Day 18, 19 “I want a piece of duck brain”

Day 18, 19 “I want a piece of duck brain” quote by Claire, Aiden and Riley

We left for Beijing, China yesterday. We started out at 7:00am for an 8:45 flight. Everything went pretty smooth except the 1 ½ hour wait on the plane without any air conditioning (outside temp approx 90 degrees and the air conditioner was broken until the plane was in flight) while we waited for the go ahead for our turn to leave. We were miserable and so were the other 400 or so people. It was never clear why we had to wait, but I guess the airport is very busy that time of day. Beijing and Shanghai are fairly close by plane; the flight was about 1 ½ hours, much closer than it appeared on the map.

Beijing is very different from Shanghai. It was obvious right from the start. The city is not as full of high rises and there is a lot of activity going on in preparation for the Olympics which will start here in just over a month. I mentioned in an earlier entry that I had made a new friend in Redmond who has a brother in Shanghai who helped us out, well the same friend has a really good friend here in Beijing and her and her family took us sight seeing today. Leona, YanMin and their 2 year old daughter, Sherry took us to see the Summer Palace and The Heaven Temple.

We started at the Heaven Temple and I couldn’t stop taking pictures. I am in complete awe of the detail in the buildings and history here. Everything is so beautiful. There is a story behind every detail; nothing was done without a reason.

I told Jeff that I was sad that we don’t put as much thought and effort into our surroundings like they did during this era. He said he thought we put that same energy into different things today such as technology. I guess he’s probably right, but it doesn’t seem so obvious to me now because I am living in it and this is history which always seems more interesting or magnified.

The story behind the Summer Palace is the emperor had the place built for his mother’s 60th birthday as a gift. Can you imagine? Aiden said he needed to get started right away; maybe mine will be ready for my 50th birthday? The palace was built with money that the emperor collected from the people. Apparently, this created quite a stir…hmmm, I can’t imagine why. It really is quite an amazing place. The entire palace covers 716 acres. He had a lake hand dug out of the middle and then had all the dirt moved to one area where he built a small mountain for a series of buildings for praying in (called the Longevity Hill). The picture below shows the mountain (as it was called when it was described to me) on the right where the dirt was mounded for the prayer buildings to be built.

We only went through one quarter of the summer palace and we spent many hours there. It’s just building after building of amazing artifacts and history.

My understanding was this is where he would go when he needed to get away and relax. There is an island in the middle of the lake, connected by a bridge.

Apparently the idea behind the island is that it would be cooler out there surrounded by all the water. There is a series of hallways that zigzag along one side of the lake called the endless hallway and it goes on for 728 meters (2,388 feet). Along the walkway there are beams every 10 feet or so and each beam has a painting that tells a different story.

There is a unique picture on every beam (14,000 scenic pictures in all). All of this was done by hand.

The other interesting feature of buildings and furniture of this time is nothing is built with nails or other attachment type devices. The pieces are locked together like a puzzle and are quite sturdy as a result. Smart people!

We had yet another interesting dinner tonight with our new friends. We had a traditional Beijing duck dinner. The chef brought the roasted duck out whole and carved it in front of us. I guess there is one of three specific ways that the duck can be carved and of course they are all significant in different ways. I didn’t quite follow it all, but we watched with anticipation for our chance to eat. Next we were shown the different ways we could wrap our duck into little pancakes with a duck sauce and other chopped bits of food. My children devoured this bird. It really was good! Toward the end of the meal we noticed that the duck’s head was cut in half and left on the plate. Jeff and the kids wanted to try to eat the edible pieces of the head, but couldn’t decide which parts to eat. They decided that the brain was the only part they could realistically eat. Ducks have very small brains and trying to figure out how to divide that four ways was interesting to watch. I have tried lamb brain (it wasn’t bad) before and I don’t have any desire to do that again. Been there, done that, thanks.

Days 14, 15,16,and 17 "What is a level 10 typhoon wind?"

