It is another cold and raining day. We decided to let the kids stay in and do their homework. It is ironic that Toby and Joshua have not missed much of school because all the snow days they have back home in Michigan. Nevertheless, they are behind on their school work. Mom and Dad decided to go out in the rain to get food for everyone. The food in the hotel is not very good. We got some steamed dumplings for everyone. Joshua is not fond of dumplings so we got him some cake like bread – it is like angel cake and lamb stew. We also got them a lot of fruits. Fruits are great here, oranges, apples, Asian pears and dragon fruit, also known as Pitaya. It is a new fruit Joshua likes very much. It has a red and green color leaf like cover. Inside, it is white with black eatable seed. It tastes like pears.
Mom and Dad left the girls to Toby and Joshua again in the afternoon and went out for some shopping. It was raining hard, but we had to go out to do something. We did not really buy anything useful or anything we definitely need. We walked the main shopping street as well as some alleys where smaller vendors selling their goods. There were times we thought we got lost. We kept a straight face pretending that we knew where we were going. It was good exercise to walk. We went through small alleys and side streets, places that you only would see in the movies; small alleys that are residential and others that have little shops only known to the locals. At one time we crossed through a shop just to enter another alley with all small food stands. Everything looked rather clean and nice – but no tourists. Another thing we realized is that every street and alley has its specialty vendors – there were pet stores alley/street, health care products alley/street, meat market alley/street etc. We don't know if someone has organized things this way or it is random arrangement by the vendors. It was a complete new experience.
We had dinner at the Lucy's again. With the Szalai's and Sue's sister's family, we have 15 people. Sue made reservation ahead of time to avoid long waitings. It was the Szalai's last night in China. They are going back home tomorrow. We wish them a safe trip. We have become friends with them. Our girls play well with their girls Sarah and Amy. Their newly adopted son John is the same age as Sue's sister's son Vincent. After the dinner, we went to the play room at the White Swan Hotel. The girls played wild. John and Vincent had good time playing together and also good fights for a bottle. John is strong as his name implies. Vincent lost his fight and ended up with protesting cry. Boys are always boys!
After dinner, Mom and dad took another walk. TGFTJ – thank god for Toby and Josh. Without them Mom and Dad could not get out at all. They took a long walk along the river and found the Bar and Club district. It was a contrast to see many upper class people going in and out of the clubs and homeless people sleeping on the same street.
We heard that the weather is not going to get better. In a way, we are stranded in our hotel rooms because of the bad weather. There is really nothing much we can do with such weather. You see all these beautiful green trees, nice flowers and even palm trees, but you don't feel the warmth. We hope kids can catch up more on their home work. We really wish we could be home now. Three more days seem very long now.
All kids are doing well now. Anna has no fever anymore. Jenny is getting stronger and stronger everyday with her legs. She even had a race with Anna on our way back to the hotel after dinner. The girls are slowly getting better playing together. Occasionally there were some complaints. Mom and Dad now started a new strategy. We start to tell them to deal with their own problems when one of them coming to us to tell on the other. This was the strategy we used when Toby and Joshua were little. After a while they stopped telling on each other. We will see if this will work on the girls or not.
Three more days...we will be home for the Supper Ball Game!
Sue and Berthold
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