Fourth of July, wet market, surfing and more

We spent the 4th of July at a Chinese hot springs resort with 63 pools (though I counted  about 20), and 2 of them had fish that eat the dead skin off of people's feet. It felt like a million little kittens nipping at my heels! Mike braved the full body immersion - not for me. The kids were wise and said "no way." Of course today was the only day, literally, that we heard no firecrackers at all! Every day we hear them, I hate them, and today of all days - nada. We had dinner at an Italian place and relished speaking in English to two American families who were there too (one with us, one just visiting).

On Saturday we got up the courage to finally venture into the Number 1 Market, which is the huge wet market where they hack up animals for food and sell gorgeous heaps of fruit, vegetables, peppers and lots of other stuff. Check out the pictures.

The whole family went surfing Friday! It was very cool. Mike rented a board so Oscar tried it for his 2nd time, little Josie got out there (scared and crying, but she did it and of course it was her idea), Lisa tried it (nearly stood up, not quite), and Mike had some fun too. Mike even taught two Chinese teachers and Bryce too - cool! Or as they say here: "hen kuh."

The drivers are INSANE. They have no rules and drive however they want.

Crossing the street is something out of a Teen rated video game. The scooters and motorcycles drive on the sidewalks too, if they want to, cutting off cops, whatever. Sheer terror every time we are near a street. But if we manage to cross the street safely and get to the bus stop, the buses are air conditioned, which is nice. ...

I feel as though I'm in a perpetual state of wiping out the world's smallest ants, who sense the second we drop a crumb on the floor (there are many crumbs with toddlers) and then they seize the moment. Josie now squashes them in her little hands, very sweet. They are super tiny so it isnt really all that gross, but I'm annoyed.

We started with a new babysitter this week - shaolan is her name. She seems perfectly nice and gentle, but has not even one word of English. We'll see how long this lasts. But the kids will learn from her and they also start Chinese lessons this week formally (started with using Zingo to learn Chinese words), and Oscar even started swimming lessons in Chinese (but it is too much, so we will not continue). I'm sure there will be commentary to follow on all of those topics!

What else - shame on me for waiting longer than usual to update because now this is very long. Mike and Haley rented a little beat up wooden boat and fished on the river, we watched them float by from our balcony. Caught 1 small one each and threw them back. The river has millions of small fish in it.