Panda Bears and Acrobats

Today was incredibly busy! We had the morning to ourselves, so we hopped into a cab to the Silk Market... a wonderful market filled with knock offs, Chinese souvenirs etc. It is all bartering and is so much fun to see how low you can get them to go. John and I have a whole good cop/ bad cop routine down and this morning we added a 3rd actress to our system... Miss Alex. Of course, being the only Caucasian couple with 2 Asian children kind of makes us targets but what do you do. Alex now knows the terms "opening price and lowest offer" and the power of walking away! She even started waving her hands at people saying "too much"! She might be a good negotiator one day. Nicole did her part and had the good sense to stay quiet in her stroller so we didn't lose our focus!

We made the afternoon a little more kid friendly and joined our group on a tour to the Beijing Zoo. It is an awesome zoo and we got to see the Pandas that they brought in for the 2008 Olympics. It's hard to believe that 4 years has passed
since!






Alex was thrilled to see the Pandas. I made a personal decision that if there is an afterlife and we have any choice as to what we can be, I am going to come back as a Panda. Honestly, there is so much fuss over them and they barely move, eat all day and are still considered adorable! Who wouldn't want that???? Nicole had her 1st Popsicle (John's idea...). I guess either way, Nicole will be spending so much time in an orthodontists office in the coming years, what's a few cavities to fill? She did enjoy it though - as she does with most food.





Alex also wanted me to post a picture of her with live and growing bamboo...



Tonight we went to see the Chinese Acrobats, the girls were both mesmerized by them... It really was awesome to watch, although seeing the acrobats hold themselves up on ropes or poles with one hand and contorted their bodies into pretzel like positions really makes one think about the years of intense training it must take to become one of these performers. Of course, now I am tired just thinking about it and am going to go back to daydreaming about my next life as a Panda Bear!