Tomorrow we leave the safety and comfort of our hotel. Charlie leaves for the US and the girls are going to move into our new flat. While I am not a huge fan of hotel *living* and am ready to just be *home*, I am also hesitant about leaving the convenience of a concierge and a built-in taxi catcher! Hailing a taxi is not the easiest, especially when you are toting a toddler and typically loads of baggage! It isn’t difficult, but I will sure miss the taxi stand at the hotel! We had another little snaffu with our air shipment, but the flight was only delayed by one day, so we are now supposed to get our first round of things on Wednesday. Yay! Makena will sure miss the hotel though - she is a MASTER of opening our door with the key card. She is barely able to reach the key insert, but she puts the key right on in and gets it open more often than most adults! The housekeeping staff knows us now and always stops to watch her open the door...after they watch her run down the hallway!
I found two grocery stores relatively close to our flat, although the markets are more local in color - I have also established a new rule when it comes to grocery shopping...there must be something written on it in English to tell me what it is! You would think that would be easy, but there are sections of the markets where I am completely baffled! For the record, the name of the company and the name of the market do not count in the English requirement! I also heard from a new friend that you really need to look at where it is from...be VERY careful of certain food items originating in China - particularly meat. Good tip! We did find an American store in Central called Gateway Basement something or other (it is about a 35-40 minute walk from our house) - they have microwave popcorn, Crest toothpaste, applesauce, yellow mustard, Mountain Dew, SmartWater, and a few other niceties from the US that we will be sure to order soon. Makena and I are planning a trip down to the Gateway basement (it is literally a basement!) soon so that we can place an order. Delivery takes three days, so hopefully we can get down there tomorrow or Wednesday (sometime not coinciding with one of our deliveries) so that we can place an order for delivery this week! Yay! They even had one brand of American deodorant - double YAY! That is a huge find...I just have to figure out how to spend $850 there, which is the minimum for delivery. Oh, I almost forgot. They have Bounty! I love Bounty, although we probably won’t get it because it is a value pack and I just don’t have anywhere to put it!
Roaming toward home...
