Go-between

On Friday, May 1 2015

<<Dear Dana,

How have you been these days? Where are you now? Europe or USA?

I am back of course. And safe trip. Don't worry. Sicily trip is wonderful.

Sicily is dry, warm in daytime and cold at night. At the last day I caught a cold and my voice didn't work. Sicily is beautiful, but not as breathtaking as South Africa. Sicily is a bit similar to Cape Town too, the rocky mountains and the Mediterranean sometimes reminded me of South Africa. But South Africa is more picturesque. When those tall, slim black men were walking, I thought they were walking in a picture. 😀

But there is a Volcano in Sicily, and there are many ancient buildings, such as Greek buildings, or other old buildings built with lava in Sicily. In Catania there are many churches. I walked around Canatia for nearly 3 hours too before I went to the airport. I lost my way there and could not find my way back to the hotel. A local man with his cute son gave me a drive back to the hotel:-) I think those white children are very very very cute! Tall, slim, white face, red lips, long eyelash, big eyes, like the dolls I played when I was a kid;-) There are many churches in Canatia too, but smaller.

In Taormina there is Teatro Greco. The photo I sent you in attachment was taken in the Teatro Greco… In the first two days I was in the western Sicily, and then later I was in the eastern Sicily. I met a British writer there. She has published 3 books. She was very nice to me. Though she is at my mother’s age, yet she is very funny. After dinner we were supposed to taste wines and talked to the wineries owners, but she and I slipped outside to see the night view of Taormina. There are more than 100 journalists, writers there, most of them from Europe, America, Canada, Australia, only 3 from Japan,3 from China (including me), and 1 from Korean. Those 2 Japanese were very unpopular, because they always asked the winery owners to post a certain pose and took photos while other journalists had to go out such could not talk to the owners. Most of them are at my mom’s age, some are middle-age, a few are at my age. But I was not nervous, because they were all very kind to me.

In Sicily potato is delicious. Gosh you people eat such kind of yummy food! I can understand why westerners consider potato as main food because they taste great! And the rice in Sicily tastes terrible, so I can understand why westerners won’t consider rice as main food. 🙂 The potato I cook in China tastes terrible. The potato in restaurants in China tastes terrible too. How do you cook your potato? Or you don’t cook?

Those winery owners, workers live in those beautiful wineries with vineyards, hills, trees surrounding them. Like a paradise, like a picture. Far away from city, sometimes I wonder if it is boring to live there. Countryside is beautiful but it is quite boring, big cities like Beijing are terrible, so city like Paris, Munich are good, not so many people, but life is convenient.

From HK to Munich, 11 hours. From Munich to Catania or Palermo, 2 hours. Transfer flight causes 3-6 hours. So I had enough time to visit Munich. :

The city centre of Munich is great. The church in the city center is as wonderful as Notre Dame de Paris:-) Though in different styles;-) When I went out of the the subway station in Paris, Notre Dame de Paris stood in front of me, splendid and perfect. And today when I went out of the subway station in Munich, the church in the city centre also stood in front of me, under the blue sky, ancient with history, just like covering many stories. The bell was ringing;-) Birds were flying. I walked around it.

I bought a single-one-day-visit-train ticket to the city centre, 12 euro. But when I went into the train, nobody or no machine checked my ticket. And when I returned, my ticket is not checked either. Does that mean that I can take a train without buying a ticket? Lol! Or European people won’t do these things? Lol if it was in China, nobody will but the ticket:-)

And this is my trip to Sicily. Good trip. I went to Italy, but couldn’t visit Roma, Venice, Florence…but Munich! Funny! I hope in the coming future I can visit the mainland of Italy and I can control my air tickets. This time to Sicily, I have no other choice because they offered me tickets and the tickets didn’t allow me to stay even 1 more day in Europe!

You take care! Wish you a safe trip to USA.

Hug and kiss!

Jiemei >>

Simply, I love the way she writes and of course I have her consent for sharing the letter. She’s a very talented journalist, a keen observer, the style is unaltered, straight forward and passionate. Many thanks for this beautiful journey, my petite friend.