Secret of the Omnitrix

You’ve probably heard me talking about Ben 10 before. He’s a cartoon boy who has a watch-like device that lets him turn into creatures that fight evil. When we were in Hong Kong, Nick would watch “Ben 10 – Secret of the Omnitrix”. You should hear a three year old trying to say “secret of the omnitrix”. Anyway, the watch device is called an Omnitrix and Nick is so excited to get one. So much so that we’re using it as bribery to get him to fall asleep in his own bed. All of our travels this spring totally screwed with his bedtime, so he’s been falling asleep in our bed and then gets moved into his own. Well, two nights down and 5 more to go before the Ben 10 watch is his! Hope he’s not disappointed when he finds out that he won’t turn into a monster.

Grandparents

My folks (Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop) were in town late last week and early this week. Nick stayed out of school to hang with them. Spoiled, spoiled, spoiled. A new space rocket, candy, gum, Scooby Doo/Batman DVD. That’s their job as grandparents. Nick loved every minute of it. Except when it came time for them to leave on Tuesday. He’s been sad and moody the past 2 days. He’ll cry at the littlest thing (“Dad flushed the toilet!” Or “There’s red stuff on my chip!”), refuses to go to sleep at night and was stomping around and complaining while setting the table last night. When I asked him what was wrong he just pouted “I don’t know”. Poor little guy. He doesn’t know. Just knows he’s sad. He’s going through Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop withdrawal. Luckily I’m taking him to see them in October. But hopefully this grumpiness wears off before then!

Wink

So I can’t wink. I mean, I kinda can. It feels like I’m winking, but Chris says both eyes usually close. The other night we were out and I winked at Nick. Without a pause, he winked right back at me. So adorable.

The Great Wall

Ha ha - Isn't that photo a hoot?!

One of my must-see's while in China was the Great Wall. We trekked about 1 1/2 hours outside of Beijing to see a "nicer" area of the wall. You know every now and then when you see something and think "wow, my life just changed a little bit after seeing that". Well, the Great Wall was like that for me. I can't fully describe the oldness of it. Not that it was falling apart, but you looked at the stones, the layout, the coldness of the stones and the smell and it all just screamed history.



A group of us took the chair lifts to the top and walked around a bit. The wall isn't really a continuous wall. It has several off shoots along the way. And several places to climb up/down to enter. One of our colleagues warned us that we could get lost. "Sure" we said. Until we realized that we'd lost half of our party in front of us because they'd exited the wall and we were still going. Yikes! A frantic run around and we found them. Then rode the luge down. The luge would have been insanely fun, except one of our colleauges leading the luge had a bum one that wouldn't go fast. So the rest of us were riding down with our breaks on for most of the ride.

Olympics

Well, a few of us visiting Beijing had hoped to see the Bird's Nest and Swimming Cube. The Paralympics were going on while we were there, so we actually thought we could get tickets to an event. But everyone told us no. Looking back, I think we should have sucked it up and just tried to scalp tickets. What's the worse that could have happened? We would overpay for tickets that turned out to be fakes? A few of us toured around the city one morning before our meetings started and our driver wouldn't even (couldn't even?) go near the stadiums. Leaving us with sorry photos of the stadiums from across the highway. In the rain. You can just make out the torch flaming in the second photo.

Bargaining

So I hate bargaining. The stuff in Beijing is already inexpensive as it is. And who needs the $20 more? I would gladly hand over my money without asking for a discount. But all the locals and expats tell me that I'm ruining it for the rest of them and must not tip or buy without haggling. So I try my hand in one store and they see me for the fake that I am. I walk away feeling fine that I tried and got a tiny discount. They sat there as I walked away and laughed crying "sucker" in Chinese. The next store I didn't even try to haggle. A few days later I went with a colleague who helped me play good cop/bad cop. I walked out amazed at the price we had negotiated. Granted, it involved the sales lady hanging onto my arm and almost crying at one point. But damn if I didn't get $20 off the price. Wait, all that for $20. Oh jeesh. I hate bargaining.

Welcome to Beijing!

Since Hong Kong is more "special area region" than China, Beijing was my first visit to China! But of course I had to compare everything with Hong Kong.

Weather - not as humid as HK. I mistook the first few days of overcast skies as smog. But then once the rain cleared up, I swear they had gorgeous blue skies! We had so many locals tell us how happy they are with their new skies that they’re willing to keep the “drive on even/odd days” routine going.

Traffic - So people are assigned to even or odd days to drive to keep car pollution down. Jeesh-that was traffic with only half the normal drivers out there? I seriously can’t imagine full blown Beijin traffic. So I thought I would rent a bike here during a few of my free hours, since that seems to be a preferred mode of transportation. Well, a quick walk around the first night and I realized that I wouldn’t survive here on a bike. Cars, bikes, mopeds and people all criss cross each other on the street. Stop lights mean nothing. Pedestrians don’t have the right of way (not sure anyone does) and they all just narrowly avoid hitting each other. Unbelievable. I'm not exaggerating this at all.

People - Eager to help, but not helpful. Everyone wanted to help us with our maps, directions, etc. But their English was generally very poor and found us in a cab heading in the opposite direction of where we wanted. Or found us meeting our tour bus on the wrong side of the hotel.

Food - So I didn't enjoy the food in HK much. Unless a local ordered for us. Or it was from Pret-A-Manger. Well, the Beijing food was even worse. One night's dinner consisted of pig's ears (sliced thin), jelly fish (which I mistakenly ate, thinking it was a noodle of sorts), sketchy chicken, and other questionable meats covered in sauce. When a bread basket would arrive, I chowed down. Carbs be damned!

