Beijing Road

Today we followed what seems to be working out as our routine: get up, go down for breakfast, go on an outing, take the kids back to the hotel for some quiet time and a couple school lessons (math and reading), then dinner, and back to the hotel for bed for the kids.

Our outing today was to Beijing Road. It is a more modern shopping district with department stores and small shops. One department store we were in had nine floors, and included a small supermarket. My mom ran out of deoderant and has discovered that apparently China is an untapped market for deodorant (all P&G employees take notice, now you just have to convince them that they need it. No arguement here!) We have smelled some funky people (especially on the city bus we took today!), but not as many as you would think without much deodorant usage going on. Mom said in Malaysia the funk of the people overpowered the funk of the fish market! The good news is, she did have a choice between 2 deodorant products in that small supermarket and made a purchase. This is, of course, after visiting 3 markets that did not carry any deodorant at all. Another observation, Mom's favorite hair conditioner that was discontinued in the USA was available in this store. She is considering how much she can take back with her.

We ate meat on a stick for lunch today. We bypassed the chicken stomach and other assorted entrails on a stick as well as whole squid on a stick in favor of unidentified meat balls, crab balls, chicken legs (on a stick, who knew you needed a stick to serve chicken legs?), lamb, and feed corn on a stick. Apparently they do not know the difference between feed corn and sweet corn. Greg and Justin who both love sweet corn on the cob took one bite. Greg said he had no idea corn could have that texture. Most of it did taste good, and no one left the table hungry.

Beijing Road has glassed over reminent of brick roads dating dating from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) They have dug down further and have sections that date back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907) too. These are under the current road, which is closed to all but foot traffic.
Very interesting to see.

For dinner, we ate at a great little restaurant with the best sweet and sour chicken I have ever had. Who knew that is what it was supposed to taste like? We also had pan fried goose, roasted pork Macau style (layers of fat, very strange, but the meat had good flavor), beef in a pot with ginger and whole garlic cloves (delicious) and Chinese broccoli. No one there spoke any English, so there was a whole lot of pointing going on. It's a good thing there is English and Chinese on the menus as well as pictures.

The kids are holding up very well. Justin shuts down part way though dinner each night. He eats, then is done and a zombie until we carry him back to the hotel. Kailey keeps plugging right along. They are game to try things and are willing to taste just about anything. We are impressed. Justin bounces down the street, which could be part of why he is done by 6:30. My mom describes him as a perpetual motion machine using four times the amount of required energy to complete the given task. I repeat, whatever school teacher who would have had him this year should write me a letter and thank me for homeschooling him. Who would want that bundle of energy to attempt to contain in a desk?

We are working on figuring out how to get to Elijah ZuBin's finding place. It appears to be about 4 hours away in a small village north of here. Hopefully this weekend we will be able to work it out.

Just so you know, the plan is for Mom and Dad to leave on the 11th with Kailey and Justin as planned. This means we will only have to convert 3 of the 7 tickets instead of all of them. It will also save some money at the end on hotel and food.

Tomorrow I believe we are going to the jade and pearl market. Kailey is very excited. She was given some money to spend and has decided that she really likes jewelry. I'll update soon!