Mmmm good

Airplane food ... years ago it used to be served on flights in the U.S. It was salty, tasteless, and smelled up the plane worse than a Diet, Low Sodium, Half the Calorie, Roasted Salmon Budget Gourmet meal smells up the lunch room at work. However, times have changed ... nowadays if you want to eat on your flight, you have to pony up $14 for 6 Triscuits, 2 Fig Newtons, and a box of raisins that are all congealed together.

Chinese airlines, however, have not yet adopted the "pay to eat" concept on their domestic flights. You get a meal on EVERY flight ... even a short 45 minute trek provides one with a little sustenance for the descent. The food, though, leaves a bit to be desired. The choices from the lovely flight attendants are often "meat or fish." Now, we don't know about you but the definition of meat in our book can take on a number of possibilities. It could be beef, chicken, pork ... heck maybe even lamb. The definition in China, though, can be even broader. Thus, we typically stay away from the entree and just take the box of goodies that accompanies the fragrant meat or fish.

On a recent flight, the meal contained two staples in the "box of goodness" ... apple chips and a plain roll. Both aren't bad and all of us enjoyed them. The other two add-ons in the box were a bit out of the ordinary ... "Yi Lin Dried Radish" and "Onion Cookies with Original Flavour." We don't know about you, but radishes aren't at the top of our food chain to begin with and when you add the elements of dehydration, random oils, and spices, those puppies are headed straight to the garbage.

The onion cookies were almost tempting just because of the marketing slogan on the outside of the package "First Class all the way. Alliance regal presentation is distinctive both inside and out." Looks like a shortbread tastes like an onion ... that, my friends, is certainly distinctive!

Pick, pick, pick

We have a problem … a consistent, disgusting problem. We have a "serial picker" in the house. We first discovered the problem about 6 months ago when we noticed multiple walls each with a giant booger. At the time, we investigated the incident with our only two suspects … Juliet and Lillie. Each was interrogated but a confession wasn't obtained. Unfortunately, the search proved fruitless and the case went cold.

The serial picker then went underground for a few months with no traces of crime popping up. Then this week … boogers … on the wall … big green boogers taunting us again. The suspects are tough as they are both tight-lipped in their denials. We don't know if it's a conspiracy and they're both in on it or if it's a one-man job, but we cannot shake a confession.

In fact, they are now even implicating others … with Shanna (who doesn't walk or crawl) and Xue Feng (our housekeeper) being the latest to be accused by the suspects. We can only imagine how that would go if we called Scott's administrative assistant to help with translation. "Hello yes, can you please call Xue Feng and ask her if she's been picking big, nasty boogers and then smearing them on the walls?" We suspect we'd be looking for a new housekeeper.

A Free Concert

Yesterday we all headed over to the fabric market to get some tailor-made clothes. This place is heaven ... it's three floors of stall after stall of fabric ... each with their own tailor. You go pick your fabric, pick your style, and a week later you have tailor-made clothes for 1/3 the price of something off the rack in the U.S.

Lillie always has a good time when we go to the fabric market. She (who we now call the mayor of Shanghai) fraternizes with all the workers in Chinese while we're getting sized and usually ends up getting some trinkets, candy, dried fish, or dehydrated duck tongue for the road.

Yesterday, when we first walked into the shop, we knew right away this trip to the fabric market would be one for the ages. Lillie made fast friends with all five of the workers in the shop and immediately began singing along with them in Chinese. After about five minutes of entertaining them with her banter she either decided to start singing solos or they asked her to (we never really got the exact story). She then proceeded to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star at the top of her four year old lungs ... in both English and Chinese. By the end of the English version about 12 people had packed into the small shop and rewarded her rendition with a plethora of applause.

If this wasn't embarrassing enough, she announced to everyone "I'll be back next week!" to advertise her next performance as we left the store.

Up up and away

Yesterday marked Lillie's first airplane voyage. Here's a few pics capturing the moment.

The honest truth

With Scott in the U.S. Annie is having to utilize her broken Mandarin on a much more regular basis. Given this recent influx of Chinese speech, Mr. Chen has been particularly impressed ... complimenting her frequently on her recent rapid progress.

Yesterday he complimented her again and said Lillie had also told him that she thought her mom's Chinese was very good. Annie turned to Lillie and thanked her for the compliment. In a serious dead-panned voice Lillie looked right at her and said, "Mama I didn't tell him that you spoke good Chinese ... I told him that your Chinese was pretty bad and that I can't understand you at all!"

Nothing like a little brutal honesty from a four year-old to crush the emotional high of a little personal development.