Day Seven: We are still in Hefei. The weather here is much nicer today. The typhoon has left and taken all of the moisture along with it, just like the days after a hurricane blows through back home. We actually were able to see some blue sky through the heavy smoggy haze.
Today we made up for our lost day of sightseeing from yesterday. We visited a local museum and the Baogong Temple. The museum was intereresting. It was very small, but had several ancient artifacts from the surronding region. There were some very interesting peices of pottery and ivory carvings. The temple was actually not a temple, but more of a memorial to a judge who was very honest and honorable. Those two stops combined only took us through to about lunch time.
After the "temple" we were dropped off at a strip of shops located on streets closed off to automobile traffic. Here we got lunch at KFC. Madison enjoyed her first bits of chicken nuggets and even a few bites of french fries. She still prefers her custard and rice concoction though. This is steamed white rice with egg custard mixed in. Not sweet custard like we have in the states, but more of a salty custard. YUM! She also is enjoying her congee in the mornings for breakfast. This is a very soupy rice and can have little bits of beef or pork and sometimes vegtables mixed in. We are enjoying eggs and bacon on most morings. We haven't been able to bring ourselves to eat some of the other more authentic Chinese options available to us - at least not for breakfast. We would eat cereal, but the only milk they have is served warm.
After KFC, we took a stroll through Parksons. This is a four story department store. It is very similiar to Macy's or Dillards both in appearances and prices. There were not too many bargains and for the most part things cost about what they would back home. The did have a small section of 2008 Olympic items, but we are going to wait until we get to Guangzhou to get those. Anything bearing the Olympic mascots is a very big sellers here. From Parksons were walked back toward our hotel pass the rest of the shops and did find one outfit for Madison at a much better deal than anything in Parksons. We were also able to buy her a small ball. She saw one of the other children with one yesterday and wanted to steal it from her, so we got her her own to play with. The only excitement the rest of the way back to the hotel was navigating ourselves across the streets. Most intersections here do not have traffic signals and we were told that drivers just use their "intuition" to make their way through. For pedestrians, on the other hand, it is much like playing Frogger. We found that the best strategy was to find a local person and follow closely behind them.
We are here in Hefei for one more day. We should be getting Madison's passport tomorrow and then we can apply for her visa.
God Bless,
Angie and Mike