History - Wow. Some gorgeous temples and amazing history. More on this later...

German American Fest

One of our favorite summer festivals was this past weekend - the German American fest. Where you go to have beer and pretzels for dinner. Laugh at the few who come in costumes. Then head over to the midway to waste your money on rigged games. This year our neice and nephew (H&H) were in town and came with us. After several games of "shoot the water in the hole", "catch a frog with the magnet stick" (which is much harder than anyone lets on) and "roll the ball up the table into a hole" each kid had enough stuffed animals and mardi gra beads. You could tell because the adults were holding them all. Henry & Helen were tired and ready to go home. C was too. Nick and I were still having fun. So we said our goodbyes. Then one more game of "water in the hole" and another stuffed snake, 2 more pretzels and a beer and THEN we were finally ready to call it a night. We wandered out of the midway to find the festival in full gear. Definitely time for the parents with kids to head home. The 1/2 mile home was a full force game of "2 snacks chasing the frog". I can only imagine what those walking their dogs must have been thinking seeing a family of three tearing down the street. The dad first with a stuffed frog. The kid and wife behind him with stuffed snakes screaming "gonna get you! gonna get you! ssssss! sssssssssssss!"

Pirate Train

Nick has outgrown his trains. Just no interest. He’s more into action figures and super heroes these days. Batman, Spiderman, Iron Man, Power Rangers, pirates, monsters, dragons…You get the point. But Chris made him a beautiful train table for Christmas a few years ago and I hated to see it all lonely in Nick’s room. Until we figured out how to play Pirate Train. I brought back some great pirates from Hong Kong. Swords and all. A pirate stands on a track and talks trash to Thomas the Engine. Thomas then speeds forward (with 10 + cars behind him) and knocks the pirate off the track. This continues with the 4 other pirates we have until there are no pirates left alive. Then Spiderman comes out. Same ending. And then a dinosaur comes out. Same ending. The grand finale is ALL the pirates, Spiderman AND the dinosaur standing on the tracks. Only to be defeated by Thomas and friends one more time. Who says trains are for babies?

Cars

A few months back we were buying a bday gift for my dad. A huge 007 fan, the only thing he’d requested from Hong Kong was the latest James Bond dvd. I found every knock off purse joint on the island, but no such luck with the DVDs. So back in the states Nick and I headed over to Barnes and Noble to get his James Bond dvd. While there, Nick sees the Cars video and assures me that Pop Pop wants it for his bday too. So we buy it (am I the only one who thinks $29.99 is a rip for a kids dvd?) with me thinking that I'll return it once he forgts about it. Well, I try to return it weeks later to find out that B&N has a 2 week return policy. Are you kidding me? In this day and age? They’re officially on my boycott list now. Anyway, so the Cars dvd sits in the bag on our kitchen table for another 2 weeks because I’m in denial that I bought it. Finally break it out and the new formatting doesn’t work with our old dvd player. You gotta be kidding me. But smart Chris realizes it will play on our laptop. Pop it in and Nick is now entranced. We each have a character in the movie. He of course is Lightning McQueen. I’m the purple one. Chris has watched it so many times now that he was quoting it to me the other day. C: “it’s like when Doc says…” me: “wait, who’s doc?” C: “you know the green car in Cars”

Ice Cream Social

So Nick’s school had an ice cream social last week. On my way to the social (after work), I saw a van almost collide with a biker. Worse part was the biker was a dad from school and had his daughter on the back! The van stopped in time, but not before at least 3 of us had heart attacks. Later at the social, I see the biker dad and say “OMG – I totally saw that van almost cream you guys!” He was really nice about it and said “I know. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone up on his side, but I can’t believe it either”. So there we are complaining about it when ANOTHER dad in line says “Oh, were you the biker? I was the van”. We all just stood there trying to make light of the whole situation, while I’m sure my face turned bright red. Later biker dad said to me “What are the chances?!” No kidding!

Cute

Sorry, I'm a doting mom and have nothing to say today other than "awwww". Chris was taking a photo of Nick jumping around last night (Nick's request) and happened to get this cute little shot in the mix. Love my little man!

Botanic Garden

Evening outing to the botanic garden Sunday night. Not too crowded or hot. It was heavenly! Perfect dusk light to take photos, except for a threesome who were clueless to our photo taking. The front desk gave Nick a bingo card, so we spent the first 1/2 hour running all over the gardens with Nick yelling "there it is!"

Last Weekend of Summer

So while on vacation I make a point of trying to have ice cream every day. Figure the last weekend of summer is a mini-vacation, so we should try the same. Oh, how I love Dairy Queen. If only they made them in the bite-size cones like Mr. Softie back in Hong Kong…After a long day of errands and playing with our nephew, Charles, who was in town, we headed home. Nick fell asleep in the backseat, but I still wanted/needed my ice cream! So we stopped at DQ. Chris came back to the car with a small choc dipped cone for me and a huge medium cone dipped in crunch for him. He had the biggest smile on his face. We were happily eating our ice cream until we pulled up to the house and Nick woke up. He saw my cone and immediately asked where his was. Dad to the rescue. Chris happily handed his over and said “I was saving it for you buddy. I had to lick a little because it was melting”. Nick was happy and knew no better. Then he realized Charles was gone and a whole new set of tears started. Ohhhh, it’s so hard to make everyone happy. Bottom pic is Nick beating ants with his shoes. Is he going to grow up to be one of "those" kids?!