RandLJacobson

Yesterday spent all day at the Summer Palace--sort of like Golden Gate Park with a bigger lake, if Golden Gate Park were privately owned as someone's summer home. It's many attractions include the Long Corridor, a wooden walkway with (we are told) over 14,000 paintings, and the longest continuously painted walkway in the world. It certainly is the longest continuously painted wooden walkway Lynn and I have ever walked down. Big lake, beautiful bridges and temples on the hillside. Again, pictures tell the story. Today we managed to get to the site of the Olympics and get as close as we were permitted to the two signature structures--the Birds Nest (National Stadium) and the Bubble Cube or Water Cube (Natatorium). Later, while searching for Peking Duck to eat, we ended up downtown in the Grand Hyatt, ... read more

This morning we wandered around and over the South Gate of the city wall, then explored the Wild Goose Pagoda, built in 652 AD by the Buddhist monk Xuan Zang. (He had walked to India and studied Buddhism for seven years there, then brought back written works for translation.) Lunch was at another hotel contracted by the tour company. They asked us "western or Chinese?" and we picked Chinese, so the put us in a big, empty dining room with a full buffet. We found out we were sharing the staff's food when a group of waiters and costumed dancers came in to eat. Afternoon was spent in the Shaanxi Museum, which covered the entire archaeology and history of the area from 10000 years ago to now. Finally have the dynasties stright, more or less: Zhang, ... read more

A truly amazing day, first of all because it is 21 deg C = about 75 F, sunny through the ever=present haze of this area, and the magnolia and cherry/apple/plum trees are all in full bloom. This morning Gigi took us to the Terra Cotta warriors site. We had lunch at a roadside area, where we met a female cop from Chicago who has been working in Afghanistan for the last four years instructing police there. She had just left t*b*t, having been stuck there because of the "unrest". Then this afternoon, saw the excavation site of the Banpo culture neolithic village. In both places, the sense of seeing things so ancient, in their original location and not in a museum case halfway across the world, is an awe-inspiring and unique experience for me. Lynn has ... read more

Yesterday everyone else went to Suzhou, while I gave a one-hour lecture on the Hypotonic Infant. Then Dr. Wong, one of the pediatric neurologists here, presented two kids for me to examine. One was a boy with mild weakness, elevated CK, who probably has a mild limb-girdle dystrophy. Another doc had recommended starting corticosteroids, whether for Duchenne MD or inflammatory myopathy I couldn't quite determine. I recommended genetic testing and biopsy before even thinking about treatment. The other was a 5 yo girl who was very weak, barely able to walk, wearing a brace for scoliosis, and a normal CK. The distribution of weakness seemed somewhat odd, and her spine seemed somewhat rigid, so I hedged a bit about the possibilities, but I finally committed to either a congenital myopathy or a later-onset motor neuron disorder. ... read more

Yesterday Mark and I gave our first talks at a conference for pediatricians and neurologists at another hospital, the Children's Hospital at Fudan Medical School, located on the SW side of town. We sent Lynn off on her own in a taxi, armed with a cell phone and the address in Chinese on a card. Haven't heard from her since . . . noooooo! just kidding! Afterward another major dinner with doctors from both institutions. Today the program started for the SCMC staff, but I wasn't scheduled to do anything. Lynn and I took a cab to the French Concession area, where the colonial architecture is preserved. Spent time in Fuxing and Huaihai parks, where people hang out and play cards, exercise on the equipment, and practice ballroom dancing. We joined them for one number, and ... read more