Last day in China

Well, today was our last full day in Beijing. It was not too hot and not very humid at all. I thought I was going to be up all night waiting for Alicia to wake up and fuss and cry so at I waited... 1am, 2am, 3am... 5am, 6am... Hey, what happened to the screaming terror that has kept me up the last 3 or 4 nights? She kept me up for nothing this time!!! Lets see what tonight holds for me.
So today we decided to go to Wangfujiang Street Mall. It is a street mall with fashion, jewelry, and department stores. It would take you about 30 minutes to walk the length of the mall without stopping to look. Dad and I took the side alleys to a cultural market and nearly got run overduring a chase between a store merchant and an illegal street vendor - pretty exciting stuff. On a sad note as we crossed under the major roadway to the Mall we saw a mother holder her child who was deformed and was begging. We felt so bad for them and gave them some money. I just can't get that picture out of my mind!

Here is dad and Grace at the beginning of the mall. It is normal to have a parasol in hand to shield the hot sun from you.

Dad and I saw a store that specialized in chopsticks and had a large poster on the wall of a set of custom chopsticks. Engraved on the chopsticks were the words: Ping An - the same names as our daughters. I was going to go in a get a set but the Chinese in me prevented me from buying another set of chopsticks. I now kinda regret not getting them but I know I could have them done at home if I really want to - there is nothing that I can't do with two pieces of wood and a permanent fine tipped marker!

At the cultural market they had tons of food and the one that caught my eyes was this kabob vendor that had everything from chicken hearts, tongues, to seahorse and live scorpion skewers! It was neat watching them wiggle on the skewers! It also gave me the heebeejeebees! I'm still shaking it off right now!

We found a Chinese restaurant (really chinese you say?) across the street in the old town villa that we ate at the very first day we came to Beijing. We ate there often and so we decided to end our trip by going there the last time. The staff were very enamoured with our girls and often played with them or carried them when they started to fuss up. We had our usual Peking Duck dinner and pigged out again for less than $20 Cdn. I'm going to have to have that new suit I just bought restitched!!!

So, this is our last blog until we get home tomorrow! Lets see... We leave Beijing Thursday August 3rd at 4pm and arrive in Vancouver Thursday August 3rd at 12:30pm. I've gone back in time! I hope I get younger cause I'll need to with these two little ones!

See you all at home!

Love,

Grace and Dave (and grandma Betty and grandpa Jim (Yeh-Yeh)




hmmm... lets see - you leave at 4pm spend 12 hours on the plane and you arrive before you get on the plane... nope. still can't get my head around this time differential. must be some tachyon particles playing havoc on the subspace time continuum or something....