Nadia woke up at 3 am and asked if it was time to get up. I said no and she slept until 5:30 thank goodness. We had some breakfast and watched a little SpongeBob and Shaun the Sheep in Chinese. They don’t quite have SpongeBob’s voice right, but Nadia still thought it was funny. We decided to head out again since the sun was shining. We wanted to find some gloves for Mike and a scarf for me. I was so zealous packing warm gear for the girls I forgot about us.
Spiral staircase in the restaurant where we eat breakfast.
We walked over to the Oriental Plaza mall to wander around. This is like the biggest most expensive mall you have ever seen. It’s at least 2 city blocks and who knows how many floors it was. It’s like the Galleria supersized, or the mall at Ceaser’s Palace in Vegas times 100! Every possible expensive brand name you can think of was in there. Plus dozens and dozens of restaurants. We were in there for a while and Nadia fell asleep in the stroller again. While we were walking around these 3 girls came up and started talking to us in English. They were telling us how they were art students and the government invited them to do an exhibition showing their art and “today was the last day, would you like to come see our art?” We decide to check it out thinking that of course they were going to try and sell us some, but at least we could see what they had to offer. So we get over there and of course their “teacher” is there ready to show us all the art. We look around and almost everything is beautiful. Then the hard sell comes on and we decline. They offer to take us to the post office to mail it and various other things and we decline. Then comes the hard core manipulation as we are leaving. “your daughter likes this, you will help us students with our school” and on and on. So we leave and they head back for the mall to look for their next “mark.” Mike said he gave them an ‘A’ for effort and a ‘D’ for presentation. It really would have been better if they just said they wanted to see if we would like to buy their art instead of the whole student and teacher routine. Notice their look of disappointment in the photo.
After that we found some gloves for Mike and I got Nadia a bracelet like the ones I got for myself (and for gifts) on our last trip. This store had them in little sizes and Nadia picked a light blue one with Pandas on it. She was so excited to have a bracelet like mommy. At that point the spring rolls at the Yummy Coconut were calling my name so we headed over there for lunch. This time we got 2 orders of spring rolls and Chicken Fried Rice. Nadia loved all the food and I was glad she was awake to enjoy it this time.
After lunch we swung by the grocery store and I found a very nice scarf/wrap and “got my haggle on”. It was funny how the guy looked so exasperated at my counter offer. And when I said no and started to walk away he said, “because you friend I give you that price.” So I bought it and I am sure I could have gone lower since he only went back and forth with me a couple times before accepting it. By the end of the trip I am sure I will haggle even harder. We also had to re-supply our snack pile.
On Wang Fu Jing we saw part of a dragon dance performance.
Tea house by our hotel.
We went back to the hotel for a short nap and then got ready for the Chinese Acrobat show. We arranged our airport pick up and drop offs through a girl named Annie. She came to our hotel to pick us up for the acrobat show at the Tiandi Theatre. Nadia fell asleep on the way over, but woke up once the music started for the show. We all LOVED the show and the performers were really amazing. The performers start training for this when they are 3 or 4 and some of the girls looked young like they were 10 or 11 years old. They didn’t allow any photos or video, but Mike got a photo of the thearte.
When I was getting Nadia ready for bed she said, “I really liked the acrobats, thanks for taking me mommy.” I am glad that she liked it so much since it was our last thing to do as a family of three. I know she is going to be a great big sister, but her whole world is about to change. She keeps saying the sweetest things, like when we go out to eat she will point at the empty seat and say, “That’s where sissy will sit.” Or “I am going to help sissy with her food because she will be little.”
We had a great second full day in Beijing and I think that we all feel a lot more adjusted. It was so smart of us to stay up so late at home to get ourselves closer to China time. Thanks for all your comments, prayers and love!