The FISH Feast

Everybody wanted to see Audrey. One day, we went to my brother's office upon request. They cordially invited us for lunch. The lunch place was in the country side, which was famous for their fish feast. So we gladly accepted the invitation and drove to the country.

The place was amazing, designed completely as a dining island.

This feast was nothing but fish, different types of fish, the same fish cooked in different ways.

I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

The last day of "self-quarantine" at my grandma's birthday party

Before going to the restaurant for the birthday lunch, we had a family picture taken. Audrey did not let anybody sit next to her, so you see the big gap between her and Lishan, who, I guessed, was angry at the irrational and bully Audrey.


There were two separate rooms for all the families and relatives. Traditionally, man and woman sit at separate tables at this sort of occasions. However, I had to translate for Chris and I did not want to sit at the smoky man's table, my Dad decided that two tables were grouped by generation. My grandparents are apparently not our generation, but we thought they would not do any harm to us, so we agreed to let them sit with us. Am I kidding? Why was there an empty seat? That must be the creator of the below picture. By the way, the big yellow picture or chicken scratch (Chris' definition) on that big red background is "longevity" in Chinese, just in case you wonder. And, the colors are exactly the same as our national flag. Such an auspicious sign!


Below picture was taken by me. My Dad urged us to go to my grandparents' place relatively early on the birthday. In my opinion, 10 Am was pretty darn early. However, 9:30AM, the rushing phone call already came. I barely jumped out of the shower. Anyhow, we rushed to grandparent's place. The weird thing was I felt so strange to my grandparents. In order to get acquainted quickly, I had the idea of taking some pictures of them. Grandma's smile was so precious that I had to ask her a few times before I saw this one with a small smile.


My sister hired a professional photographer. Audrey became his favorite model immediately. I have to say, quite nice shots he captured.

2nd day in China - meeting my Dad

After the KFC visit, we wandered around my parents community. It has a park next to it. Audrey missed grass, so did we. It was very sunny and quite warm, upper 80F, and perfect for a leisure walk in the park.

See, how much we were relaxed and enjoying the limited green nature there:




After about 10 minutes in the sun, we started seeking for some shade. The ally along the condos was perfect. We then walked along there. Guess whom we saw? Of course, my Dad. Since we were self-quarantining at my parents home, Dad decided to stay at my grandparents' place for about a week. In this way, he could take care of my his parents and also go get things when needed for us. Thus, up to this point, we had not seen him yet since we came to China.

From the distance, I saw Dad. I told Audrey to call "Lao Ye", grandpa in Chinese. She was then calling and running toward my Dad with two arms open. Skype, thank you! It was so cute. Dad soon saw us, too.

We were supposed to be isolated from people, see what we were doing:




Of course, Audrey had to try on Dad's "Two Legs", which are the Chinese characters written on his bike basket:

2nd day in China - escape the self-quarantine.

The second morning after we arrived at my parents' place, Chris started missing coffee, or he wanted to wake up in the morning. After all, we were very much jet lagged. Day became night and night became day to us, so it was not easy to stay sharp during the day. However, we were suggested to stay home for 7 days because Chinese party was afraid of us coming from swine flu spreading country! To us, this was a joke! Fortunately, no guards were watching us, so we escaped the house on the 2nd day.

Well, coffee is not a popular drink in China yet, especially in small cities like my home town. Thank to the successful penetration of Western fast food chains, a convenient KFC is just around the corner of my parents condo community.

Of course, KFCs are equipped with kid play area with slide, which is one of Audrey's favorites. Chris got the coffee, then Audrey started her fun time in the KFC. Certainly, mama had to play with her. So I became a kid with age below 8 for once.

The waitresses at the KFC got so excited at seeing a Chinese-American mixed baby. They took turns coming to us. One of them later handed Audrey a bunch of KFC toys. It was very nice of them.

It was very nice to get out of the house, indeed. Everybody was happy when we were leaving KFC and starting another adventure later.