Worm Mart

Our first full day in Beijing (Sunday), I wanted to find some groceries to put in the fridge. We are staying at the Beijing HWA apartment hotel. It has a kitchenette, living area and separate bedroom, which has beengreat with Audrey. I asked the concierge where a market was. He pointed me in the direction of 'worm mart'. I repeated it to make sure I heard correctly and he said yes. So I headed off, walked for awhile and started to notice people carrying Wal-Mart shopping bags! I realized that Worm Mart (which I thought was a strange name) was actually Wal-Mart. I almost went to WM for the first time in 7 years! I of course turned around and went back emptyhanded. A couple of days later we discovered a great market right next door to the hotel (sort of disguised as a mall)! Why in the world he didn't tell me about it is beyond me. I think he thought that since I was American I would want to go to Worm Mart. Plus we've discovered he's just generally not very helpful.

Buying beer in Xi'an

After much sightseeing and shopping in Xi'an, we all decided it would be nice to have a beer and let the kids run around and play. Katie asked a taxi driver if he knew of such a place, and he said yes. So, we got three "sambars", or little taxis which are basically motorcycles with a two seat cab in the back. What a ride! We arrived at a place where there was a tiny shop, and a door built into the wall. The door led to what looked like a park, so Katie, Irene, and the kiddos went that way while Jon and I tackled the task of getting beer. We went into the little shop and asked for beer - which they had! Twist our arms, all they had were the local equivalent of "forties." We bought four for ten yuan, or about a dollar and thirty cents! Now, to open the beers. This took a little chatting with the two ladies at the shop, but soon they produced an opener, which we begged them to let us photograph to no avail (we think they were embarrassed - while Jon and I thought it was the most creative opener we had seen). The opener was basically a thick, tongue depressor sized piece of wood with a bolt and several nuts do figured at one end to fashion an opener - worked just fine! Chinese ingenuity...

Banned!

Sunday was our first full day in Beijing. We checked out the area by our hotel, went to Tian'enmen Square, checked out this CRAZY street market called Panjiayuan Flea Market (miles of booths with everything under the sun! So cool and worth visiting if you are in Beijing on the weekend!!), had lunch and went to Yashow Market. It's 6 stories of shopping- some negotiable some not. We found this Hello Kitty stall and decided to get Audrey some big girl panties (pack of 6). They started off asking 180rmb, the equivalent of $25+. I think I laughed b/c this is expensive back home. We went back be forth, she said she wouldn't go lower than 50, I wouldn't go higher than 20 ($3). So we walked. We heard her shouting at us, the price going lower and lower. Finally she said "ok! 20!" we stopped turned around and handed her 20. She was mad and actually told me that I wasn't allowed back in her store. That was so cool! The ultimate in bargain pricing!! I'm still laughing about it.

Ultra Advanced Potty Training

Babies wear split pants and no diapers here. When they have to go, they squat down and go. We've observed parents directing the pee into grates in the sidewalk or under trees. I've read parenting blogs in the states about people trying to encourage this back home. But we really don't think that it would fly culturally.
While in the Lohmans' van in Chengdu Audrey announced that she really had to pee and we were far from the apartment. The driver pulled over and A squatted under a tree and relieved herself. We've had to do this a few times and let me say it has taken away the stress of traveling with a potty training toddler. She even requests the squatty toilets!
And just generally speaking, she is doing great, embracing the culture and is trying so many different foods, it's great! Joe and I are looking forward to incorporating her newly expanded diet into our everyday lives. Today she appears to be suffering from the beginnings of a cold- we are certain it is coming from her desire to lick everything over the past few days. Gross.

Things We Like About China

This will be a little list that we will add to...
1. The people! I don't think we've run into any truly mean or rude people. It has been the opposite.
2. The whole 'children can pee anywhere' rule. For now this is serving us very well! Perhaps 10 years from now we'll find it disgusting.
3. Bargaining for purchases. We've only been here 3 weeks and I'm not looking forward to returning to paying what the price tag says or taxes for that matter. It's fun' to ask the price, shake your head when you hear it and say 'too much', then getting it for 30% or less!
4. Driving and passing in the medians.
5. Inexpensive beer.
6. Our expat friends friends who live here.(and yes this may rank after cheap beer) ;)
7. People holding hands- we see a lot of this- the young with the old, girls who are friends, men with their parents and children... It's nice to see.