Days 14, 15, 16, and 17 “What is a level 10 typhoon wind?" quote by me, Hollie

We have been mostly just hanging out the past few days. The weather went from pouring down rain, to sweltering hot and humid; back to thunder showers and buckets of rain. We went out shopping today down in the subway, when we left the weather was hot and sunny. When we got out of the subway a major storm had hit (only a couple of hours had passed at the most). We were now faced with getting back to our apartment (which is about 10 blocks away) without umbrellas in a torrential down pour! There were also continuous lightening strikes. I guess while we were in the subway there had been level 10 typhoon winds (what ever that means?). Jeff said at his work there had been bicycles strewn everywhere and their cafeteria was flooded with rain water. Meanwhile, we were happily shopping and avoiding most of it. We decided to not wait the storm out and walk to our apartment. We are already a spectacle where ever we go, but this was apparently pretty hilarious because everyone not only stared at us, but laughed at us now. I guess we did look pretty pitiful.

There are several things that they do here in Shanghai that I think we should do in the United States. I hate to admit, but I am not particularly mindful or frugal with the plastic bags I get from the grocery store. Here nothing is for free. I have to pay for every plastic bag that I get (it’s not much, .30Yuen…which is around 4 cents) at the super market. I have reused the same 3 plastic bags I bought when I first got here. I am cheap, or maybe frugal, but never the less I haven’t bought more. My point is I am being charged for something that I already have, so why buy more? I hate to say it, but because I get the others for free I am not as conscientious about reusing them. I will be now. Being here has really made me think about how much we have and take for granted.

I also think here in Shanghai they have a great street light system (now if the taxis and buses would just follow them consistently). There is a count down timer for the red light, for the green light and for the cross walks. For example if you are sitting at the red light in your car, there is a timer that starts at 20 and goes down until it turns green. This way you know when you’re turn to go will be and I think it makes traffic move more fluidly. Then you can spend your time doing whatever you usually do while you are at the red light, but you know to be ready when your count down is done. And the same is true for the green light, there is a count down, followed by a quick amber light and then a red light. If you drive your car and follow the rules and pay any attention what so ever then you should have plenty of time and warning to be out of the intersection when it turns red. I'll attach a picture to the next post, I forgot to download it before I wrote this entry.

One more observation I have about Shanghai. I do not see strollers or other plastic devises for carrying babies. Every where I go I see people carrying their babies. On one hand it would be really hard to push a stroller through the streets here because it is so crowded, but I think these devices are not part of their culture. At all the museums and the zoo I have seen sleeping babies and toddlers in their parents or grandparents arms. It is physically hard work to carry a sleeping baby, but I think it’s important for babies to have skin to skin contact, they learn so much by being with us. I do not agree with where our society is headed with babies being physically so far removed from their care givers. I think we could learn from their example here.

I said I would write more translations. Here are a few that we have read on menus; these were not jokes: Bad young soy beans (I’d actually prefer the young good beans myself), Cuts the beef in vain, The frying pan rips the cabbage, Punctures the body to spell greatly, Does the pot sacrificial donkey meat, Unwearied effort however beef, The grandmother is drunk the fish (Maybe it takes so long to prepare grandma is sauced by the time the meal is done?). Here is a picture of some translations we saw in a sign shop.

Now that we’ve been here a few weeks I’ve had lots of time to watch people and there is a wide range of fashions. Shoes are probably the most interesting and diverse. Shoes are important here or at least it seems to many. I see many women dressed in strappy high heel shoes. Even when we went to the zoo, there were many really dressy, uncomfortable looking shoes. One woman had a pair of boots made out of what seemed to be slats of wood. I didn’t want to stare, but I really wanted to get a better look (or better yet a picture), they looked incredibly uncomfortable (remember I said I was at the zoo when I saw this?!?....I was wearing comfortable walking shoes). On the other hand I see a lot of fake Croks too. They sell them in the subway for about $3. I have also noticed many t-shirts with English on them. Most are not a particular brand, but a cute saying. I haven’t seen any clothes with Chinese writing branded on them. I fully expected to see many t-shirts with the Olympics being advertised, but I have seen few of these types of shirts either.

There is a definite division of classes here. There is the obviously wealthier, more stylish crowd and then the working poor. The poor are wearing very, plain and simple clothes. I’m not talking about jeans and a t-shirt, I’m talking about clothes that I remember my mother wearing during the 60’s (okay so I don’t exactly remember the 60’s much, but I have pictures of my parents then). The fabric colors or patterns are very plain and faded and the amount of stitching and seams are very minimal. The more stylish are wearing the extravagant shoes and carrying the fake (or maybe that’s just me) Prada and Gucci bags. My understanding is the poor come from the surrounding villages to find work. The poor workers are the 18 or so people that I see in nearly every store that I see doing nothing.

