Day: March 10, 2008

The weather was awesome today and Nadia and I enjoyed it while Mike worked away in the apartment. During Nadia’s first nap I ran to the bank and the grocery store. And because I am leaving no Ritz in China untested I bought the peanut butter filled ones today. They are much like you would expect, but the peanut butter is a little lighter than at home and of course the Ritz are light and fluffy like the others in China. For lunch I ran down to the pastry shop and got us some tasty stuff. I got us each a hot-dog wrapped in a sweet bun, then topped with pizza toppings. YUM! Then I got a cheese filled sandwich on a nutty wheat bread. The cheese tasted like Brie and was delicious. Then for myself I got a little custard tart. It was wrapped in the same bread as our lunch and filled with an egg custard with a little blob of blueberry jelly in the middle. Total for all that – $2.80!! As others have commented, you would think I would gain 10 pounds, but my jeans still fit! I think it’s because we walk everywhere instead of drive like at home.

After Nadia’s nap I took her down to the playground near us and she had a grand old time. This was a momentous occasion, since it was her first trip ever to a playground! We met 4 boy babies, 1 little boy and 2 girl toddlers. Girls were clearly outnumbered today, but one little girl shared her toys with Nadia including this very cool bike in the photo. 3 of the kids there had these and I have never seen one like it in America, although I have never looked.

Those poor babies were bundled to the hilt even though it was in the low 70’s. I had Nadia in a hoodie just to try and escape the comments. I was in a short sleeved shirt and people were asking me if I was cold. Even I can’t escape the clothing police! Look at Nadia checking out this boy on the merry go round. Her face is like, “Why is he dressed like that?” His mom looked Nadia over and then took off one of his 3 pairs of shoes/slippers and unzipped his jacket…a little. The baby probably wanted to have a party!

And here is Nadia from this morning when she wanted her new mittens and shoes on with her jammies. She is too funny!

Nadia woke up on Sunday with her 8th tooth popping out and that explains why she was a little fussy the couple days beforehand. Nadia and I just played in the morning while Mike worked and after Nadia’s morning nap and some noodles by Lou, we all bundled up and headed out to take the subway to the shopping district in East Beijing. Our main goal was to visit the New China Children’s Store. We read about it in a guide book and decided to check it out. We wanted to get Nadia a new toy since she’s been so good in the small space of the living area and just playing with the few toys we brought with us. We decided on the piano above and she just LOVES it. It lights up and has drum sounds and a ton of little songs. She has been totally jamming to the drum beats too. She loves to dance which is just totally cute!

So the main floor of this place is all toys. One whole side is imports and you would not believe the prices for the American toy brands. We are talking $50 for something you would pay about $20 for at home. This is a store for the wealthy of Beijing. All the Chinese toys like her piano were prices that you would expect. Cheap! The bottom floor is all shoes. I have never in my life seen so many children’s shoes in one place. So. Many. Shoes. And once again the imports were so expensive. We got Nadia the cutest pair of red gingham tennis shoes, they are a Chinese brand and way cute. She got up this morning and wanted to wear them with her jammies. The top floor of the place is all children’s clothes. My tutor Kiki had told me that jammies like we brought for Nadia were very expensive here and she was right. $14 – 25 a pair in this import store. We bought Nadia a totally cute pair of mittens for $2. She thinks those are funny and was wearing them around last night.

So we avoided everything imported and got Nadia some little goodies yesterday and walked up and down the shopping area with tons of people. We took the subway to the area and had to change lines twice. The subway was so crowded that it was unbelievable to me. I have never been so jammed up against so many people – pushing and shoving. Claustrophobic people must just have to take cabs here or get over it because the buses are just as crowded. We took a cab home because Nadia was due for a nap. I plan on doing all my real shopping at the silk market, but we wanted to go down and see this other area of Beijing. The street is calling Wangfujing and the Oriental Plaza is there and it takes up a whole city block. It has all the ritzy stores in there and so we just looked in and came back out. The guide books say it has a fabulous food court, but I had to laugh about the “Sizzler”. How that made it all the way to China I will never know.

I was joking with Mike that if we were selling tickets for all the looks and people tripping over themselves to see Nadia we could have this trip paid for. People crane their necks and grab their friends to look and make silly faces and smile at her. Elementary age children are fascinated with her too, waving and smiling and grabbing their parents to look. Here are a few shots of the shopping area.