Give Me A Little More...

Our family had another amazing encounter with the Chinese people today, when our limited Chinese and their minimal English understanding fused, causing us to have a slight mishap. Not to worry, it makes for a good story that we will always remember! Ever had an experience where someone thinks you said one thing, but you really said another, and the other person feels stupid when the real meaning of what was said comes out? Hannah, my dad, and I had a similar adventure when we decided to drop in on our friends at McDonalds!

After a long day on the 16th of December, Cory was crying and Merriella was fueling his fussing. They were both calling out for meat and expressing their desire to have a hamburger from McDonalds. Everyone else was starving as well, but no one except the 3 youngest seemed to be interested in fast food. Chinese style noodles sounded more like it! But, considering that my dad, Hannah, and I wanted to tour the town anyway, we decided it wouldn't be so bad to just take a walk and go out for a walk on the crammed city streets! That in and of itself is an adventure worth keeping in one's memory! Anyway, when we arrived at McDonalds, we decided to attempt to order, but not without using the dumb people's menu. When we began to order, we realized that all the hamburgers came in meals. We only wanted the burgers. We carefully explained to the food handlers that we didn't want the MEAL, we just wanted the burger. She gave us the thumbs up and immediately began yelling something we obviously couldn't understand across the room. Almost immediately, the Chinese people began laughing and pointing at us. We didn't figure out until later why they were laughing at us!

25 minutes later, we got back to the hotel where we were greeted by the 3 youngest starving children. Colin quickly dashed out of the room to devour his "double cheeseburger." Not more than a minute later, Colin was back in the room saying, "couldn't I at least have one piece of meat? By the way dad, this isn't double cheeseburger, this is double cheese!" Apparently, the people at McDonalds thought that we had said, "give us no meat!" Sure enough, we opened all the burgers and they were minus the meat portion. (That would give reason for the previous laughter at McDonalds!) We hurriedly walked the 15 minutes back and got our orders fixed so that the few carnivorous children that are in the family could have their daily meat intake! All in all, we got a great taste of culture just from that experience!

The earlier portion of our day was spent at the Yan Tai Garden! The weather proved to be perfect for touring! It was in the upper 70's and everyone was wishing that they had brought shorts, myself included! It was phenomenal! The flowers and scenery looked like they were out of a Better Homes and Gardens magazine! Vibrant colors all around proved to be a perfect location for pictures! Believe me, we have enough to make our own V-7 novel! After spending most of the day in the gardens, we went back to the hotel room where Cory, Merriella, and my mom attemted to take a nap. Nana and Colin stayed at the hotel and relaxed while the adventuresome 3 went out onto the pedestrian zone to do some shopping! Exciting stories to tell there as well, but not enough time or space is available! I'll write about more of our adventures later! We send our love to those of you reading this blog and those of you who are unable to do so!
By the way, Cory is still doing amazing! He has healthy attachments with everyone, but he is a mommy's boy!!!