3 more hours

Tuesday, Sep 16, 2008 5:30 am...I was laying in bed and couldn't sleep so thought I'd write a little more instead. After we settled in to our hotel yesterday, we went to dinner with our guide. XiXi took us over to Green Lake which is a collection of ponds that are connected with a walkway and park through the middle. Many people gather here and perform music (not begging just for something to do) because the living areas are small and the people who are retired miss being around others. Green Lake is covered in water lilies in the summer months and it was beautiful. We had noodles at a local place and got so many stares. XiXi said it is not at all typical for Americans to go to these places to eat, they all go to KFC or McDonalds. They bring this monstrous bowl of broth and then plates of noodles and once plate with vegetables and one with chicken parts. They throw it all together with a raw egg and there's dinner. XiXi had a plate full of chicken heads and some fried pork (kind of like bacon) ; a delicacy here. We actually all had dinner and beverage for $3 US.

After dinner and Green Lake, we went to the Flower Market. This is where the minority people sell their wares and we had so much fun! They had many small pets of all different kinds for sale (turtles, squirrels, fish) and birds of all kinds. Also many things done by hand and jewelry. We ran in to no other Americans. In preparing to come to China, it sounded like many Chinese speak English to some degree even if only a little. Here in Kunming, we have not run into many who can speak English any more than saying "Hi" outside of the hotels. Many of the people have come and stood by us out of curiosity to hear our guide speak to us because she says they cannot believe that she can communicate with us.

The driving is really crazy here although I have felt safer in the taxi than trying to cross streets by foot. There are many mopeds and they are silent as they approach. You have to be really careful or you can get hit by the mopeds and cars; noone stops for pedestrians and there are no signals for pedestrians either. There are very little rules on the roadways and in fact, yesterday on the way in, we saw two young children riding a small toy moped down the middle of the highway offramp and crash with cars right behind them. The children run and play everywhere, sometimes with parents watching and most of the time not watching very carefully. In fact, many parents will take their children (even preschool age and younger if siblings are with them) to go shop and leave them to play in the square and come back for them later. It was really freaking Nathan and I out! All of the little children who are toddlers where the split pants so we have seen many cute little naked bottoms running around in split pants! And we've seen squatty potties of course; this is what everyone who lives here has in their own homes.

When we receive Sol in a few hours, we will spend more than half of our day at offices doing paperwork for the Chinese government. I am all packed to try to keep a preschooler happy for the duration of the process today. We will keep you posted on how it all turns out.