Olympic Park and the Silk Market

Sept 15th -- Today, we decided to start off by taking the subway to the Olympic Park. With the 2008 Summer Olympics still somewhat fresh in our minds, we wanted to see the memorable buildings, specifically the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. We exited the subway at the Olympic Green area and immediately saw the 2 buildings in front of us. The area was still full of tourists, and very clean and maintained, even 1 year after the games. We first spent some time looking at the 1 year anniversary pictures display. It was fun to see some of our USA winners. From here we thought we could see people walking around on the inside of the gate to the Bird's Nest. We weren't sure when we ventured out to the Olympic Park if we would actually be able to go inside, but were really excited to find out that we could. So, we bought our tickets and entered the Bird's Nest. While inside we sat in the seats of the Bird's Nest admiring the architecture and surroundings. We walked through the Bird's Nest store and took pictures with the mascots before exiting. Since we were so lucky to go inside the Bird's Nest, we figured that we would be able to go inside the Water Cube. So, we walked across the large concrete area (called Olympic Park) over to the Water Cube. We got our tickets and entered the building. We sat down in the seats and imagined Michael Phelps winning all of his gold medals. Amazing! A year ago when we were watching the Olympics, we never would have imagined ourselves here. After finishing up, we grabbed a quick snack and headed back to the subway station. We got on the subway and headed to the Silk Market. It was incredible how the station just fed us right into the Silk Market. Almost immediately upon entering, we were attacked by sellers. Let me rephrase that...our kids were attacked. The sellers were really good at getting to the children in order to make a sale. Before we knew it, Abby had on a dress and Austin had on a shirt. Of course, the kids wanted to immediately buy them, but we wanted to look around. So, we walked away with some unhappy kids. But, by the time we got done at the Silk Market, we left with happy kids. Abby bought a silk Chinese dress and Austin got blue silk pajamas with a dragon on it. We didn't spend a whole lot of time at the market because it kind of wears on you with the bargaining and constantly being asked to buy something. Nonetheless, it was a fun experience and we got some neat silk items. From here, we headed back to the apartment and the kids got some playground time before dinner. We decided to go to a restaurant right by our apartment. The name of the restaurant is Peng Xiang. We had stopped by there earlier to check out the menu and Mike said it looked good because it had pictures. Well, the story was a little different when we sat down to order. Let me back up, when we got ready to go to dinner, both kids wanted to wear their new silk purchases. They were too cute! Back to ordering, Mike was the only one with a menu and the waiter just stood there until Mike told him our order. Also, no one in the restaurant spoke English. When Mike got finished, I asked him what he ordered and he basically said "I don't know, some chicken and beef. One of the English descriptions was chicken claws. Well, chicken's don't have claws so that can't be literal". When the food came, I was very impressed. It all looked really good. There was a plate of corn, the chicken and beef with vegetables. Mike took a bite of the chicken and said "the kids can't eat this". Of course, we were all like Why not? And he just kept saying it's spicy. Well, when I bit into it, I immediately spit it out. It tasted like a big piece of fat. Apparently they were claws. We are not sure what part of the chicken it was, but it was not good. Thank goodness for the corn and beef dish because they were very good. It was a true cultural experience that's for sure.