Today, we did two major things: The Westin Brunch with Randy and Anime Street.
The Westin Brunch, as usual, was spectacular. We had a table right on the stage, so we could see all the acts right up close. I started with seafood and cheese; then, I ate some international foods (Indian, Peruvian, Middle Eastern); after that, some Italian; and I topped things off with chocolate and ice cream for dessert. Randy had his own special dessert: the orchestra played "Happy Birthday" for him and brought him a scrumptious cake: chocolate mousse. The female opera singer did a splendid version of music from Carmen; I never tire of her. We saw an amazing male acrobat balance on top of several metal cylinders. Extraordinary! I plan to go there for my birthday before we leave; they gave us a discount because we were celebrating Randy's birthday.
We then took a subway to the Anime Street that Randy and Kerry, in particular, wanted to check out. It was very hard to find, and, in my view, was mostly a lot of nothing. It was a smelly, dirty street full of a few stores selling figurines, but nothing that really interested me much. There were, however, a couple pet stores. One sold rabbits, turtles, kittens, and puppies. One calico kitten mewed and mewed at Kerry; another kitten was eating a bowl of what looked like oatmeal mush. I'm so glad Kerry didn't pick the kitten up; otherwise, we would have taken it home. I did managed to help Randy haggle for a lower price on a stamp he wanted: we went from 80 to 50 RMB.
We got another taxi (thanks again, Didi!) to go home. None of us wanted dinner; we were so stuffed from the brunch. I just did some reading of
The Awakening and some grading of Short Novel papers in the evening. Kerry read, and Randy wrote in his journal. Very quiet time at home to end the day.
Some pics from the day:
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| Seafood and cheese! |
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| Randy and his b-day cake. |
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| Incredible acrobat! |
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