Near our apartment I also see many of these poor workers cleaning the street with home made brooms. The brooms are basically long, dried grass tied to a stick. The good thing is the grass is a renewable resource and readily available. The workers are constantly cleaning up after everyone. They are busy, very busy! This society or at least this city is not concerned with liter, or at least their own liter. People are constantly dropping their garbage and cigarettes everywhere. The poor workers are constantly sweeping up and dumping the debris. When you get too far from our apartment you can tell that people aren’t paid to clean those areas and they are littered with debris. Maybe some of the workers in the super market could go clean up those streets?

We had to leave our first restaurant without eating. We went to a hot pot about 6 blocks from our apartment. If you haven’t been to a hot pot, it is where they have a pot in the middle of the table with a heat source boiling some sort of broth and everyone dips their item of choice in the broth and cooks it for a few minutes. We usually get various types of meat and veggies. This particular restaurant didn’t have any English translations on the menu, pinyin, or pictures so we couldn’t even begin to guess how to order. No one spoke any English so we couldn’t order anything. It was really disappointing because every thing smelled yummy. It was odd walking out of a restaurant without ordering or eating.

Oh, I also found out more about the elevator numbers. I’m always learning more here. So 4 translates to death, 14 translates to about to die, and 24 translates to hard to die. I guess by the time you get to the 24th floor you are probably going to be okay. Remember in an earlier blog entry I said our apartment had no 4th and 14th floor, but had a 24th floor and I was trying to figure out the meanings?

Random pictures…

This is of a man working on the lines on the street. Notice the ladder on top of the truck, propped up against the lines above and his two buddies stabilizing the ladder below? Wow, that’s trust!

Here are some pictures of our apartment. The first one on the left is of the dish dryer. We don't have a dishwasher, but we have a dish dryer and it is in a cup board, under the stove. The dish dryer is way away from the sink and in a cupboard without any ventilation. Who designed that?

Here are some pictures of a market I found around the corner. It is a very authentic store, it’s a bit too far for me to walk for everything, but I go here when I’m in the area. I took the picture of the fish and turtles quickly because the man who worked there was not happy about me taking the pictures. I realize now after looking at the pictures, maybe he wasn’t happy about me taking pictures of his tanks with dead fish floating in them. I just can’t imagine going down to my local Safeway and picking out the chicken that I was going to have that night for dinner. I know they have them alive so that the customers can see that the food is fresh, but like I mentioned before I do prefer to stay in denial about where my food lived before.

Day 11, 12 and 13. "I'm tired of writing and posting"

Day 11, 12 and 13. "I'm tired of writing and posting" quote by Hollie

Sorry if you were enjoying daily entries in this blog. I needed a break from writing and I didn't have a lot of time to write so I took a break. I feel recharged now...or as much as a woman can in a foreign country guiding three children around mostly by herself.

Even though this is a VERY large city, there isn't a ton to do, especially with children. It doesn't have the rich history other chinese cities have, much has been torn down and turned into new businesses. The changes have probably been great if you live here, but if you are visiting and looking for site seeing opportunities with children you can run out of ideas pretty quickly. I was talking to our friend Alex (who has lived here for 10 years) and he was surprised the things that I have found to do here, apparently I taught him about some new things he can do with his son. I think having homeschooling as our back ground has helped us learn to find educational things to do anywhere and everywhere.

Since I last wrote the kids and I went to the Science and Technology museum on Friday. I had been avoiding this place because the review I read about it said it was "baffling". It has its own subway stop so I figured someone must have thought it was pretty important or interesting. We decided to venture down there against what the review said and see for ourselves. The beginning of the exhibition starts with the dividing of the continents and the animals that have evolved following this time. We followed the exhibit through different types of animals, plants, fish, reptiles, and microscopic beings. The microscopic area had really bad, rudimentary models, but it was interesting for the kids. I think it was good for Riley and Claire to see what might be living on their hands and why I am so neurotic (especially here, not so much at home) about them washing their hands and doing our little ritual of Purell before we eat here.

I didn’t find the museum baffling or confusing in anyway, perhaps not very technologically advanced, but a good way to spend a couple of afternoons with the kids. We barely made it through half of it and will go back later this week.

