Whenever I finish a tour blog I realize that there is no way to convey the hardships, small and large, that we share; the separation from family, friends, hobbies, familiar surroundings, the endless hours spent in lines at hotels and airports, the loneliness of hotel rooms, the frustration of not being able to read a menu or order a meal in a foreign language….it certainly looks exciting to travel the world, playing concerts in great concert halls with Zubin, but at the end of the day, work is work and it is certainly no summer camp.
With that in mind, one meal will stick in my memory from the Far East tour…here recorded in photos. Imagine a street restaurant in Xiamen; 3 tables, a Styrofoam fish tank, charcoal grill. Our waitress greets us, pulls a fish out for us to inspect, weighs our dinner, then proceeds to knock it out and gut it on the floor.
In 4 minutes he’s roasting over charcoals, and 8 minutes later submersed in soup with mushrooms, potatoes, zucchini, radishes and hot peppers. When he arrives at the table, our fish friend is boiling away in a vegetable broth, bottom pan is water, second pan in charcoals and the top is our fish. We go at it with chop sticks!
….a true China experience!