Sunday July 17

We were up with the roosters again. Today we had the plan to go to a park, leaving at eleven. We went down to eat and again our friends were there, which was again wonderful as they are so helpful (as is their 14 year old just-adopted daughter) so that I can actually have a chance to eat. Again, Finn ate noodles. He loves them. Is very hesitant to eat anything else.

We ate breakfast then headed back to the hotel room to relax and have the regular morning wrestling match. Duncan actually fell asleep for a while which was a good idea.

We met down in the lobby to go. Again with our friends since we share the same facilitator. Today she hired a Van for us to get there. It was fantastic. It was a 11 passenger van with 3 rows of three and two seats in the front. There are a zillion of this style of vans here – they are all designed a lot like the Mercedes/Freightliner/Dodge Sprinter Van. There is even one that Ford makes. I wish they had it in the US instead of the older style they make. The other cool thing was our can actually had two fold down seats, so in the first and second passenger rows there were two “normal” seats and then one that folded down into the aisle. Will be perfect for us when we move to Shanghai J.

We drove to the park which was only about 15 minutes away.

The Park was quite nice, though lacking air conditioning (!). Hot. Humid. As is all this town unless you are inside. The park is a big city park with a large lake and lots of people (all Chinese) walking, playing, and so forth. A group of people singing and playing violin and flute. Four, and then four more playing hackey-sack (but Chinese, with the Chinese feather- topped version). People sitting, fanning themselves. Paddle boats. Four year olds dropping their pants and peeing on trees (I guess that’s OK here). It was fascinating. I could have spent a week just there watching the people.

We of course were there for the action. The Amusement Park was inside the park. It was a little park like maybe White Swan or an older Kennywood. Maybe twenty five rides, and so many cool things we’ve never seen at home. And some we’ve seen, like trains, parachutes, and (Yeah) the bumper cars. Boys again loved that as a way to go after each other without me yelling. The unusual rides were my favorite. Like there was these giant stuffed animals you could sit on and drive around. Kai rode the Panda. They had little formula 1 cars you rode (if you were like between 3 and 7, much to Kai’s chagrin) that had rubber tires and you steered and controlled yourself on a track with many turns and curbs. Kids going every which way. It was hilarious. Kai and Duncan loved the ride where you squirted the animals in the center as you spun around and then the animals would spout water. There was a dragon roller coaster (not to big)(I guess dragon roller coasters are required at Chinese amusement parks) and Kai didn’t want to ride it in favor of the giant stuffed panda that he wanted to roll around on. So I rode with Duncan. After about six or eight rides, we decided we were good, and decided to head over to a central commercial area of town because the other family we were with wanted to get some DVD’s that their new daughter requested.

The mall area was a short drive (actually it was just about 4 blocks from hotel it turns out). We went to the DVD store. They had to order what they wanted but of course we could find a hundred things to buy. I found Little Mermaid in Chinese/English and also a few others that I thought were also bilingual but it turned out none were in Chinese. A disappointment, but at $4.44 each not too much. I told Kai he could pick 3 DVD’s (presumably these are only in Chinese, though we’ve just watched one) because I thought it would be nice for him to have something that he liked. He picked some Power Rangers-type movie, Pikachu, and Spiderman cartoons. Duncan knows most of the Spiderman episodes so boys like that one together.

The boys were hungry so we decided to go to the Pizza Hut next door. It was interesting. Giant menu there including pizza, pasta, and all kinds of weird drinks. Boys had Oreo milkshakes. They were not to impressed, as it appears that the High Fructose Corn Syrup Lobby has not gotten hold of as much here as in the US. The shakes (as was the frozen mango thing I had) were not very sweet but really all of them were very good. We lose a lot in the US due to sweetness.

After that we went out of the multi story building we were in and into he pedestrian mall filled with throngs of Sunday shoppers. Our friends enjoyed some local delicacy meat-on-stick from the fast food places down there and we headed back to the hotel.

We came up to the room and decided to cool off and relax a little. I told Duncan he could watch the first movie and he chose “Despicable Me” which was one of the disappointing ones not in Chinese. Kai was not happy. He spent about an hour crying and moaning on the floor while Duncan watched and Finn napped. I felt bad but thought that a lesson on not always being the prima-donna was not a bad lesson even though we had to endure the moaning. He needs to understand that now he is part of a nine person team. It’ll take a while for that to sink in I am sure. Kai is pretty strong willed and reactionary, like a certain other pre-teen boy who id on our trip…

So we watched that and then some Chinese Spidey and then decided to go out a bit. We walked around on the island, to the huge pedestrian are down the middle. Kids ran around and we just relaxed some. Nice.

There are about ten (probably twenty) “tourist trap” shops on this island. They mainly go by the name of “_____’s Place” and all have US girls names. Jennifer’s Place (next to hotel), Jenny’s Place (DIFFERENT FROM JENNIFERS PLACE they will tell you) Emma’s Place, and so on. Some of these stores have aggressive marketing campaigns in the form of young girls who will walk up along side you and strike up a conversation. Some are better some are not. The conversation always includes a suggestion you should come down to my shop. “Best Price” You have to just say yeah and keep going. I thought the people for Jennifer’s Place were nice, and persistent (over a few days) and felt sad they weren’t smart enough to get prime location so we stopped in there (right across from Sharon’s Place. Sharon needs to work on her marketing, which seems to solely be based upon trying to get Jenny’s Place customers to come into her store which is right across the hall). Pretty much all stores same, and all have “Best Price” but its fun to go in and haggle a little and see what they have to sell and what they have to say. Bought the boys those Chinese Hackey Sacks. 10 RMB ($1.50) each.

We walked down to the end of the island and around the block and then back. Thunder was starting to threaten and rain, so we started to hurry. We stopped into a little bakery/take out place which turned out to be part of the White Swan hotel and got food – Duncan got a hot dog (he was happy but it was a “little hard”), Kai got noodles and soup (I asked the counter girl to ask him what he wanted) and Finn and I had curry chicken and rice. We took it all back to the room to eat so we wouldn’t get caught in the rain.

The afternoon / early evening downpour here is standard. I think it has happened every day since we arrived. Hot and humid all day, then sky starts getting black, then thunder, then torrential rain, then it stops. Cools things off at least one degree and doubles the humidity.

Back at the hotel we ate on the floor again, as we do often. Being the lazy /bad dad I let the boys watch Spiderman and eat (we have never done so at home). Finn, the noodle boy, actually ate rice tonight and loved it. He and I had a great time eating dinner together, taking turns feeding him rice. Him cracking up having fun. Me trying to teach him how to hold a spoon. It was memorable.

Finn cried a lot before bed but I held him and rocked him and sung and he didn’t last too long. Then I laid down with him and held him and napped a little myself too. Fortunately Duncan falls asleep early (it’s one of the things that has kept us sane over the past 10 years!) and Kai is probably the same, though I’ve been giving him a little melatonin to be sure. So the bedtime thing was not too painful.