A Grocery Store w/ American Products

Well since I have moved to China, I have missed a few...ok maybe a lot of American things. One of the things I don't understand is why they don't sell Clorox wipes. My friend Sara laughs at me because, I talk about them constantly. I just don't understand with so many unsanitary things why they wouldn't want Clorox wipes to help with the problem. Well last weekend a lady from our church told us about a store that sells American items. I thought it was a store far away, but it ended up being right down the street from Jake's school. It is called Times Grocery Store, when I walked in I wanted to cry. It had marshmallows, Mexican food, cereal, and yes CLOROX wipes. They were 91 quai (about 13 dollars), but it was worth the money. I came home and cleaned our house thoroughly, wiping down the bathroom, floor, sinks, table, etc... While we were there, we found tortillas and cheese. Jake also found Dr. Pepper, which he decided that if he knew they sold that, he would have been going there daily during school.

Well on Sunday, we decided to try and make cheese quesadillas. We didn't really have a frying pan, so we used this pot. I left the tortilla for about 10 seconds and realized a nasty burning smell coming from the stove. So we ended up burning our tortillas, burning the Spanish rice (it wasn't at all edible), but we took Elder Wirthlin's advice and just laughed at the whole experience. So our costly spurge at the grocery store wasn't as great as we imagined after trying to cook the food here:)

Jake's Favorite Restaurant

Well anytime anyone mentions this restaurant...Jake's mouth starts watering and he wants to go. It is a Nepalese/Indian restaurant. We walked in went upstairs and then took our shoes off and sat on the floor. I didn't understand why we couldn't sit at one of the tables with chairs...I guess it was to have the "full" experience. It was fun, and I had a tasty chocolate milkshake. The Nan bread was delicious and so was the chicken that I got. They are known for their curry, unfortunately last Spring, I had the flu really bad, and we ate curry the night before it hit, and I just haven't been able to eat it since then. So Jake loved the curry and I tried some, but I'm not ready for that yet:) It was a fun night and we had something else besides Chinese Food!

Xuanwu Lake

So when Jake had his week off, we went to Xuanwu Lake, a lake in Nanjing. It was a lot of fun, a little crowded, but hey it's China. I love people watching and this was a great place to do it. We got a lot of little kids testing out their English skills on us. We would say hi and then try and ask them a question. One kid had the deer in the headlights look when Jake told him he had good English. I guess that wasn't one of phrases he learned. I can releate, that is my life story in China and probably how I look most of the time! Sorry but there are A LOT of pictures.

Map of Nanjing

Me on the map

Jake found about where we live on the map

The old city wall of Nanjing

Entrance to the lake

Pretty flower towers

I thought the rock garden was pretty neat

Me with the rocks

Jake thinking 'Give me the camera and let me take the pictures.

They had this pretty cool waterfall

Me snatching one more picture of Jake

A part of the lake covered in algae

Lots of lily pads

A little of both algae and lily pads

The clean part of the lake where people take out little boats

So while we were there, a lot of couples where taking their wedding photos. This girls dress was pretty funny

Me along a hallway

In the rose garden

These were purple and gold flowers! Go Hornets and Bulldogs (Jake's and my high school colors)

Jake with the flower/plant dragons

So this isn't the first time I have seen someone break out a hammock in a public place. I guess as long as there are two trees to hang it on they're good. It seems like this is something that I need to start carrying around.

So I don't know if you can click on this picture to make it bigger, but kids don't wear diapers in China. The back part is just cut out, so when they have to go to the bathroom, they just squat wherever. Jake thought it was weird that I took a picture, but I think it is strange that their little bum is just hanging out!

On our way into the bird aviary

The English translation for things are pretty funny, so we take a lot of pictures of signs

The peacock cage...and if you look close you can see an albino one

Some more birds...you just walk through this area with a ton of different kind of birds

Me and the Emu, they actually kind of scare me!