Saturday was basically a lazy day so Jeff could recuperate from working all week. We took him over to the park and explored it more. Claire played on the playground and Jeff and the boys played keep away with the basketball. We found a book store with a small section in English a couple of blocks from our apartment. We spent a good hour in their leafing through books. Claire and I found a new series (at least new to us) about colored fairies that she is gobbling up.

I did manage to book our hotel and flight to Beijing for next weekend. It’s really hard and exhausting to do anything here. I find it hard to know what resources to use and when I do conquering the language difference is always the next frustration. I am pretty sure we have a flight for five of us for next weekend. I have been back and forth with the airlines since Saturday. Apparently, Riley and Claire’s names are too long. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me because Jeffrey Richard Bernhardt is a much longer name than either of the kids, but because they weren’t sure how to write the reservation they didn’t book theirs, but booked Jeff, Aiden and mine. We are adults so we can have a different number of letters in our name. Go figure?!?

Sunday we went back to the zoo and went on a night tour of the city and an acrobat show.

This time the zoo had a gazillion people at it. I realized that most people around here have two working parents, not a lot of stay at home moms. This would explain why the zoo was empty on Friday (the local kids got out of school at the end of last week so they were home, but their parents weren't). I tried to explain to Jeff before we went that the people were rude to the animals, but he really didn’t get it until we got there. At one point we had to leave an area because there was a group of young men and their grandmother throwing rocks at the lions to wake them up. They weren’t just throwing the rocks in their general direction to startle them, but were trying to actually hit them and get a response out of them. When the lions got hit with rocks every one laughed. By the time we left the zoo 3-4 hours later the front of every cage was littered with garbage and debris that the animals had had thrown at them. They had one area of the zoo called pet world and it had 30 plus breeds of dogs. Each cage had at least two dogs in it and they were no bigger than 6x6 ft cages. There was everything from Saint Bernards, Great danes, and Dalmatians to Beagles and Dachshunds. Having had two Dalmatians recently I know they need a ton of exercise and if they don’t get it they become neurotic. The two that were in there were obviously completely neurotic.

I realize that all the animals are in small confined areas, but I guess having had dogs as pets I know first hand how much more these animals need. I have always liked zoos because of their educational value, but I like our Woodland park zoo where the animals have more space and places they can go and hide from the visitors if they need to. I also can’t speak for everywhere, but in our area people seem very respectful of the animals. I personally think if they start fining people in this zoo they will stop. The zoo itself has signs every where about not teasing the animals or feeding them, but they go unnoticed. I think that part of the appeal for these people in visiting the zoo is to torment the animals, I think they expect it. I guess it’s sort of like going to a hockey game in Seattle; part of the appeal for many is the fights that break out, not necessarily the games themselves. I didn’t enjoy those events either.

I know it's hard to see in this photo, but this man is leaning over the cement barrier into the porcupine exhibit and trying to feed the porcupines. There were at least five animals in there and I would consider this down right stupid. I tried to take a picture of a man leaning into the brown bear cage too, but my picture only shows the brown bears standing on their hind legs reaching for the man.

Later Sunday evening we went on a night bus tour of the city. Our tour guide spoke pretty good English so we learned a bit more about the city and gave me more ideas for where to explore during the day. We stopped at one point and took pictures of the Bund area with all the beautiful lights. This is not a very good photo, I think we will go back at night and check it out and read in my camera manual about how to take good night pictures, but in the mean time this gives you an idea of how neat it looks in that area at night.

Next we went to an acrobat show. It was fairly entertaining, there were several acts. There were contortionists, muscle men, 15 men juggling hats together, a lady twirling items with her feet (which Claire has tried to do at home several times since we watched it last night), a pretty good lady magician, several ladies twirling and balancing plates on sticks while they danced and did other contortions with their bodies, six motor cycles and riders all riding around inside a globe at the same time. There was even an act where they had 10 ladies all riding on one bicycle at one time. Jeff and I didn’t think that was so exciting, we have seen at least that on a bicycle around here. You haven't really rode a bike until you’ve ridden in it Shanghai. They move everything around here by bike, it’s pretty amazing. Below is a picture of a lady on a tricycle type bike and she has the biggest load I’ve seen yet. I am pretty sure it’s Styrofoam, but it’s huge never the less. Her load was swaying as she was driving down the road. I’ve seen men riding bikes with several appliances in the cart behind them. These people are amazingly strong! I've also seen couples making out while riding down the street and negotiating traffic. That's pretty good! Anyway back to the topic I started on, the show was entertaining and it was a nice way to end our weekend.

