And the final result... The Penn Family of 4

Pedestrian Mall (Last Day in China)

Monday

This is becoming like "groundhog day".  I cannot wait to leave.  Every day is the same exact thing at the hotel.  Same breakfast at the hotel every morning, same schedule, same peddlers on the street.  We arrive at breakfast (which is really good breakfast actually) at about the same time every morning around 7.  They play this really bad muzak and appear to start the cd exactly at the same time becuase every moring I hear the same songs while getting coffee (Cyndi Lauper), finishing up fruit (George Michael), getting Samuel some congee (Bette Midler), and searching for a pastry (Billy Joel).  Its like the soundtrack to our trip. 

 

Anyway Samuel is doing well.  At first, he would not walk without holding my hand.  Now, since he had a taste of freedom, he occassionally throws a tantrum when I do hold his hand walking down the street.  Still an incredibly even tempered child.

 

I am going to eat this stuff next.  Don thought that it might be whale blubber.  After I bought it I found some ingredients in english written in fine print.  turns out it is a soy product so likely just tofu.  not very exciting.  I might try the fried chicken feet at the restaraunte tonight.  Could 1 billion Chinese be wrong?  I ate a package of something that was gummy, brown, but white and fuzzy on the outside.  No idea what that was.  Strange taste.  Sweet and salty.  not a word of english on the package. 

 

Don took another tour of a park.  There parks are very different from our idea of a park.  For them it is less natural and very manipulated/manicured.  Basically it is a lot of concrete with beds of beautiful trees and plants that you don't walk in.  It is similar to Longwood Gardens.  Anyway, Don said he saw some guy at the park with his pet bird.  He just carries around this bird in a cage.  I don't get it, but it speaks to an artist in that context.  I wish he would have taken a picture. 

 

The guy in the blue shirt on the right side of the picture is wearing a t shirt that says, "failure is not an option".  I tried so hard to get a good picture of that.  oh well.

 

Samuel is finally slowing down on eating.  I guess he figured out that each meal was not his last.  There were two days in a row where he puked a little bit in the room after eating.  We never even noticed it.  One time he was playing with it.  He was eating too much too fast. 

 

Don pointed out that there were rotating cameras on every street corner on the island.  I did not notice that before.  they make them look like street lights.

 

Godbless

CPenn

 

 

View from top of hotel, water too cold for swimming

 

Trapped but fun, Exam,Ready for breakfast, Eating Breakfast

 

Zoo

 

Friday

The zoo.  What I would do to be able to post the video of what I got at the zoo.......the file is too big. 

 

Samuel threw his first temper tantrum, which was kindergarten compared to Lia.  I was drawing water for a bath (which he immediatelly recognized) and shut him out of the bathroom until it was ready for him.  It only lasted a couple of minutes. 

 

Apparently he knows what a dog is; there are a couple of dogs that live on the roof of the building next to us.  When he sees them he makes a barking noise.  He also does this to any furry mammal at the zoo that is roughly the same shape as a dog. 

 

Samuel got 5 shots at the medical clinic yesterday.  That was sad.  However, he recovered in about 30 seconds.  He even peeled off all of those gay band-aids. 

 

They got Carlsberg lager at the 7/11.  I have not seen that since I was in Ireland.  Bought one for nostalgic reasons.  Tastes like Yuengling, but better.  They sell this carrot juice there that is pretty good.  I try some different stuff every day.  So far nothing served with heads still on it like last year.  Not that it tastes bad.....

 

Godbless

CPenn