We made it through our first morning exploring by ourselves. Since the cell phone battery went dead, it is a very good thing we did not get lost. We are a little apprehensive to take the bus because all the bus schedules are in Chinese. Hence, we walked and we walked a lot. Both of use are pretty beat at the moment.
The first thing we did was walk through a couple markets. Anyone up for some live chickens or ducks? ;o(
I can't bring myself to buy fruit. The fruit is just on the ground, sometimes in boxes. The fruit: peaches, oranges (which are green in color), pears, etc look delicious. Maybe one day. In the market, we bought breakfast. (I am craving some American food today... more to come on this later) We had some fried dough. I was thinking that would be safe to eat. Hot boiling oil should kill all germs, right? It reminded me of a long doughnut and kinda tasted like a pancake. Pancakes and doughnuts are American!
Next we walked down the major street toward Beijing. We walked by some military folks carrying big weapons. Made me pretty nervous just to see guns so big so close. I told Ryan we needed to walk on the other side of the street on the way back. I remembered seeing a Pizza Hut on the way to town. I thought it was close by, maybe a mile or so. Remember, I want American food? We got to the area where we thought the Pizza Hut was but could not find it. We did see a Dairy Queen. We also found a tourist center. We went in and found a very nice gentleman that knew only a little English. He called a friend who speaks a little more English to help us out. Long story short, we did not have pizza for lunch. We think there is a Pizza Hut closer to the center of Beijing. We did get directions to another pizza place but couldn't really follow the directions so we tried Dairy Queen. The DQ had ice-cream so I had that. I ordered an Oreo blizzard ice-cream cone. Not quite like home but it hit the spot. The other things on the menu weren't American. We also looked at a KFC menu. We think they had pork sandwiches on the menu. We decided to wait to eat closer to home.
Next stop was Wu Mart. The trip was pretty successful. I finally found mascara! The mascara cost more than our lunch that we ate a little later. As most of you know, when I come to cleaning, I like to use only natural cleaners (aka vinegar in my case). I can't seem to find vinegar. I know they use it to cook so it has to be sold somewhere. Also, the towel I bought the other day is terrible. It doesn't absorb water. What kind of towel doesn't absorb water? Then today, what I thought was a bath towel is really 2 hand towels. oops. If only I could sew them together. I asked Ryan to get the alternation place to sew them together. haha that would never work (language barrier).
Next was lunch. One of the ladies that worked in the restaurant spoke a little English. She helped us order. We got spinach with peanuts, noodles with chicken, bean sprouts and eggs. We also got noodles. This all cost about 8 bucks and could have feed about 6 or more people. Next time we only need to order one thing. The English speaking waitress was named Sophie. She was super sweet. She helped us with mixing the noodles. She even gave us her phone number in case with need her help. She said maybe we can come over to her house for dinner one night. Wow. This would never happen in the USA.
Well that is all for now. We are off to find the dry cleaners. Wish us luck.
-julie
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