Glasses Capital of the World

Quoting from Global Times:

"There is a popular saying that "one out of the two people in the world wear glasses with lenses from Danyang", East China's Jiangsu Province, known as China's "capital of glasses."

From the research and development of relevant technologies to the actual manufacturing and sales, Danyang is just a snapshot of multiple domestic cities and towns that have become famous for concentrated and specialized manufacturing, while supporting the global industrial and supply chain.

As the world's largest lens production base and the biggest eyeglass products distribution center in Asia, Danyang currently has more than 1,600 enterprises engaged in eyewear and associated sectors, official data showed."

We heard about Danyang from a friend and since it was only 15 minutes by train we went there to check it out. Not including little shops on the street, there were two large buildings filled entirely with individual shops selling glasses. I've never seen so many in my life. And they are cheap. We could get a pair of glasses for about $50. We had fun playing with sunglasses, but there are even more options in regular frames. If you can't find a frame there that you like, you probably never will.

You can check out the crazy style of the glasses Tessa is wearing, but also notice the selection behind her. This is just one of the 1600 shops listed above and several shops were much bigger than this one with hundreds of frames also sitting on the glass cases. The selection was unreal. So many frames.

Who buys these things anyway? But the value for entertainment was great!

At some point we will go back with our prescriptions and order a pair.

Our only protip for visiting Danyang: take your own food, plan to eat before, or even starve. We ate some of the worst food we've had here in China there.... That is an experience we do not want to revisit.

Comments

While We Are Waiting: Temples!

I love the temple. When I first learned of the possibility of us moving to China in December 2019, one of my first questions was "How can I leave the temple?" That question was answered in part during the closure of temples in 2020. However, when the joint venture was signed and Tom was officially offered the position in China in November 2020, I began fasting and praying that I would be able to attend the temple just once before we left. Our original flights were for July 7, 2021 and just a few weeks before that, our temple opened up and miraculously we were able to get 2 appointments for baptisms and 4 other appointments for Tom and I before our departure date. I can't express my deep gratitude for those 6 precious appointments. Then when we didn't obtain a visa in time for those flights and access to nearby temples was given, I took up a new hobby. Temple scheduling. The girls teased me it was a bit of an obsessed hobby; but since we will go ...

An Accomplishment!

The process: Cut the recipe in half so that the bread will fit in your teensy tinsy oven. Convert everything to metric--- ingredient amounts and water temperature. Get your purified water to the right temperature. Measure ingredients out. Mix it up. Humidity changes things.... Hope you did it right. Shape and let rise. Convert oven temperature to Celsius. My little oven heats up nicely, but you get to guess when it is preheated. Notice there are no smoke alarms in your kitchen. Hmm. Decrease the cook time and cross your fingers that is right. Add a cooking thermometer to the shopping list. Let it cool for a long time because you only have a small serrated knife for cutting it. Slice and eat. It probably could have tasted pretty awful and we would have thought that bit of home tasted very delightful! But it was quite good! Needs a little more salt, but that is an easy adjustment. And it could have been crustier, but we're at a point o...

Food

Food has been one of the hardest aspects of our quarantine. Food is emotionally comforting, so we're missing out on that--especially the girls. We're not used to the smells. It is cafeteria type foods. Much of the time we don't know what it is. Always an adventure...not always a pleasant one! That said, incoming meals are the most exciting time of the day. Originally we were getting 4 meals a day. But the only thing the girls were eating from them was the rice and there is way too much rice in that container for one person. So we had it cut back to two. Breakfast is the hardest meal of the day. I already knew I didn't love Chinese breakfasts. Tom had told me that every breakfast he saw from watching quarantining videos had a boiled egg. I knew I could eat that if I had some salt and pepper. So I brought some. We're doing okay on the salt--supply wise. We're rationing on the pepper. I'm so tha...

This Great Work

Search This Blog