themoodyblogger

Hello All,

Today was a fun day.  We believe we finally caught up to Beijing time.  United Airlines helped by making the flight over feel like we had been flying throughout the night even though behind all the shades was the sun.  Got to the hotel ok. We walked around a bit and explored the hotel and its surroundings.  We then got a little dinner and when back to the room.  Everyone crashed hard and turned in at about 9:30 which is very unusual for even Bill.  All of us slept for about 12 hours.

Ahhh, the morning.  Breakfast was great and D still had on his pjs.  Guess what to all those in blog land.  You can get fried noodles, pancakes, and bacon for breakfast here.  Oh and you can it with chopsticks.  Speaking of which, D had a pound of bacon, 15 pancakes, and gallon of OJ.

Of the D-man, he can find a friend anywhere, which bodes well for when we get the boys.  D’s friend was “Monte.”  That was his English name.  According to his dad, his Chinese name is pretty difficult to say.  So maybe your asking yourself, “Self, what did D and his new buddy do?”  They found snails in the bushes by the building.  Many of you that know the D-man realize that this par for the course.  What’s a new continent and all, the goal is “I must find a new critter.”  Mom and Dad said, “No, you can take that back to the room.

We decided that we would explore a little of Beijing by heading over to Olympic Stadium or the Nest as I am sure we all remember from the 2008 Olympic Games.  We took the subway.  It is about as nice or nicer than the Metro in DC.  Our hotel guy said we could take it or a taxi.  He did say it could be a little overwhelming, but that didn’t scare us.  Oh, back to the Nest, TV does not do it justice.  It is massive and beautiful and is a engineering marvel.  Although the games were three years ago the place and the surrounding facilities still look great.  Lori did her best today to learn new phases in Chinese as quickly as she could.  One phase in particular “How much?” came in particularly handy and “Where is?” followed by a point to a sign such as McDonald’s.  Daddy and D had a extra fun time by riding seaways around the track at the stadium.  Champions walked and ran on it, we rode seaways.  D had a little trouble at first getting used to riding the two wheeler, but in the end he was a little expert.  Don’t worry grandparents, he had on a helmet and pads.  After that we began our travel over to the “The Cube” where are the swimming events were held.  We sidetracked ourselves at the McDonald’s for a late lunch and then headed for the The Cube.  We were somewhat surprised to find out that the Cube had been converted to a Water Park – water slides, speed slides, etc.  Oh well…

We decide to head back to the subway and realized that tons of people had showed up since earlier that morning.  Those tons of people included vendors trying to sale every thing they had.  Some were pretty pushy.  One lady was trying to put stuff in our bag.  It didn’t matter that we were trying to say no, but in the end we think we got a pretty good deal.  One thing we also discovered, we are a picture magnet.  People were walking up to us and asking to take a picture.  I don’t mean “Hey, American, … take picture of me.”  It was let us take a picture of you guys with us standing next to you.  Wild, I tell you.  The D-man was magnet for other children.  Their parents would send them to stand or sit next to him for a photo.  Blue eyes gets them every time.  The Chinese people are great and love that you visiting their country.  D would do something funny and they would smile and take a picture.

We made it back to the hotel on the subway.  The Moody’s now know what it like to be a sardine.  Word to the wise: you better be quick trying to get a seat in the subway and if your one of those people who hates crowds don’t ride it.  Is your personal space an issue for you, then take a taxi.  🙂

In the room, Bill blew out the AC adapter for the DVD player.  240 vs. 110 volts equals smokey mess.  JOY! In Bill’s defense, the computer worked with no trouble in the outlet.  Next stop … the mall next door for a AC converter.  We forgot that we promised D a chance to hit the ice skating ring in the mall the day before.  Ice Skating, like the seaway, took him a little while to figure how to do it.  In the end, he started to get the hang of it, but his exhaustion was getting the better of him.  So much so that he fell asleep in his rice at dinner.  Rice up the nose is hard to get out…. Just kidding.

Tomorrow looks to be pretty cool.  We will be seeing more neat things that we have only seen in books or on tv.   We wonder what the boys are doing.  What thoughts are going on in their little heads.  My mommy, daddy, and big brother on their way. Just a few days more….