Happy Anniversary!

We celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary by going out for a lovely dinner. This is no small task for us here, going out for dinner. We haven't been able to eat out at restaurants much because we're basically illiterate.

The Chinese food that we're used to in the West is mainly Cantonese style. The food I'm used to at home is also Cantonese style since my family comes from the Canton region. The cuisine in the northern part of China is quite different so we've been craving more familiar dishes.

We learned of this Cantonese restaurant in town and was happy to hear that it had English AND photos in the menus. Bonus! We took the bus to a newer area of Jinan and walked along clean, tree-lined streets to get to the Shandong Hotel. The Cantonese restaurant was one of 3 restaurants at this fancy hotel. They also had a Brazilian BBQ and a Western restaurant (whatever that means).

We had a nice dinner with attentive servers. We didn't get to pour our own tea once! Don was supposed to have gone to a football game that evening. He was able to catch glimpses of it at the restaurant because they had the game on in the restaurant and then again on the bus on the way home. Yes, they have tv's on some of the buses here. We had a nice, independent evening and even got to take home leftovers - Chow Ho Fun :)