Mall Skating Like a Hot Pie

On Friday morning, we lazily sat around being totally useless while our maid made us breakfast and mopped our floors. It was a nice treat, because we're never usually home when she's at our place... she always comes while we're at work. We were having trouble deciding what to do with the day, but finally decided on seeing Windows of the World, which is a theme park full of miniature versions of famous sights from around the world. Little Eiffel Tower, tiny Mt. Rushmore, you get the idea.

When we got to Windows of the World station, though, we decided to forget about it. Admission was a little pricey, but mostly we were just tired of crowded places! Spending a Chinese holiday in China can do that to you. The station where we were at has a nice, big mall in it, so we got some lunch at RBT (where Jason once again picked all of the QQ out of his drink), shopped at H&M, and then we went skating. In a mall. Why not, right?

The skates weren't exactly modern. Jason had a nice blister within about 15 minutes on the ice, so we didn't wind up skating for too long. It was still pretty fun, though. We got lots of "hello"'s from the kids on the ice, and it was definitely the warmest rink I've ever skated in!

We went to the Ole Supermarket for cheap fancy cakes and imported cherry 7-ups.

When we got back home, I brought Jason to my classroom so I could take care of a few quick things. The unfortunate thing about our school is that the street that connects Mel's school (main campus) and my school (lower elementary) is basically a hooker street. Every single room is just a "bar" with ladies out front calling out to any guy that walks past. And there's usually some western guy with them. How embarrassing.

They called us "handsome". Win!

While I worked, Jason played with blocks.

Next, we went to the market by our apartment for some dinner. For about a month now, we'd been secretly plotting to order Jason a fish head soup for his dinner some time during his visit. Imagine the hilarity! The pictures on the menu always look so funny, with the fish head prominently displayed, floating mouth-up in the middle of the soup bowl. When we finally ordered it for him, the above picture is how it looked. What a disappointment. Where's my mouth??!

We went to our local Korean restaurant for a fruity soju drink and then went to sing karaoke inside this giant, flashing box. When we got to the front desk, we had no idea how to tell them we wanted to sing and for how long and in what type of room. There was no English, just a list of prices and characters, and no one there spoke English either. We agreed to just pay whatever price they pointed to, and we were taken to our room.

Imagine our surprise when, a few minutes after being shown to our room, we were served a giant fruit tray! Awesome! And, after a bit of tinkering, we figured out how to work the machine and there was a lot of English songs. The place was so overstaffed, you wouldn't believe how many people we could see standing outside of our door just trying to listen to us sing. The service was awesome though. When we stuck our head out the door to ask for a beer, they were falling all over themselves to get it for us.

One of the best parts of Asian karaoke is finding spelling mistakes in the on-screen lyrics. I don't think I've ever seen one better than this, from Rhianna's "Only Girl In The World": "I want you to love me... like I'm a hot pie". LOL!!! The official lyrics should permanently be changed. So awesome.