Also, if anyone is wondering…My toe is finally doing much better. I didn’t realize how much it was hurting until it stopped hurting. I think the bone is healed (or as much as it ever will be for a shattered bone) and the nail is feeling so much better that I am able to wear closed toe shoes for the first time in a month. Yeah!! I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but I was suppose to keep my foot dry and clean until it healed and that was nearly impossible because I couldn’t wear any closed toe shoes and it was non-stop rainy (and the ground is in no way clean around here). I got so tired of my lovely boot shoe and the stares that came with it. Normal shoes for me again, or at least my Keds and Keens. Now I can keep up with the kids again.

Below are a few more pictures that I had to add from the zoo...

This picture is for Andrea and Lisa, Look familiar? The sign says they are Coypu rats, but I am fairly certain they are MOUNTAIN BEAVERS! In an exhibit??

This is for all of you in Everett or cabins in the San Juans. Herring gulls...or what we call annoying SeaGulls. Jeff and I thought they were the nicest looking sea gulls we'd ever seen, but in an exhibit at the zoo?

Day 10: “This is the nicest Pizza Hut I’ve ever been in.”

Day 10: “This is the nicest Pizza Hut I’ve ever been in.” quote by Jeff

We went to the Shanghai zoo today. First off, anyone who knows me knows I am not a relaxed passenger when others are driving. I prefer to drive. The taxis here freak me out! They weave in and out of traffic at amazing speeds and none of us are wearing seatbelts. I can’t relax for a second. I will ride the subway anywhere, but I avoid the taxis as much as I can. We didn’t get through the entire zoo today; I’d really like to go back and see the rest of it, but I need a break from the taxi scene.

The two words that come to mind for me to describe the zoo today are interesting and sad. Having been to zoos all over the west coast and a couple in Canada I have to say that this one was very interesting. Not because the animals were so different, but the people going to it were rude and disrespectful to the animals. It has been interesting because no matter where we go there are a ton of official type people working keeping order. Keeping order is important here. Every time we have gone to the playground across the street some one older than 10 has tried to ride the teeter-totter and been shooed off by some official, telling them they need to follow the rules (the park is for 3-10 year olds). Today at the zoo there were hardly any workers. I have to say it was the one place I haven’t felt particularly safe. It was very woodzy and not a lot of people there. So we would often times be alone with a small group of people (sometimes all men, which is when I would get more uptight). I can’t explain exactly why I felt unsafe, but my safety radar was up the entire time. The sad part was nearly every exhibit we went to had humans throwing food or garbage at the animals. People seemed to be doing it because they thought they were being funny. If they couldn’t get to the animals physically then they pounded on the glass. A set of baboons got several plastic bottles to chew on and one baby baboon was walking around with the plastic water bottle lid in its mouth.

I was really worried about these animals and there was no one to tell what was happening. Now at the park, there are a ton of workers to make people follow the rules, but here at the zoo where lives are at stake there was nobody. I felt really sad for these animals. Notice the group of people offering the giraffe the water bottles in the picture below.

Since everything is written in Chinese I don’t know if this is privately owned and perhaps that’s why there are no workers, but I do find it very interesting that this is the one place we have been without any workers (even the public bathrooms have a worker or two).

We surprised Riley and Claire and went to Pizza Hut for dinner tonight. It is really nice and sort of glitzy inside. When we walked by the outside we didn’t realize it was a Pizza Hut at first because it had white table clothes and a really nice atmosphere. It had REALLY nice napkins too! And they were free! (I found out that we are being charged for the napkins in every restaurant…except the food court we go to for lunch every day. Sorry if you are tired of hearing about the napkins, but it’s really becoming inconvenient and tiring to eat with my children without adequate napkins). We chose to have what we consider normal pizza from home to fulfill that need for some of home. There were some interesting choices, several fish options and corn; I would never have thought to add corn to pizza. Our pizza tasted pretty much like pizza from home. The kids were happy. Then we stopped by Haagen Dazs ice cream; since we were having a dinner from home we might as well have a dessert from home too. I was shocked! We all had one scoop each (one very small scoop btw) and it was 40 Yuan each…which means we paid $22 dollars for five scoops of ice cream. I think we refilled our home reservoir for a while.

