Dinner first night

At this point we were more than ready for dinner. We went to a wonderful Chinese restaurant which had photos on the wall that were of Chinese stars. We were the only Westerners in the place. We ate in an upstairs dining room for non-smokers which was nice. The food was excellent. I couldn't tell you what it was but I enjoyed it.

When I had the microwave popcorn I got a red face from the MSG in it. I had mentioned to the guide regarding the MSG and she ordered our food MSG free. I had another reaction after dinner. This was to become a recurring theme as everything in China had MSG in it. My reactions as I got more and more in my system became more and more severe. The guide indicated that she tried to avoid MSG since it wasn't good for you and she didn't think they used it much any more. On the third day we were short on time and stopped at a 7/11 for snack as we needed to skip a meal. I picked up a bag of almonds with trees on it that said Orchard Valley. They looked to be raw almonds. I checked the ingredients, almonds and MSG. I then started checking the other natural looking products all but one bag of peanuts had MSG. Everything else I checked in the store had MSG or wheat (which I am allergic to) so I moved on to the US products that I knew to be safe like Lays Potato
Chips. Sure enough the ingredients had potatoes, oil, salt and MSG. So I figured M&Ms peanuts would be OK. But on the ingredient list they also had MSG. I ended up getting a package of bananas with my peanuts and some chocolate covered almonds.

After dinner we checked in at our hotel, a Hilton. I was tired and very happy to see the spacious, clean, well decorated room. This room became a daily oasis. My lungs were already starting to feel congested from the pollution.