo. I hope my nanny in heaven is satisfied with what I said about her.
On Thanksgiving Day, thanks to bumping into like-minded people in Cuzco, Peru, in South America, a couple from Australia got to know my late nanny from China during our casual conversation at breakfast.
Before saying goodbye, we had a photo at the cafe to remember the happy moment far from our homeland in Cuzco Peru.
Little more
11-16-2023, The story about I had a great time on my first day to Lima Peru.
In early 2019, The story about I made three short skirts for my daughter who just lived in the winter in Massachusetts for the first time.
https://puddleofgold.org/?p=2850