Tuesday, July 29, 2008

We're not in Kanas anymore, or even any place relatively close!

Photobucket
Yes, it's another stinking pagoda...temple, whatever. At least this one had some nice garden areas for photo opportunities but basically it was just as boring as the one we went to yesterday. We have two more days here. The American channels (hbo & cinemax) were blown out with a wind storm, it's 100 + outside, I am sick of the Chinese version of "western food" and I forgot my ruby slippers to click and get the heck out of here!

Dinner Anyone?

Here's our movie star!

Free Day #1

O.K. already. I'm IT Challenged so this video stuff is a little out of my league. Today was a "free day", which translates into "no appointments today". Unfortunately it is so hot here that if you don't get your sightseeing done in the morning you're out of luck. I love Peter, our interpeter, but he's not much help when it comes to suggestions on what to do. Today we went to a 1000 year old temple. Which probably would have been pretty cool except that everything was written in Chinese so we just wandered around looking at stuff and sweating. Not my idea of fun. To get to the park we went down a tree shaded "walking" street that had many retired people sitting around tables doing whatever retired Chinese people do. We felt like we were a one float parade. Every face turned our way as we approached. Too bad Naomi doesn't know how to wave yet.
We had a pivotal breakthrough today with the potty. She did the deed! How strange to have a 11 month old using the potty. We were making a big to-do about it and she looked at us like "what's the fuss, I've been doing this for 6 months".
Tomorrow is another "free day". We will be hitting the "city center" as Peter says. That's downtown for all you round eyes. There's a McDonalds, Pizza Hut & KFC there. I'm looking forward to eating something besides fried rice. Today's specialty at the buffet was braised chicken unguis, that's fancy chicken feet for you round eyes. Yesterday was fried duck unguis. And no, I am not kidding! Still haven't seen any monkey brain jello.