Wai

Papa Ray asked me this question. Something along the lines of does Autumn say "wai" or does she understand when we say "wai", (pronounced "way")? I hadn't heard that before but now I hear it a lot. It's amazing what you don't hear until someone points it out to you. I found out it's what some Chinese say when they answer the phone and can be used as a greeting. Especially when speaking Cantonese. Could be wrong about some of that so don't quote me. But Autumn seemed to know what it was. She looked amused when she was playing with her toy cell phone and I picked up mine and pretended to answer and said "wai." She then too said "wai." And then we went back and forth like we were talking and it was pretty funny. Now I often hear wai when I hear some people answer the phone. Kudos to Papa Ray! Last night we went to a restaurant that I heard served Italian food. It did indeed serve that and more like steak and some Chinese dishes. It was very nice inside but pretty pricey compared to the other food we have eaten here at restaurants. The service was good and it was interesting because you always had someone standing close by to attend to you. I know there were at least six people that attended to our table of seven. I had some spaghetti and it was very good. As good as I've had actually. Other people had lasagna and Angi had Milan Pizza. She said hers was very good also. Even though it was pricey for what we've gotten accustomed to it was not bad compared to what it would have been at home. At Olive Garden we would have paid a good deal more. Of course we didn't get all you can eat salad and bread either. I finally had my first beer and decided to go with the Chinese beer, (cheers Uncle Dave!), since I received much ribbing for drinking Corona last time we were here. Tonight we had a group dinner at the Thai restaurant called Cow and Bridge. It was good even though I don't care for Thai food. I just had a rice dish which suited me fine and sampled a little bit of what Angi ordered. It's a little crazy there though because they charge you for everything. There seems to be a napkin shortage here or something because we were charged for four packs of little moist towelettes. They also charge for napkins. It's in the menu... Not my thing. We also got some ice cream at McDonalds today while out shopping and it was good. To get into this McDonald's you had to go up an escalator. Not in a mall but it was in the second floor of this building. The McDonald's took up a couple of floors and we sat on the second floor. Autumn had a Happy Meal and ate it all up. Well tomorrow is the consulate appointment and we get a "red couch" picture taken of the kids and another one of the group so I need to get some rest.

Goodnight...

- Ric