When we first arrived in China, one of the first purchases we made was a set of wheels for each of the girls. They'd started to learn to ride at my parents that summer, and we'd promised to get each of them a bike. Sydney made sure we didn't forget.
A year and half later, they've all outgrown those bikes. Now that the weather is nice, the girls spend almost all of their afterschool daylight outside. On weekends, they get up even earlier than school days and are raring to go.
The weekend before the 'finger break', Sarah went to a birthday party. Syd decided it was an opportune time to find a new bike. So, we dropped Sarah off and headed to Old Town in search of Giant bike store. Larry thought it was near the Howard Johnson. As we headed down one street, I noticed all of the these kitchen accessories stores. I pulled out my taxi cards and asked Mr. Liu if we were on "kitchen street", a street I'd been wanting to visit. We were. Katie and I jumped out and planned to walk to Howard Johnson, which appeared to be a straight shot, and meet up with Syd and Larry. Unfortunately, my cell phone was dead and the hotel ended up being much farther away than initially anticipated.
After picking up a new grater and strainer, Kate and I started walking and walking and walking. We stumbled down some pretty interesting streets. We saw a man carving out a wooden tub with a chisel, and we also saw chickens in various stages of disembowelment. A woman was just finishing up washing the freshly plucked feathers and was stuffing a blanket with those same feathers. Katie, of course, stopped and talked with all of these folks. No fear, no worries, just making new friends.
About an hour later, we finally found Larry sitting on the steps of the Howard Johnsons with a not so happy look on his face. Evidently, the bike store turned out to be their scooter store and I had the bank card. So much for impulsiveness. Oh well, Syd got her new bike, while Katie and I had an adventurous stroll, seeing things we'll never forget.
Don't feel bad for Sarah and Katie. The following weekend they got new bikes, too.
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