We got to sleep in this morning, then had breakfast at the hotel and walked to the grocery store that Sarah showed us yesterday. The hotel breakfasts are starting to get kind of old, so it's a good thing tomorrow is our last one. The grocery store was fun. We got some snacks for the kids, as well as some little snacks and things to take home. It was a really nice morning for a walk, but later on it got hot. We went to an old city market in Hangzhou with Sarah. We had gone to the same market with Sarah when we were here in 2012 when TongJie was a baby. In fact, when we first walked in the entrance of the market, the same Chinese saxophone store was in the same place. Jeff had bought a Chinese saxophone there last time. Today he bought an ocarina, which is a small roundish wind instrument usually made of clay. The market is sort of a tourist place in Hangzhou, but pretty much all tourists from other parts of China, not many from western countries. The boys bought a few gifts for friends, but we walked past one shop that had toy trains and they REALLY wanted to buy a train. They were just cheap plastic toys that are the same as we could buy at Walmart in the US, so we told them to look around some more while we walked through the market and if they really had their hearts set on the trains we could come back. The rest of our time in the market, all they could talk about was the trains, so we stopped on the way back through the market and bought them. TongJie chose a diesel engine and Ezekiel chose a yellow bullet train engine. They are so excited about thier trains and have been playing with them constantly since we've been back in our hotel room so I'd say it was a good purchase. We had given them each some money to use to buy things for themselves in China as part of their Christmas present and now they've spent their money and have some really cool souveneirs. We had lunch at a very crowded McDonald's in the market area. There was no place to sit inside so we sat outside. Jeff and I just had iced tea but we got Happy Meals for the boys. Both of them ate their apples and drank their milk and took a few bites of the hamburger and fries and then said they were done. We're all tired of all the restaurant food. TongJie carried his fries around the market and munched on them for awhile but French fries have definitely lost their luster for now. We walked though some areas of the market with some strange smells of cooking food, incense, spices, etc. and Ezekiel especially did not like the smells. TongJie said, "its smells like . . . un-yummy hot dogs." We all thought that was funny!
We were all hot and tired when we got back to our room, and the boys immediately got out their stuffed animals and their new trains. They only took a break from playing when we decided to go to the swimming pool for awhile, and as soon as we got back to our room they went right back to the trains and stuffed animals. The water in the pool was not as warm as pools that we're used to in the US, but it was refreshing after being so hot.
Our plan is to walk around the West Lake area (it's close to our hotel) in a little while but I figured I'd update the blog now since the boys are playing and we're going to be busy tonight with packing up all of our stuff and figuring out how to distribute all of the new stuff we've bought between suitcases (or "soupcases," as Ezekiel calls them) and trying to get to bed early. Tomorrow we say goodbye to Sarah, fly from Hangzhou to Beijing, and then Beijing to Seattle. Hopefully there won't be any flight delays and our travel will go smoothly. We've had an amazing time in China, but we're ready to be home! Ezekiel still says that he wants to stay for another month or year though. :)
Jeff didn't take very many photos with his phone today and we didn't bring the tablet.
1. A photo Jeff took of the Chinese saxophones
2. and 3. Photos of the market
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