Chicken pox resolved at last

The three joeys

Play ground

At the zoo

Play ground on the island

Monkeys!

Happy girl!

Luke

Panda eating bamboo

Sunday-Monday

We had the day off today and spent it exploring the island. The weather has turned much colder and it does not look like it will improve in the next few days.  This is a tourist area so many people were strolling about enjoying the scenery.  There were groups line dancing and people playing various instruments and singing.  John and I were asked on two occasions if people could have their photo taken with us, I’m sure it is because we are so good looking, and not because we are the only white people around.  We bought a few more trinkets and the kids played in the hotel playroom. 

This morning we met Judy at 9am for our return visit to the medical clinic.  Jing Yi did not get any more red spots and had not been itching so I was pretty sure we would pass the test.  Her TB skin test was fine and three doctors came in to examine the 6 spots.  They determined that she did have a mild case of the chicken pox but that they were now dried and crusty and she was not contagious.  Yeah…we passed.  They asked when I first noticed the spots and I had to be honest, they were so small and she was not itching, that I had not really noticed them at all.

We then traveled to the local zoo.  The zoo sits right in the middle of the city with skyscrapers all around.  While the zoo is not large, it did have some nice exhibits of elephants, giraffes, tigers and monkeys.  We enjoyed walking around and talking to Judy a bit more.

After returning to the hotel we decided to return to the hotel restaurant to get more dim sum.  Unfortunately, they stop serving dim sum at 1pm so we were just a bit late and had to order off the regular menu.  There are lovely photos of each dish to look at and a brief description in English so we felt pretty sure we would enjoy the beef and noodles, braised chicken and fried rice.  The chicken was a disappointment.  Not sure how they do it, but when you order chicken in China: 1. it is cut in finger sized pieces with bone 2.  You can never identify what part of the chicken it came from 3.  There is no meat on the bones, just crispy breading.  John and I refer to it as gnarly chicken and we should know better than to order chicken in China by now, the photo just made it look so good!  I don’t think they fatten up their chickens like we do in the states. Jing Yi was again the last one to finish eating-all this food must be overwhelming to her and she eats like there is no tomorrow.

Tonight is New Year’s Eve and I wonder if we will hear any fireworks going off.  Since we are generally all in bed asleep by 9pm, I doubt we would notice.  Tomorrow is another free day and Judy has invited us to lunch with her family.