After Breakfast this morning, Julie and Gracie headed back to the room to rest. Gracie was still pretty puny after the two days of vomiting and we wanted to keep things low key for her so Emma and I went exploring.
The hotel we were staying at, the Aqua City Holiday Inn, was connected to a mall and Emma and I had seen a craft area on previous explorations. You know we would end up there again. Emma had been such a trooper. Why not?
In the middle of the a high end kids store were several craft stations where parents could put out more money entertaining their kids. Please understand, this mall was posh. It seems there are a few of these in China, as we discovered. There is definitely a growing middle and upper class. The prices in this place easily rivaled Hamilton Place and may have been even more expensive in some stores.
One of the craft stations had hundreds of clay figurines.
In the middle of the a high end kids store were several craft stations where parents could put out more money entertaining their kids. Please understand, this mall was posh. It seems there are a few of these in China, as we discovered. There is definitely a growing middle and upper class. The prices in this place easily rivaled Hamilton Place and may have been even more expensive in some stores.
One of the craft stations had hundreds of clay figurines.
After some pointing and broken English/Chinese communication, we discovered you pick out the one you like and the young lady teaches the child how to make it and then you get to keep it. Pretty cool concept. I want a franchise! I could see a huge market on birthday parties. Emma picked out a cute elephant. It was a good 45 minute to one hour activity she obviously loved.
I can see the appeal and the opportunity for the store to make more money while parents of occupied children browse the surrounding boutique store areas encircling the central craft station. They also had some sand art, a huge race care track for the boys and even a thrown pottery section complete with paint (this one gets you in the store twice as you have to come back to paint the pottery of course, genius!). Emma has now decided she wants to open one of these stores and knows several friends who would be interested too.
A daddy date of crafting wouldn’t be complete without a little sweet treat. We stopped in one of the boutique bakeries in the mall for some macaroons. We bought a sample pack to take back to the room to share with mommy. They were GOOD! Another note about this mall. It literally took me almost the entire 5 days we were in Nanjing to finally figure out the ends and outs of this place. It was partially indoor, partially outdoor with seven floors of shopping and side by side mall buildings. The basement level of the building connected to our hotel contained all the restaurants and a little grocery store that reminded me of a Harris Teeter. It’s obvious our national debt is certainly contributing to a rising middle class.
That evening we hooked up with the single mom, Lori, and her little boy and we all went to the sister mall building just next door where the top three floors were all restaurants. We headed to the seventh floor to a place called Grandma’s. It was talked about by other adoptive families and I read they had a picture menu with English. Well, that didn’t help. There was only one picture menu and it was more like a magazine. I felt bad because I was sort of hogging the magazine trying frantically to flip through what seemed like a hundred pages to find something for a hungry baby and my girls. Julie asked Lori if she wanted to look at the menu and she said no it’s fine, I trust Denny to order. Double pressure!
Even with the picture menu/magazine, our poor waitress didn’t speak a lick of English and I was afraid we were going to end up with the roasted frog or duck feet, so I went in search of an English speaking person. We had bumped into one on the way in, fortunately he told us which way to go to get to our table. When we checked in the hostess said something in Mandarin, handed me a ticket and pointed. We had no idea. So back to my journey for English verification of our meal. Our waitress was following me talking to me and pointing in the direction I was going. In all the confusion, I didn’t see the step I tripped over and almost hit the floor. Another the server caught me and said something else in Mandarin. Then a young man stepped out and asked if he could help. Ah! I understand that. This young man said his name was Albert, even though that probably was his made up American name. He was Asian and spoke some English. He reminded me of a really smart kid in school who actually remembered the English he had taken and could recall it. We American’s are pretty lazy when it comes to language learning. The children here learn English starting in grade school. They would all be pretty fluent I suppose if they used it. One quick travel tip…if you are in a foreign country and no one around you speaks English look for the teenagers. They know enough to help you. Like, “I can’t read the writing on the bottle, is this bottled water or something else?”