Here is a funny picture of the kids. We were at the zoo. There was some really pretty foliage that I wanted a picture of, but the trees were filled with birds and there was poop all over the ground. The kids were freaked out that the birds were going to poop on them. You can see the looks on their faces. I still enjoyed the background. :0) And no one got pooped on.

Day Nine: "I really don't like being called "Hey Lady!".

Day nine: “I really don’t like being called “Hey Lady!”. quote by me, Hollie

Not much today. We are getting good at the subway. We went shopping in a subway market that is a couple of transfers away from our place. We are having fun learning the haggling system. After we bought something each time Aiden, Riley and I went back into the common area and talked about what we could have done differently. I think it’s going to be hard to go to Redmond Town Center now and not try to negotiate a price for everything. It’s sort of a fun process. Although, I am tired of hearing “Hey lady, you want to see my merchandise”. I told one lady who I visited with for a while (she had pretty good English and she told us a bit about the market) that I don’t like being called lady, I find it somewhat offensive. I explained she would probably do better business with westerners if she didn’t call them “Lady”. I think she appreciated my comments. Her ploy was... she liked me and was giving me a good deal because she thought my daughter was beautiful, so she gave me a special deal….or so she said, over and over and over again. I didn’t believe her, but it’s an interesting ploy, flattery works much of the time in most situations.

I bought a couple of things for myself. I don’t know what to think about it though. I have a hard time buying clothes that fit in the USA. I am usually a small and pants are nearly impossible for me to find something that actually fits. I was told yesterday that I am not a small, I am a chinese medium. I’ve never been a medium in my life. Then I bought a cute, new jacket and not only was I not a small, but I wasn’t a medium either. I was a large. Wowza! You don’t want to be big here; you won’t find clothes that fit. So I’m pretty happy with my new purchases, but not happy about the sizing….now I see why the US has been slowly changing their sizing names and numbers.

I had been warned not to get caught in the subway at rush hour. While we were shopping it wasn’t particularly busy down there so I lost track of time. Before we knew it it was 5:30, Uh-Oh!, rush hour had already begun and we needed to try to get home before Jeff got home at 6:45. We got down to the level where you catch the subway and did get on the needed one in our first try, but barely. We were squeezed so tight that I was afraid Claire was going to be crushed. She is at the wrong height for a really thick crowd of adult people (I’m talking thicker than I have ever been in my life). People for obvious reasons are not looking down and don’t expect to see young children this time of day. Again, no one is being aggressive or mean, just focused on their own needs. I was so afraid she was going to be crushed that I put my legs around her and sort of hopped along with the crowd. I tried to a position my legs so she could still breathe. I’m not kidding; she had everyone’s behinds directly in her face, so she was being smothered. Riley and Aiden stayed right by me luckily, they are taller so it wasn’t as much of a problem for them. If I was stronger I would have put Claire on my shoulders, but I didn’t think about it until after it happened. Plus, then I would have been top heavy and would probably have gotten knocked over myself. After everyone got situated they realized there was a young child under all of them and they went out of their way to find a safe place for her. An elderly man let her sit by him and we moved closer to her. Boy that was an experience, not one I want to re-live, but glad I did so I really understood what people had warned me about! We were lucky the stop we wanted was the one many others wanted, so we just moved with the crowd to get off. Otherwise, I’m not sure how a group of four of us gets off when it’s this busy. No one understands us, so I can’t say “excuse me get the heck out of my way”. I'll have to have Aiden look that up too I guess.

No pictures today...you can go to my http://www.facebook.com/ page, register, become my friend and see a ton of pictures if you want. I'll probably do pictures with tomorrow's post, I'm just tired of writing at this computer today. Also, I love all the emails and posts....it makes me feel a bit closer to home. I haven't been away from home for this long before and I miss everyone already!

Day eight. “Aiden how do you say, will you play with me in Chinese?”

Day eight. “Aiden how do you say, will you play with me in Chinese?” quote by Claire

We ventured off to the Shanghai Aquarium today. It is a really nice and well done. Not much to say except that we were there during feeding time so we got to see the scuba divers down in the water hand feeding most of the fish and other marine life.

