team sublett hits the town

After a little siesta (that’s not Chinese, but it’s about as close as I get right now) we decided to test our sense of adventure with a little trip to the local shopping mall.  Josie got us the name of the place and asked the desk clerk at the hotel to hail us two cabs–that’s right, we don’t fit into one vehicle.  We still have to work on that one.  (Annie Murphy, your stickers will be on their way when we get home!)  I’m pretty sure that the “cab” I took with my portion of the fam was just some dude who stopped to look at the caucasian family!

We got deposited near the mall and found the rest of Team Sublett waiting for us, then made our way into the ginormous shopping complex.  This is a small city of 2.3 million people, located in the north of China.  It’s a beautiful and clean city, with lots of new buildings and big roads filled with crazy drivers, bikes and mopeds.  The driving here reminds me of the DR–the lines on the road are merely suggestions, and the horns start honking as soon as the light turns green.

We were a little hungry, and the guy at the hotel said that there was a KFC and McD’s on the lower level.  Wrong.  The grocery store is on the lower level, so we wandered around letting the kids choose some snacks and lunch food for the rest of the week.  Then we made our way upstairs through about 7 levels, 2 offshoots, and finally found a food court.  Once again, Josie was incredible with her translating skills.  Some of us decided to try the local cuisine, while others opted for fare a little closer to home.  Isaac is a champ, and will eat just about anything.  The soups were hot and spicy, and tasted pretty good.  Even Levi and Sadie decided to split one.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention something from this morning–Levi disappeared for about 30 minutes during our wait for the interview.  We thought he might have fallen asleep in the room.  Turns out that he locked himself in the bathroom and couldn’t open the door! Can you imagine he had to call Liberty Locksmith for the emergency lockout. He had to disassemble the lock and MacGuyver his way out using a pair of tiny scissors.  I’m so proud of his resourcefulness!

We had a hard time getting a cab back to the hotel.  It seemed like none of the drivers knew where the hotel was.  Rush hour traffic is pretty crazy here.When we finally found 2 willing to take us, they got separated, and it seemed like Kim’s driver got lost.  Lilly kept herself amused by waving to the people staring into our cab at the white people!  It took a long time to get back to the hotel, and I was sure that Kim was upstairs when we arrived, but she wasn’t.  I waited in the lobby for about half an hour, getting more anxious by the minute, wondering if they were lost in downtown Hohhot, fearing the worst.  Finally she walked around the corner.  We’d passed each other in the elevators, and she had been waiting for us upstairs!

We bought swim caps for the kids (no one swims without one!) and swim trunks for Isaac.  He told us that he could swim, but that’s not really true.  He had fun splashing around in the water, though.  Levi and I took him aside for some male bonding time in the sauna.  Nothing says “man time” like hanging out in a steam room with fat, naked Chinese men!  One of the steam rooms was so hot that I could barely breathe in it, and the sweat was literally rolling off of us.  We loved it.

We finished the night with a trip to the hotel Italian restaurant.  Isaac tried pizza and wings for the first time, and liked it, or at least he said he did.  Of course, that’s what Annabelle said, too, when we were in Guangzhou with her.  We were so tired that several of us fell asleep waiting for our food.  It’s just after 9:30, and every one else is already asleep.

Tomorrow morning Kim and I will take Isaac to the local police dept to get his passport, then we’ll see what adventures we can find our way into!  Levi will hold down the fort in the hotel and force his sisters to watch Monday Night Football, on Tuesday morning.

It’s been a blast having all the kids (sans Charlie) with us.  They are so brave (or oblivious!) and willing to go with the flow.  We are definitely creating some memories that we’ll treasure for the rest of our lives.