Today Kiki came to tutor me and told me that I am doing great on the pronunciation, but still need to work on the grammar. It’s a killer. Then we started the next lesson and it added about 30 new words. I foresee that the lessons are just going to get more intense over the next 2 weeks. At least I finished my homework for today 🙂
Nadia had her blanket wrapped around her like a towel and so I told her she could make it a cape. I got one of the clothespins for the laundry and set her up. She looked so cute it just cracked me up. Then I asked her if she wanted to make a cape with her “baby” and she nodded. So we got cute photos of Super Nadia! In between naps I decided to take Nadia on a walk in a new direction from where we usually wander. I found that you don’t have to walk far from our area to find a more poverty stricken area. I snapped a couple of photos, but from a distance because I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. You can see in the background there is a lady selling fruit and veggies and she just has them all laying out on the ground. So as people walk by, the dirt gets all kicked up in it. Down that little street there were a bunch of tiny (like 2 tables) restaurants or just people with a burner out cooking food and trying to get people to buy their offerings.
We walked a little farther down Chengfu Lu past Microsoft and found a bunch of little stores. There were clothing places, eyeglass places, barber shops, a place with DVD’s for $1.80 each, another little grocery store, an ice cream place and a store that sells hair clips and makeup. I went in there and bought Nadia some cute clippys with frogs on them. When we got back to the apartment, she wanted all but one of them in and I tried to get a photo, but the photos didn’t come out good because she was moving around a lot. I took this photo of “Wall Street English” next to Deutsche Bank at the bottom of the Microsoft building because I was entertained that they are next to each other. In the Lotus Center the English place has a little kiosk set up trying to recruit people everyday.
Another thing I want to comment on, but didn’t take a photo of for obvious reasons, was the amount of police that were out yesterday and today. I would think some of you have seen the news about the riot in Tibet over some anniversary of a protest 40 years ago or something. China shut that down pretty quickly as I am sure they don’t want bad news coming out so close to the Summer Games. Yesterday I told Mike that the cops were EVERYWHERE Nadia and I went. Even on the little side alley where the playground is. They were on every street corner and their cars were parked up on the curbs. Today was the same, everywhere you looked there were cops out. Mike and I think it’s because of the area we are in – The University District and very close to the Lama Temple. I guess they just want to make it clear to the college students and everyone else that they are watching what is going on very closely. It is sort of a surreal experience, not like I feel like anything is going to happen, but I have just never seen that kind of thing in Texas.