Parks and restaurants

Well, we found something that Ginny likes (now that she's comfortable with us). There's a huge park across the street from our hotel. It's pretty amazing actually. There's a bonsai garden and a ballroom dancing hall, a workout station, a small theme park with kids rides and a playground... At least that's all we saw, but we only got about a quarter of the way around the lake!

We spent most of the time at the playground. Ginny seemed right at home! She was climbing all over, going down slides, LOVED the swings and had a general good time! Later after her nap, I tried to teach her some sign language. We worked on 'more', 'please', 'thank you' and 'I love you'. I also got Ginny to kiss me!!! We've been working on that one ever since!

I want to tell you about some of the things I've noticed about restaurants here in China. Going out to eat is a very interesting experience. First there is always someone at the door to greet you, and then another person who points you to yet another person who seats you. There are about a million servers, some in suits, others in uniforms. I'm not quite sure what the difference is in their actual jobs but they seem to do pretty much the same thing... Stand around a lot!

The menus you get are more like books! And they only give you one or two depending on the size of the party. Luckily there are pictures, because the names aren't always in English and there's almost never a description. Unlike in the US, nothing comes with rice and some restaurant don't even offer white rice! Lastly and most confounding is the way dishes are brought out... In no particular order. The meat dish may come first, followed by the spring rolls ten minutes later, with the fried rice showing up at the end! Very strange!!!