Xi'an

We went to Xi'an with the Lohmans on Thursday the 22nd. I must say here that Audrey just loved them all but in particular the kiddos Mucah and Evelyn. They are 9 & 8 and were a good distraction from Audrey's desires to go home and see her best friend Eliana, whom she misses GREATLY! We stayed at the Howard Johnson, which is nothing like the Rockford, IL HoJo we've stayed in before. This was Chinese 5 star and considered the best hotel in Xi'an. (Still only about $140 a night) Jon hooked us up with a tour guide Raphael (who will get his own blog entry soon), he picked us up from the airport and brought us to lunch. We ate at a great Chinese Muslim estaursnt in the Muslim Quarter part of town. (xi'an is about 8 million people and has a strong Muslim population.)The food was really yummy! We then went to see the Terra Cotta Warriors (google them for history- no time this morning!;) Audrey is itching to leave the coffeeshop). The warriors were very impressive and we are glad we decided to keep it in the itinerary. Again, the shear volume of people selling stuff outside was amazing. It was like walking down a busy main street in a small midwestern town only it was all geared toward tourists. We were back at the hotel in time for dinner, which we decided to eat in the hotel restaurant. They had an impressive buffet, complete with a large selection of western and local foods. What sold me was that the beer and wine were included in the $15 price- SOLD! ;) we all did our best to live up to the stereotype of 'fat Americans bellying up to the buffet'. We hung out for a couple of hours until the kids had had enough and were starting to roll around on the floor- our que to leave. The next day we intended to see some local sights like the Big Goose Pagoda, City Wall, Drum and Bell Towers. Instead, we spent the day shopping in the Muslim district and just walking around. We all found some fun stuff to haggle stall owners for and got some good deals. Since we were going to a dinner show that evening, we decided to take the kids to a park to let them run around. We flagged down a rickshaw driver and asked him to take us somewhere where adults could get beers and kids could play. So 3 rickshaws drove us to a park that met both requirements and we all had a blast! I'll have to let Joe blog about the beer lady.;) that night we went to a dinner theatre show about the Tang Dynasty. If you could get beyond the extreme touristy feel to the whole thing it was actually entertaining. And we actually stayed out until 10pm!
The next day (our last) we had the morning to sneak in some sights before Raphael picked us up for lunch, Han emperor tomb visit and the airport. We went to the city wall which is impressive in scale alone. I think it's one of the last or best examples of Chinese walled cities, asost have been torn down or destroyed. You can walk on the top which is about 24' wide maybe?? If you walked the whole thing it would take 4 hours. Of course there are rickshaws to drive you or bicycles to rent. We just walked a bit, took photos and went on to see the bell and drum towers. On the way there we saw the most homeless people we have seen in all of our time here in China. I think we saw 4! Either there aren't many homeless or they are hiding. Anyways this one woman caught my attention- she was sitting on the sidewalk with her baby in her lap, who must have been somewhere between 12 and 18 months. The baby was crying as we walked by and looked sick. I looked back and i think i saw her looking at us through strands of disshoveled hair in her face. I suddenly felt awful for everything i am blessed with having in my life. As a mom I could hardly handle thinking of what that woman must feel, being unable to help her child. 1/2 a block later we stopped to get a drink at a corner stall. I bought the woman an orange juice and chocolate ice cream bar. I figured that evenif she had the money, she wouldn't indulge like that. I brought it back to her and gave her some money too. She thanked me and as I walked away I saw that she was immediately giving her baby some juice and eating the ice cream bar. I know how good those taste to me on a hot summer day so I can only imagine how good it was to her. I wanted to find a hospital to take them to to get a checkup and medicine for her baby, but I just couldn't. Something about that woman and child really touched me and I hope to take that feeling home with me.
We managed to take some photos of the towers and went back to the hotel where Raphael picked us up for lunch and the tombs. We really enjoyed Xi'an and spending some extra time with the Lohmans away from the stress of Chengdu. Audrey was very upset that we weren't going back with them. ;)

Away from aftershocks

we've had some friends and family concerned with all of the earthquake activity so I thought I would mention that we are not near it. We left Chengdu on Thursday the 22nd. Even though the Lohmans live 60+ miles from the epicenter we did feel 2 aftershocks in the night. One was enough to rattle the bedhead and the other only enough to make me wonder if I was imagining things swaying. We then went to Xi'an for a couple of days but left for Beijing on the 24th. The Qingchuan aftershock (6.4) on Sunday was felt in Xi'an but we were already gone. Beijing is a safe distance from it all. Thanks for all of your concern!
A note about the press coverage here- if you turn on the tv anytime day or night, you will find some sort of earthquake coverage. Mostly it's a montage of video clips of relief efforts set to music, much like what was played after Kateina. The difference I've noticed is this- at home when disaster news is covered over and over it seems people get desensitized or tired of constantly hearing about 'yesterday's news.' I to not get that feeling here. People seem genuinely concerned about their fellow countrymen. Perhaps it's because I don't understand 99.9% of what people are saying...