I promise I'll start uploading to my blog really soon. We're in our hotel in Baoding now, and their internet totally works in the rooms, which is great. It's hilarious, because the bathrooms don't have soap, and they have those showers that are just out in the open - weird - everything is just really outdated, but you bet your sweet bippy there are flat screens in each room and a dope internet connection. :) Chinese people are funny.
Alright, let me continue filling you in on KFC. So, yeah, like I said, the "popcorn chicken" was soooooo disgusting. So we mainly ate fries. Which also tasted weird, but we were so desperate to eat anything that we just stuffed them in our mouths. Sadie asked for seconds. It cost like $14 to feed me and the three older kids - not as cheap as I thought it would be.
And let me just say that Chinese people are not that short. Seriously. I've seen some really tall ones, and most of them are average height. But I was right on the money that every single one of them is skinny. I'm wondering if it's because the food here is so gross. Ha!
So back to KFC. Nobody there understood English, so I had to point to the menu, then show on my hand that I wanted four of that item. I felt dumb.
Oh, I forgot to tell you - when we got into the airport and came out into the crowd that was greeting people that had returned from China, it was like walking the freakin' red carpet. People were taking pictures of my kids, cheering, waving, so excited. One of them gave Dylan a Chinese flag. So funny.
After Ben finished his meetings, we all went out to dinner. I was hoping for some decent food - nope. More weird stuff. Duck with the head still attached... lots of pudding-ish textured things... I really did try hard. I think I have Sensory Perception Disorder. Seriously. The kids didn't do much better. Ben has done really well with the food here. And Jason, his boss, has done well. So when I say "we all," I mean us plus Ben's work companions from here. There's a lady named LeAnn (she is so nice and seriously in love with Gage), a guy named William, a guy named Mr. Ju, our interpreter, Debbie, and another guy named... crap. I forget. Mr. Ju is all business. He loves Gage, but seems uninterested in getting to know the rest of us, which is fine. William is Mr. I-want-everyone-to-be-
comfortable. Such a sweetheart. He makes bird noises for Gage, which he loves. He kept trying to make me eat stuff. Debbie told me it's a Chinese custom that you give the last bite of something to someone at the table as a blessing, or a well-wish. So he was trying to wish me well, which was sweet as heck.
I think they all have chosen American-sounding names that are as close to their Chinese names as possible. Again, so sweet.
Debbie is so concerned for me and the kids. The kids still have tons of snacks that I packed in their backpacks, so if they don't eat, they can come back to the hotel and snack, but I don't, so if I don't eat, well, I'm just hungry. She keeps asking if she can go get me something, but I tell her that I'm fat anyways, so it's all good. She says I'm not fat, and so does LeAnn, which is kind.
We took a rental car down to Baoding this morning - for only 80 miles, it took 2 1/2 hours. The freeways are so crowded. And can I just say that Chinese drivers are INSANE. It reminds me of France. There are dashed lines on the street, but everyone ignores them. And all the taxis and rental cars don't have seatbelts. So yeah. A little scary. The biggest rental car they could find barely held all of us, plus our luggage. We were stuffed in there like sardines.
When we got to the hotel, our rooms were sooooooooooo hot, and I couldn't find any air conditioning controls, but after about half an hour, I thought to look up. Oh. They're way up by the ceiling. Thank the Lord. I was about to have a heart attack. It's really humid here, which makes the heat unbearable.
Oh yeah, we stopped at a rest area to use the bathroom - it was all "squatters." Sadie was dismayed at first, but sucked it up and did a really good job. Guess who did a bad job? Me. I accidentally peed all over my flip flop. How embarrassing. And gross. We looked at the snacks inside the snack area of the rest stop, and I couldn't recognize one thing except for the sodas. Thank goodness they have coke everywhere here. We did see something that looked like peanuts, so we bought some and snacked on them.
There are Plants vs. Zombies and Angry Birds toys to be purchased all over the place. This makes Dylan really happy. :)
It took a long time to get out of Beijing - city forever and ever. And then it was just farmland all over. Not rice paddies. I think they need to do those on hills. They seem to grow a lot of corn and potatoes.
We went to lunch, again with Ben's work associates, and we ate more gross food. The only thing I recognized was watermelon. So I had a lot of that.
Ben, Jason, and Debbie are looking at an apartment right now - and they're scheduled to look at four more tomorrow. Debbie is working really hard to find us an apartment that has western amenities, which is also close to a western market. Oh, I pray that there is a western market here somewhere.
I forgot to tell you - we could see the Olympic stadium thing in Beijing from our hotel window - the building they called the "bird's nest." So cool.
Alright, Ben is going to be home soon, and we're going out to "eat." I put that in quotes, because I'll probably nibble on something disgusting and go to bed hungry. :)
I'll upload pics to my blog as soon as I can, alright? For now, I'm going to try that crazy shower. Life is crazy.
Love you guys-
Kar
I think they all have chosen American-sounding names that are as close to their Chinese names as possible. Again, so sweet.
Debbie is so concerned for me and the kids. The kids still have tons of snacks that I packed in their backpacks, so if they don't eat, they can come back to the hotel and snack, but I don't, so if I don't eat, well, I'm just hungry. She keeps asking if she can go get me something, but I tell her that I'm fat anyways, so it's all good. She says I'm not fat, and so does LeAnn, which is kind.
We took a rental car down to Baoding this morning - for only 80 miles, it took 2 1/2 hours. The freeways are so crowded. And can I just say that Chinese drivers are INSANE. It reminds me of France. There are dashed lines on the street, but everyone ignores them. And all the taxis and rental cars don't have seatbelts. So yeah. A little scary. The biggest rental car they could find barely held all of us, plus our luggage. We were stuffed in there like sardines.
When we got to the hotel, our rooms were sooooooooooo hot, and I couldn't find any air conditioning controls, but after about half an hour, I thought to look up. Oh. They're way up by the ceiling. Thank the Lord. I was about to have a heart attack. It's really humid here, which makes the heat unbearable.
Oh yeah, we stopped at a rest area to use the bathroom - it was all "squatters." Sadie was dismayed at first, but sucked it up and did a really good job. Guess who did a bad job? Me. I accidentally peed all over my flip flop. How embarrassing. And gross. We looked at the snacks inside the snack area of the rest stop, and I couldn't recognize one thing except for the sodas. Thank goodness they have coke everywhere here. We did see something that looked like peanuts, so we bought some and snacked on them.
There are Plants vs. Zombies and Angry Birds toys to be purchased all over the place. This makes Dylan really happy. :)
It took a long time to get out of Beijing - city forever and ever. And then it was just farmland all over. Not rice paddies. I think they need to do those on hills. They seem to grow a lot of corn and potatoes.
We went to lunch, again with Ben's work associates, and we ate more gross food. The only thing I recognized was watermelon. So I had a lot of that.
Ben, Jason, and Debbie are looking at an apartment right now - and they're scheduled to look at four more tomorrow. Debbie is working really hard to find us an apartment that has western amenities, which is also close to a western market. Oh, I pray that there is a western market here somewhere.
I forgot to tell you - we could see the Olympic stadium thing in Beijing from our hotel window - the building they called the "bird's nest." So cool.
Alright, Ben is going to be home soon, and we're going out to "eat." I put that in quotes, because I'll probably nibble on something disgusting and go to bed hungry. :)
I'll upload pics to my blog as soon as I can, alright? For now, I'm going to try that crazy shower. Life is crazy.
Love you guys-
Kar
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