The only thing we didn’t get to see eat, which we probably could have, but we needed to leave because Claire got really upset when she found out what was going to happen. The alligators had live ducks put in their pen. It was only a matter of time before those ducks became dinner. You can see the alligators in the lower left corner of the picture watching the ducks very carefully. Sorry the pictures not very clear, I couldn't get a clear one.

It sort of bothered me, but only because I knew the ducks didn’t have a chance and they would die a cruel death. I’m not a vegetarian, but I like to be in denial about where my meat comes from.

We stopped by the park on our way home. Claire really wants to play with the other kids and sometime they will interact with her, but some times not. Poor thing, she really wanted to make friends with these two little girls at the park today. She followed them around for nearly 10 minutes and then came over to Aiden and I who were sitting on the bench and she asked Aiden “how do you say, do you want to play in Chinese?” Aiden didn’t know, he said he’d go home and look it up in his book. Again communication is getting in our way.

This is just another pictures of the kids at the aquarium today. Notice the cute panda Claire is holding? She bought this panda a couple of days ago and it goes EVERY where with us now. She talks to it constantly, it eats every meal with us...I really think she needs a friend here besides us.

Day seven: “Black diesel oil, what do you think they were trying to say there?”

Day seven: “Black diesel oil, what do you think they were trying to say there?” quote by Jeff


(sorry in advance for this one, it's long...so much to write about Also, I added two posts today. Day six too. I'm almost caught up, I just have to do today still, which I might skip because I'm getting tired of writing :-) or make it really short (really!).

Not much going on today, mostly recovering from site seeing all weekend. We did make it over to the basketball court in the park across the street. It was really full and they wouldn’t let us in. I think it was because it was too full. I gathered from the worker that he wanted us to come back tomorrow morning, but I didn’t know for sure why. About a half hour later, it poured down rain (we were still hanging out at the park) and we noticed the basketball court was emptying out. “Wimps”, I thought, “it’s too rainy for them”. So we headed back to the basketball court to play. The old man there yelled at me. (There’s nothing like being yelled at in a different language about who knows what) I’m not really sure except that I think he was telling me he already told me to come back tomorrow. I think they booted everyone out when it was raining so hard (it looked like the basketball court had turned into a small swimming pool, it didn’t drain very well). It was also thunder and lightening after all. I couldn’t decide if we were safer in the park with all the small trees around us or in the 25th / top floor of a high rise building. I went for the park, besides it would stop sooner or later and we needed some fresh air and exercise. This picture is in the park, our apartment is in the background, the 3rd building from the right, on the top floor.

My posting today is about observations that we have noticed over the past week. I found out answers to most of my observations, but they are still different than the way we do things, so I thought I would share.

The Chinese are very superstitious. There is no 4th or 14th floor in our apartment. Apparently, 4 in Chinese translates to die, so if you skip that floor then it doesn’t really exist right? I don’t know the exact translation of 14, but I am assuming it has a similar translation and that’s why that floor is skipped too, although, there is a 24th floor.

Speaking of the elevator; we figured out that the reason one of the elevators is so shabby looking is because it’s the elevator that they use for transporting furniture or other big supplies to the rooms. They don’t want to risk beating up the nice looking elevator.

No fortune cookies, but we do get cut up watermelon following all our meals in sit down restaurants. We were in San Francisco last summer at the fortune cookie factory (where most fortune cookies are made) and I guess I assumed those cookies were shipped here or made in similar factories here. Bad assumption, I haven’t seen one fortune cookie, but I’ve seen a lot of watermelon.

Napkins are a scarce commodity. If you happen to get lucky and get one, they are always very small and you get one to share. They are about 3 inches square and really thin. Jeff talked to a friend at work and apparently the reasoning is that there are tons of people here and it’s expensive to give things away (which explains why there is no toilet paper in public places either). So we all walk around with dirty hands and faces…..maybe their children are neater than mine. I went to the market and bought a package of napkins and paper towels thinking I would just keep them in my back pack and we could pull them out when we needed them. Even those napkins were extremely small and thin. I’m talking like one ply toilet tissue. Have you ever tried to wipe your fingers or face clean after a sticky meal with toilet tissue, this is perhaps a bigger problem than the original one. The nicer restaurants give you cloth wash clothes to wipe with before and after your meal. I like that!

