A day at the market

Greetings, it is our last day in Beijing! We met up with our professor friends, Meng Lei and Sun Li around 9am. They had taken the train over yesterday (about a 5 hour ride) and John had tea with them down in the lobby of the hotel last night. They arrived with a friend, Mr. Wong who could speak English to help us translate. Mr. Wong has a doctorate degree as a medical doctor and works for a pharmaceutical company. He brought along the company driver to take us around Beijing. The traffic is awful and I think the driver just continued driving around while we shopped. We went to a large open market, and I mean large. There is a photo of John and Lily at the market. It was kind of like a flea market with open booths and lots of people selling everything from Jade to Buddha. Mr. Meng has also brought along friends who are experts in telling the fake from the real. I think they had visions that we were there to buy some world treasures when all we really wanted were some inexpensive gifts to bring to Lily's classmates and friends. We did find such a booth and as I picked out what I wanted, Mr. Wong talked to the proprietor and Mrs. Wong did the bargaining, yes, it took three of us to get it. I ended up getting fancy chopsticks, handpainted for all of Lily's classmates and at 40RMB for 20 pair (a little over $5). Lily meanwhile was getting sleepy. That is what happends when you insist on getting up at 1am! Only Mommy would do and to top it off about 3" of her legs were exposed while I was carrying her and you would have thought I was a very bad mother for letting that skin show. I think the general size of the crowd and all the cigarette smoke was much more detrimental to her health, but that was not the general consensus. Lily did announce while we were walking the market that she did not see people spitting like I had told her. Of course I could hear it going on all around us. She decided she needed to be one of the locals and did her best to spit on the sidewalk several times.
Next we were off for a long leisurely lunch. Mr. Meng had reserved a room at a restaurant known for Peking Duck. There were a total of 10 of us in a little room. Soon in walked a cook with a fish still wiggling on a string, he wanted to make sure we approved of our dinner before they cooked it. I was expecting to see a duck walk in next, but I guess he was already on the chopping block. Soon dishes of food started to arrive and didn't stop. There was an interesting assortment and I tried not to ask too many questions. Lily did focus on one particular plate and I asked Mr. Wong what is was. The interpretation was "lung of cow." We passed on that plate. Lily ate well of the vegetables and egg and I tried to be as daring as possible and really didn't eat anything that tasted bad. Traditional Chinese food is very different from Springfield style cashew chicken. Everyone helps themselves from the main plate with the chopsticks they are using, but I tried hard to not think about the germ factor. We were probably the sickest ones there with our colds so I hope they didn't catch it from us. Lily was the star of the show with Mr. Meng. She started giving him high 5s and he would pretend that she was hurting his hand and he would blow on it and make faces and of course that was all the encouragement Lily needed. Lily did sing a song in Chinese for the group and they seemed pleased. Lily also had another first, she successfully used the squatty potty. This is good coming from a girl who is very particular about her potties. When we had to use the restroom at the restaurant they pointed down a long narrow hallway. We actually had to cross outside in an alley to the potty. Once Lily had the technique down she actually enjoyed it, similar to peeing in the backyard (which she does on occasion if we are not watching).
Ok, Daddy and Lily are down in the pool so I need to catch up. I'll post more later.