Shopping Day

Even going to the grocery store is an adventure in China! This morning Malinda and I took bus # 21 to Zhongshan Lu, the shopping street. Our destination was the large supermarket, Trust-Mart, since Malinda said she was out of just about everything. But before shopping there, we walked along Zhongshan Lu and looked in the multitude of little shops. We went to the little shop where Malinda had purchased the ethnic dresses for the girls, and I bought the exact one (aqua) that the girls wore in a previous post to send to Judy in KS for the auction that benefits Chinese orphanages. Judy, you will have to send me your snail mail address so that I can mail it to you when I return home.

It’s a good thing there are people in the picture above, so you can tell it is a sculpture – Malinda thinks it looks like butter molds for the Jolly Green Giant, though she can offer no explanation for why the butter molds have gold turtles on them! As I finished taking the picture, I just had to document the everyday duty of a mother shopping with her toddler. I wish I had seen this a minute earlier, as she was holding the child a foot away , right where you see the wet spot. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what was going on just before Mom had to wipe her bottom, does it?

We then spent the rest of the time shopping for groceries at Trust-Mart. It is quite disconcerting to me to be unable to read ANYTHING. We bought frozen dumplings with helpful cooking directions like, “Can boil,” or with drawings of dumplings floating in a pot to suggest, “Can boil!” We purchased snacks just looking at pictures and hoping that what is inside is what we think it is. Malinda is really good at getting what she wants. We had to remind ourselves that we had to take the bus home so not to buy many things like we do back in Texas! Still, hauling everything back on the bus was an adventure!

We had to rest before eating lunch and then rest after lunch, too. Later in the afternoon, I got a hair cut, which is as good as I get at home and a whole lot cheaper (about $2). The shampoo bowl was interesting – instead of leaning back in a chair with your head over the sink, this place has you lie down! It works pretty well for those of us with short necks.

It was also interesting to see the machine for giving permanent waves. I haven’t seen one of these since I was a girl in France!

On the way to the girls’ kindergarten, there is a very tall wall on the hill and one lonely plant grows in the crack in a wall. I think it is quite lovely, and obviously quite tenacious.

As usual, the girls were happy to see Mama and Mimi. They played in the courtyard while they had their snack – here they are inside the castle on the playground.

The temperature was perfect so we sat in the park while the girls played some more and then stopped to eat at what the girls call “the usual restaurant” – a large restaurant in the Yifu Building on Xiada campus – and then we walked leisurely home. Another great day!