A daddy date of crafting wouldn’t be complete without a little sweet treat. We stopped in one of the boutique bakeries in the mall for some macaroons. We bought a sample pack to take back to the room to share with mommy. They were GOOD! Another note about this mall. It literally took me almost the entire 5 days we were in Nanjing to finally figure out the ends and outs of this place. It was partially indoor, partially outdoor with seven floors of shopping and side by side mall buildings. The basement level of the building connected to our hotel contained all the restaurants and a little grocery store that reminded me of a Harris Teeter. It’s obvious our national debt is certainly contributing to a rising middle class.
That evening we hooked up with the single mom, Lori, and her little boy and we all went to the sister mall building just next door where the top three floors were all restaurants. We headed to the seventh floor to a place called Grandma’s. It was talked about by other adoptive families and I read they had a picture menu with English. Well, that didn’t help. There was only one picture menu and it was more like a magazine. I felt bad because I was sort of hogging the magazine trying frantically to flip through what seemed like a hundred pages to find something for a hungry baby and my girls. Julie asked Lori if she wanted to look at the menu and she said no it’s fine, I trust Denny to order. Double pressure!
Even with the picture menu/magazine, our poor waitress didn’t speak a lick of English and I was afraid we were going to end up with the roasted frog or duck feet, so I went in search of an English speaking person. We had bumped into one on the way in, fortunately he told us which way to go to get to our table. When we checked in the hostess said something in Mandarin, handed me a ticket and pointed. We had no idea. So back to my journey for English verification of our meal. Our waitress was following me talking to me and pointing in the direction I was going. In all the confusion, I didn’t see the step I tripped over and almost hit the floor. Another the server caught me and said something else in Mandarin. Then a young man stepped out and asked if he could help. Ah! I understand that. This young man said his name was Albert, even though that probably was his made up American name. He was Asian and spoke some English. He reminded me of a really smart kid in school who actually remembered the English he had taken and could recall it. We American’s are pretty lazy when it comes to language learning. The children here learn English starting in grade school. They would all be pretty fluent I suppose if they used it. One quick travel tip…if you are in a foreign country and no one around you speaks English look for the teenagers. They know enough to help you. Like, “I can’t read the writing on the bottle, is this bottled water or something else?”
Albert confirmed our order, something beef, something chicken and something pork, peas and white rice. Gracie ate great and seemed to be doing much better. I noticed folks snickering at how we would portion out the food onto individual plates in order to eat it. Family style in China means everyone reaches in with their chopsticks and eats from the large entree plate. Crazy, how they think we are going to get babies sick or ourselves for not dressing warm enough yet the whole idea of sharing germs with community food and in many instances lack of sanitation is overlooked. Come on people! Poop and peeing in the streets, even if it is little babies leads to dissentary. What?! And although I love my brothers at Maple Street on Thursday mornings, keep your stinkin' fork out of my gravy and biscuits.
The food overall was very good and very reasonable it was less than $30 for all of us, wow! And get this…no tipping! It’s not aloud, even though I really wanted to tip Albert. It was funny when we were having such a hard time ordering…Julie said, “I thought Grandma’s was like a grandma’s kind of food, not an authentic Chinese place?” The name does remind you of a good ole fashion meat and three back home. Maybe that’s exactly what this place was to the folks in Nanjing, China? It was good and started Julie on her Chinese food frenzy. After all it was one of the first times she was able to get out for a decent meal since we had been here. Back home for some good play time...Gracie even picked up Emma's markers and started "coloring". Then it was time for sleep….or at least for Emma and I as Gracie will only sleep on top of Julie…if Julie moves or if I snore, Gracie screams. She's still scared of me but we are making small progress as she will at least let me feed her.
The food overall was very good and very reasonable it was less than $30 for all of us, wow! And get this…no tipping! It’s not aloud, even though I really wanted to tip Albert. It was funny when we were having such a hard time ordering…Julie said, “I thought Grandma’s was like a grandma’s kind of food, not an authentic Chinese place?” The name does remind you of a good ole fashion meat and three back home. Maybe that’s exactly what this place was to the folks in Nanjing, China? It was good and started Julie on her Chinese food frenzy. After all it was one of the first times she was able to get out for a decent meal since we had been here. Back home for some good play time...Gracie even picked up Emma's markers and started "coloring". Then it was time for sleep….or at least for Emma and I as Gracie will only sleep on top of Julie…if Julie moves or if I snore, Gracie screams. She's still scared of me but we are making small progress as she will at least let me feed her.