A Diversion Trip to Beijing

In order to keep my mind off of the fact that 2 out of my 3 children are now in school full days, I immediately jumped at an offer by my friend Jaramee to go shopping in Beijing today!! It was the most interesting shopping trip I think I have ever been on.

First of all, being the wonderful daddy that Dan is, he wanted to go to school to drop Eens off for his first day. Great!!! On the way back from school we start discussing how we were going to get to where we needed to go. We first needed to get Cooper home so he could spend a lovely day with ayi, then Danny needed to go to work, and then I needed to go and meet my friends. We only had an hour to accomplish all of this and in a city of 10 million people, traffic is not moving too fast in the morning! After talking to Danny's assistant we realized that there was no way we could make it work, so Danny graciously allowed me to have the driver (which I have been reminded about several times today!) and he had a hotel car take him to work. I successfully got Cooper into the house and playing with ayi. She was thrilled to have Coop to herself!!! (I have no idea what she fed him, but he had 3 dirty diapers today!!!) Next our driver took me to my drop off point - the highway. Yes, my friends live about 45 minutes from me, so they picked a place on the highway that was 30 minutes from each of our houses and we met! The scary thing is, this must be common practice in China because we were not the only ones doing this!!

On our way to Beijing (by the way we were in an even numbered car because only even numbered cars can drive on Tuesdays in Beijing!) we had to stop and have a guard check all of our passports and check the car. Once we finally arrived in Tianjin, Jaramee had to call this "purse" shop we were going to to find out what floor they were located on today. Apparently, they have to keep moving to different floors every couple of months so they don't get busted by the government for selling their "designer" purses!! It was all very interesting and I definitely would never have found it without Robin and Jaramee!! Our next stop was the silk market which I had been to in May. It is a crazy place that is maybe 5 floors of "designer" clothes, watches, purses, jewelry, you name it and they probably have it there!! We even saw a sign on one floor where you could get a bikini wax in a stall with no door!! We had fun bargaining and finding more deals on clothes and purses. As you are walking down the aisles, the sales people are yelling "hey lady you want....." and occassionally they get a little aggressive and try to pull you into their stall. I had one lady almost pull me over!! All in all it was quite fun, but a Starbucks run was definitely in order!! It was in Starbucks that I realized how different expat life would be if we were living in Beijing (which is where Deere's China headquarters are) and not Tianjin. In Beijing you feel like you are in New York City - there is a lot of diversity and the majority of the people we spoke with knew some degree of English. Whereas in Tianjin, we are living in China, not a modern, somewhat westernized city!! So, if you decide to visit us, we will slowly ease you into life in China with a short stay in Beijing and then we'll show you how we live!!!!

It was a fun escape for the day and I am looking forward to going back soon!! I also was able to pick up a lot of fun stuff to bring back to the states in 2 WEEKS!!!

Make sure to read the next post - it's about Eensie's first day!!