China - Part 4 - Dico's, WCs and Monkey Mountain

On our first full day in China, Yvette and I scouted out a "safe place" for 4 year old boys. Thus Dico's (McDonald's meets KFC Chinese style) became a large part of our lives for two weeks. Dico's has a nice childrens' room with a play area and trampoline as well as this fishing game. Big hit! For about $1 the boys could run off all the little boy steam and also play with friends their own age, couldn't really talk to the friends but there was a trampoline so who needs to talk.

A terrible picture but it's hard to take a good picture of wild jumping children when you are shooting through mesh.

The food wasn't too bad at Dico's and ordering was fun with the language barrier. We tried to order chicken nuggets one day and apparently we ordered half a chicken.

Now I think I'm right in saying humans have a universal interest in foreign toilets. I don't know why we have this but I know that when I get back from a trip I always get asked, "So what were the bathrooms like?" and when others return I ask "So what were the bathrooms like?" So this is what the bathrooms were like!

The trough runs through all stalls and you had better be upstream when it flushes! Here is the womens' bathroom from a fancy restaurant that caters to foreigners. The ultimate East Meets West! Sit or squat, you decide!

We had to put the program on hold for a few days and the boss decided we should go have a fun day with the kids at the lake. I had envisioned relaxing by water and sort of a lazy day. Instead we started a hike and I had no idea how far it would be, what we would see or where it would lead. After only a few minutes of stairclimbing monkies showed up!

They were quite friendly and on the look out for food!

Jake was intriguied but a little apprehensive. I became more apprehensive as the monkeys got "friendlier" and were happy to relieve you of any and all food you were carrying.

There was even a designated spot for monkeys!

The facilities were truly interesting on the mountain. The inside was better than any State Park facility I've ever had the pleasure of visiting!

There were thousands upon thousands of stairs leading up the mountain and thankfully, just when you thought you might die but were trying not to act like it because all the kids were running and down the stairs like it was nothing, the path would stop at an old temple. The architecture of the buildings was beautiful and each stop was a great chance for conversation with Jake and Micah.

"What is this place Dad?"
"This is a place where men took some rocks, and with some rocks they made a building and with other rocks they made those statues. Then the men worshipped the statues."
"Why does that table in front of the statue have food on it?"
"That is food they made for the statue."
"But that statue can't eat food!"
"I know."
"Then can I have it?"

When Jake could go no more (and we could carry him no more), Erik and I became sad because it appeared the mountain would defeat us. I don't like to lose, especially to a mountain, so we did what any responsibe parent would do and left Jake with friends. We "raced" up the mountain until we were out of view and then crawled the remaining portion awaiting the beauties that must be at the top. We arrived to find this and two really cute puppies.

My spirits could not be dampened for the climb was absolutely beautiful, I conquered the mountain and I saw monkeys. Can you have a better day?

The trip back down was much faster and we finally found Jake again at the bottom. I was shocked he had walked down that quickly but soon found out that maybe he had a trick up his sleeve when it comes to mountain transport.

He was beyond excited at the attention of his friends and informed us that we were welcome to head up the mountain again so he could play with his buddies.