We had some time to hang out at the super market last night. We had to show Jeff all the interesting things. We wandered around forever looking at everything. Things such as the meat area had frozen turtles, bull frogs, eel, squid, and many different kinds of whole fish (just the guts taken out), and ducks and chickens with their heads still attached. We did finally buy some eggs. I’m pretty sure they are chicken eggs. I had to laugh because there are several different types of eggs, some really big, some really small, different colors, spotted, but the ones still covered in fowl poo were the best by far. This isn’t a local open air market; this is a store in the bottom floor of a large department store. It’s pretty upscale and expensive, but they had eggs with bird poo still on them. We decided to see if we could find some things from home and see how expensive they were such as flour or sugar (not that I was going to buy flour, I was just looking to see if I could find it) we found sugar (not powered like we wanted for french toast…since there’s no syrup either), but didn’t find flour. We found gallon size jugs of vegetable oil in several different brands. We tried to buy a small one and it’s still really large, they don’t come in small sizes. We also figured out if you buy the local products they are considerably cheaper. I was told cereal would be really expensive here, and that’s true if you want to buy a western brand, but there are several versions of Chinese cereal that are very reasonably priced. I don’t know what’s in it for sure, but it was about ¼ the price. So we paid $2 versus $10 for a box of cereal. It’s a little harder to buy oatmeal because I don’t know if it’s instant or traditional style and I can’t read the instructions to know how to cook it.

As far as eating, I am really proud of my children. We have been eating some really interesting things. Some of it, I could only guess what it is. We went out last night and no one spoke any English and there were no translations any where on the menu. We looked around the room and pointed at what looked good. The first night we were here, Riley insisted that we were going to eat at Pizza Hut or KFC (which are everywhere btw), we insisted that we don’t eat that way at home we are certainly not going to eat that way here. He was not a happy camper, but given the option gave up his stance and ate what ever it was that we found to eat that night and actually really liked it. If anything becomes of this trip it will be that Riley is no longer a picky eater (and the best part is he doesn’t see himself as a picky eater anymore either!!). Claire and Aiden have always been adventurous eaters, but this trip could push even an adult to act picky. They haven’t complained at all.

Here is a picture of a man who has made a make shift BBQ on the back of his bike. He is selling some sort of BBQ meat. Yummy! Not! We aren't that adventurous, but you gotta give the guy some credit for being a creative entrepreneur.

Speaking of food and restaurants, some of the restaurants have translations above the traditional Chinese writing. We have been enjoying some of the translations. One restaurant had the best translations (I wish I had written some of them down because they were obviously not checked by anyone who spoke English), one of its meals mentioned spicy,black diesel oil. I will write some of the funny ones down and share with you all later. They are pretty funny; language is a funny thing and the different ways of interpreting it.

I have to say I was nervous coming here, because I am somewhat of a scaredy cat. I get very nervous in down town Seattle and in any large city that we have ever visited. I do not feel nervous here at all. I feel very safe. The people are very friendly and there are always a ton of people around and very few that seem off. We have to walk behind the building to get to our apartment, they aren’t connected in the inside and our building is three buildings down from the lobby. If this was in Seattle, I would be nervous and would never do it at night, but it doesn’t seem to be a problem at all (except for all the groups of smoking people and occasional cars that drive through). Today the kids and I headed off down an alley type looking street to explore an area that I could see from our apartment that looked like it might have a playground for the kids. I was a bit nervous when we started down the street because it’s narrow and there aren’t gads of people, but once we got started there didn’t seem to be anything to be worried about. We found some old people sitting outside in their lawn chairs enjoying the cool weather. They talked to us a bit (they like to practice saying hello and interact with the kids). We found a fruit stand that I didn’t know existed and it was great. I would never have done that in Seattle or even Bellevue, I might be asking for trouble.


Here are some other random pictures:

This one shows the back of a local apartment. I think it's interesting that everyone has these clothes lines that project horizontally off their decks. I don't think anyone has a clothes dryer. (We do, but it doesn't work, so I hang my clothes up on the deck too, but I don't have a nifty clothes line).



















Here is the view out one direction of our apartment. Pretty spectacular view. Notice the old and new buildings sort of intermixed.

This fine looking building can be seen if you look down behind our apartment. This is a scary looking building. I haven't walked down this street yet, so I don't know what it looks like from the front.