Great Day off!

Laurie's hand-made pearl necklace being made by a respected jewelry lady at the pearl market
Laurie outside of the pearl market
Wheelchair rugby-an event of the paralympics
Riley eating local cuisine at the food court at the pearl market-he is quite good at using the chopsticks!
Kieran and our ayi's son Hong Wei. Hong Wei came with his mom to our house today because he had the day off b/c it was a holiday. The boys got along great!

Riley and I had a great day off today! We paid our ayi an extra day's wage to come in and watch the boys so we could go off and venture for a day on our own! we had a great time! We went to the "Pearl Market" which is basically a huge warehouse with 4 levels of name-brand EVERYTHING and unbelievably cheap prices. Many items (probably most) are knock-offs and you can get things next to nothing......but there are some nice items there as well. We ended up getting more than we thought.....a columbia backpack for riley, an IPOD docking statioin for the house, a silk polo shirt for riley, a pair of black leather sandals for Laurie, a leather card-holder (to keep all the cards of the places wer are going), and a few toys for the boys. i guess there is an entire 4-floor building of JUST TOYS!!! we were looking for that but were kindof tired by the time we got out of there. So i told kieran he and i would go there sometime and look. He still has some birthday money left so we may just give hima chunk and be done and let him spend it!

It is so interesting i the market! they start out about 10 times higher than what they will take for things.....then you leave your best price, which is probably still quite a profit for them....they act insulted.....you walk away.....and the YELL at you to get you back. For example i wanted to get kieran a new pair of crocs, but i just wasn't sure of his size. I got her talked down from 280 quay to 50 ...and then decided i couldn't pay 7 bucks for something i wasn't SURE would fit kieran so i tried to walk away. The lady literally GRABBED ME AND WOULDN'T LET ME GO! i thought i was going to have bruises on my wrists! i finally pushed her off of me and continued on my way.....quite the experience.

The best purchase of the day was my pearl necklace! the fourth floor of this building is very quite and there is no bargaining (or very little) that goes on up there. A teaching partner of Riley's sent us there to talk with a jeweler that she has gone to quite often. I got to pick out my own pearl, style, and chain and they made it right there in front of me! i am excited to wear it to school tomorrow!

Riley and i ventured and ate for a buck each at some local chinese food court. i hope we don't get sick tomorrow-but it wasn't that bad. I still struggle using the chopsticks....i need to practice at home. We walked around a bit. the pearl market is near the Temple of Heaven which is one of the notorious landmarks of China. We decided we didn't have enough time to go and REALLY check it out, so we cabbed it home to get ready for hosting our pizza party. (every sunday we rotate houses---but since we had an extra day off, we moved it to today)

We really like the people here....there are several couples we are really getting along with...and we all have kids the same age.

Yesterday was my day to go with the girls for some fun. Three of us (mary from mn and liz and I) went to the wheelchair rugby US vs. Canada and then went out for a spa and dinner afterwards. IT was awesome! only 15 bucks for 80 minutes of foot reflexology. i will be going back there! we also got to explore the area a little bit which was nice. We were more downtown so the scenery was a little different. so anyway-riley and i both got some "fun time" this weekend. back to reality as we are both doing lesson plans late tonight getting ready for tomorrow!

HEre are some pictures from today and yesterday-we hope you enjoy!

love

The dubois clan in Beijing