Friday, December 4, 2009
A DAY FOR PLAY!

This morning after breakfast we headed to the Chinese National Museum here in Beijing. Brandy and I probably could have spent all day there but as you can imagine the girls were at best only moderately interested. To them it just looks like a bunch of old junk.

At one point I found myself looking at a clay vase/pot thinking, “Jeez, what’s so special about that? I could have made THAT!” Then I looked at the date and realized that it was over 800 years old. Ok, now that’s impressive. The case was rigged with four lines to keep the vase stable. I had a negative thought that I might somehow spaz out and knock the whole case over. “Ok now Fessick, stay calm and slowly back away” I thought to myself.

On the way up to the second floor I realized that we were taking the longest escalator I have ever seen. I found myself thinking that the thing must have one seriously massive motor. I mean, wow, if that thing was full of people it would take some major power to lift them all. Maybe, 3 Fessicks on hamster wheels!! :o)

I managed to get out of the museum without breaking anything. We did get some very nice pictures of some very old stuff. I have been hassling our guide about making stuff plural. Both she and Michelle use the word, “stuffs”. I tried to explain that stuff is already plural. I think she got it. She said, “Here they have many nice old stuffs”. It made me smile.

On the way back to the hotel, Grace took us to a local dumpling house. We went upstairs to take our seats. The ceiling was about 5’10” I’d say. Needless to say everyone was amused that Fessick couldn’t stand up. I told Brandy to remind me when we were leaving not to stand all the way up. You should have seen me trying to put my coat on. The food was very good and we all ate too much. Kung Fu Panda style dumplings. It’s a tough life.

LOL…………………… A scream just came from the bathroom where the two girls are in the tub. “Mom, need a bathroom, Li Meng Meng need a bathroom.” Brandy just went in and scooped a soaking wet booty out of the tub and put it on the toilet. Hope she doesn’t slip in! There isn’t much to hold her up!

When we got back to the hotel after lunch I put on some long johns and headed back out to take the girls to Ri Tan Park. After all that walking and looking this morning I thought they needed some serious play. We left Brandy in the room to relax and do some secret shopping (Christmas socks). All in all we wound up playing for about 2 hours. We were freezing our butts off but that didn’t stop us from getting 3 chocolate ice creams. I gave the girls a good monologue. I ended with the phrase, “And now, we need ICE-CREAM!” They were thrilled. I got a million pictures of the happy girls playing like crazy. I guess the babarazzi is back in full effect. It’s like the Paparazzi, only it’s Baba. Anyway you can judge for yourself.

We have started giving the bathrooms ratings. Much like hotel ratings. 5 stars constitutes a clean, stink free western style bathroom. 0 stars means a stinky, dirty, nasty bathroom with a trough to squat over. Brandy came out of the bathroom at Carrefour the other day and announced that the bathroom had a negative star rating. I didn’t try to clarify, I don’t want to know. We did have to make a break for the bathroom at the park today. I give it 2 stars. We are seeing a lot of bathrooms sightseeing with two little girls.

When the girls and I returned from the park Brandy looked rejuvenated. It’s amazing how far a couple of hours of peace can go. Brandy took over and I got an hour or so to read my Andre Agassi book. I’m almost finished with it. It has been a good read.

Tomorrow we spend the afternoon at the Great Wall and pack to fly to Chongqing. Sophie was very interested in the Airport book and seemed to understand that we were going on a plane to Opal. We will see.

Feeling good about life,
Brandy, Ted, Amalie and Sophie