On Tuesday, Mr. Lou took us on an excursion to get me a cell phone. We stopped at a place I can only describe as a Chinese Best Buy. There were about 15 different phone vendors each trying to sell a different brand of phone. Each brand had about 50 different styles of phones. This would all be great if any of them could understand what I was saying and vise versa. After about an hour of looking around I let the kids pick out a phone for me (mistake #1). After my phone purchase we had to go to China mobile and pick out a phone number that Rain Man himself couldn't remember, and pre buy my plan minutes. I thought I was doing okay, until I got the darn thing back to the hotel and realized I couldn't figure any of it out. They did convert it to English but there is still a lot of Chinese symbols on it, not to mention all the instructions are in Chinese. I handed it over to the kids and told them to figure it out in which Julia told me "Mom, these Chinese phones are messed up." It may take me all of the three years to figure out how to retrieve my e mail on it!!
We have taken up residence at the Marriott Beijing Northeast. 
