Day 5 and 6. The unsuccessful days. Except for Fuwa!

These last days have been a tad unsuccessful. We didn't do any tours but we shopped and walked a lot. Yesterday we went to a great second hand store shop. It was big as an office building and the suites were stalls of designer stuff. Unfortunately the Chinese are a tiny people and I am not. It was like looking at a giant cheesecake that was just two inches too far away while you were locked in a cage. All I could shop for were bags. However the current style for bags is super big and I am a small bag girl so the whole trip was just disappointing. We then found the standard shopping in Beijing which is actually quite pricey. This city is a lot like New York. I did however find a giant shop for FUWA which is my current obsession. I may buy the store out on my last day. Next we went to a lovely restaurant. The food was fabulous as always. We were very careful to order only ONE meal and then we shared. and then ordered another. We feel this is the best method. On a side note all the exotic Chinese or foreign food we have tried has been excellent. The problem comes in when you try to get American food. It is all god awful. When I say god awful I mean inedible. For example- Buy a pepperoni pizza, expect it to come with corn on it. Buy standard Chinese chicken and broccoli with rice, don't expect them to have skinned the chicken before cutting it up. It's mind boggling because the chicken is skinned in chinese dishes. Do they think we like fat!? Expect french fries to come cold. We were originally leary of the Chinese food food but we have learned our lesson. Only unrecognizable food. It's sure to taste better. Tomorrow or Saturday night we will be headed to the night market where I will be trying the scorpions on a stick. It's got to be better then their pizza.

Today we woke up and went to a massage parlor. It wasn't what I expected. Unlike in the US you dont take your clothes off. You change into some pajama like outfit and they massage you through it. Well massage is probably not the right word. More like take out all their frustrations on your poor pitiful body. I thought she was attacking me with a rolling pin. Turns out it was just her bony arms. It was insane. I tried not to cry out the whole time. It was a full body massage from head to tow. It started badly because they massage your face first and I thought she was trying to crush my head in. Then she did the rolling pin poking thing. She ended with her knees in my back pushing my arms back. I didn't know my back could make such noises. When I have recovered I may feel more relaxed but as of now you couldn't pay me to repeat the experience. Tonight we had our second Olympic event which was TaeKwonDo. We saw the Lopez Girl and a Lopez Guy. They got silver and bronze. As usual we did our screaming and chanting. The Chinese are not a cheering people so they are always amazed at how loud we are. We actually got the Chinese around us to start rooting for the US too (China wasn't in medal contention). This little girl started banging her bottles and screaming USA. She couldn't even speak English. Her father was amused so he went along. We heard them and said THANKS!. Then other people got into it. I feel proud! We brought cheering for the underdog to the Chinese. (We were beaten by the Koreans. Tae Kwon Do History Lesson- Tae Kwon Do was invented by Koreans. We had no chance but it was really close in the end) It was held in a small arena so the best part was the Lopez's could see us and waved at us. Our huge American flag stood out and they could probably hear all our go Lopez's. They waved at the end of their matches and during the medal ceremony. Finally an athlete acknowledges all my hard work on their behalf. It's about time. Only one more event left which is basketball. I wish I had more taekwondo but oh well. Can't watch people kick each other every day. Tomorrow is the final tour. Bye!