A night on the town

I ran out of western style provisions like cold cereal and peanut butter on the same day I had promised the kids to take them out for American food, so after Chinese cooking class ended today, we were going to head out for downtown to the big shops, like Wal-Mart and the French Carrefour. We had a short rain delay while it poured buckets for about 35 minutes, but then caught a cab and went downtown. I'd never been to downtown Nanjing at night before, with the skyscrapers and neon lights, there are squares that remind me of New York, London and Tokyo all at the same time.

I thought I'd been very clever to take the kids to Pizza Hut on a weeknight, but there was still a line outside. You stood in line and they handed you a little time and date stamped ticket. After a while they brought us tiny paper cups of cold green tea. There is no ice in drinks here. We waited about 25 minutes until we were admitted.

Pizza Hut in China has several varieties of what we think of as Pizza, plus additional offerings for toppings such as octopus. They also offer soups, and an array of smoothies and other drinks. We had American style pizza, which was pepperoni with cheese. One of my students was with us, and received the pizza politely, but I don't think she's about to become a regular pizza consumer.

The kids raved. They've had Chinese food two or three times a day for almost two weeks now, and they thought it was the world's greatest pizza. Although the dinner at about $11 was by far the most I have spent on a meal for four since I arrived, it was worth it just because the kids were so ecstatic.

Because it is such a furnace here during the day, many people sleep for a couple of hours in the afternoons, and the streets are very lively at night. So even though we entered Wal Mart after 8 PM, it was still packed with people shopping. Wal Mart is on the second two floors on a tall downtown building. On the first floor are upscale clothing shops and jewelry stores. There is, blessedly when you are carrying bags of milk and water, a taxi stand right outside the building.

Tab, including shopping, restaurant and taxis, for this big night on the town for four people was $ 30. Because it is a weeknight, I still had everybody in bed by 10 pm.