FRIDAY AFTERNOON
Tomorrow, July 28, is Sea’s birthday. When the rain let up bit I went to the bank to get some cash. My old bank still didn’t accept my card, so I went to my backup bank and everything worked OK. Tomorrow I plan to take Sea to Coco Park where she can do some clothes shopping for her birthday. Then I have invited her family to have dinner with us at her favorite restaurant. I have bought Sea a few small pieces of jewelry in the past, but she doesn’t wear them because she’s afraid someone will cut off her harm to steal them. Believe me, the jewelry is not that fancy. So I will let her pick out some clothes this time.
SATURDAY
Vivian and the baby came by about 11:00. The luncheon date was cancelled for some reason. I went for my afternoon constitutional, and returned about 15:00, took a shower and changed clothes. Then we piled to a cab for CoCo Park.
In case I haven’t described it before, CoCo Park is a very large multi-floor upscale shopping mall in the center of the city. It takes up a full city block. 2 sides of the ground floor of the mall are all restaurants, bars, and cafes. They all have both inside and outside tables. Edison and I sat outside where we played dice and drank a beer while the girls shopped. There must be 20-25 restaurants on the 2 sides of the mall. Literally every one was different from the last time I was there more than a year ago. There were no empty spaces, everything was up and running, but every business was different. Having never been shopping inside the mall, I don’t know if the stores inside turned over as quickly as the restaurants.
The girls weren’t gone long. Sea said the prices were too high for her to buy anything. She found a pair of sunglasses on sale and bought them. Then she had her toenails painted red. For some reason finger and toenail painting is only done at beauty shops. The Chinese don’t do it themselves at home. And it’s relatively expensive. They wanted 120 Yuan for Sea’s work, but she talked them down to 80 Yuan (about $13.00). She was very happy with the work, and took pictures of her toenails this morning and sent them to her sister.
Then we walked to a very nice place for dinner. Sea’s favorite food is fish and we had a large flounder, a couple of green dishes, a pig’s trotter which was cooked then served chilled, a big plate of shrimp, and a few other things. After dinner we cut the cake and ate almost all of it. Then we went home early, about 22:00.
SUNDAY MORNING
It is clear and sunny. I’m sure the humidity will be 500% so I’m heading to the park early.
PICTURES
The first pictures are of CoCo Park and Sea’s birthday dinner. Then are a couple of pictures of Sea making the dumplings she is so proud of.
