Restaurant Beside The Sea

Today Kenton and I and the kids went to the ‘Kai Fa Qu’ (Economic Development Zone) outside of town. It is a huge area with lots of new developments and businesses, along with theme parks and tourist areas. It is like another town in itself.

We went there to meet five of Kenton’s classmates from high school. We met at an upscale seafood restaurant beside the sea. The restaurant was huge and beautiful. The main floor was for open seating, but the many floors above were private rooms. We were led up four flights of stairs. The stairs were made of marble, and the walls beautifully sculpted with various forms of seashells and starfish. Large jade sculptures (about two feet high each) were set on stands in the corner of the stairway. Our room was quite spacious with a very large round table set for 12 in the middle. Two of the walls were padded airwalls, while the third wall was all glass. We had a magnificent view of the sea, with seagulls, fisherman boats, and large ships in the skyline. A couple of classmates had brought their wives, but we were the only ones to bring kids. Our lunch reunion lasted for over 5 hours. There was a lot of story-telling and laughter. I could understand a little over half of the conversation, but was kept busy feeding and entertaining the boys anyways. It was a very pleasant afternoon. After our meal, were drove around the area. Dalian is quite beautiful – today’s drive was especially scenic along the seacoast. I took lots of videos.

The boys: The boys fell asleep in the car on the way to the restaurant. We had to carry all three sleeping boys up to our eating area. After waking up and eating, they were ready to leave, but we were able to keep them entertained with different games. They also entertained us with running around the room in circles, laughing/shrieking while playing tag. I think we are over the worst of the virus. Brian still has diarrhea, but is almost back to his normal self. Justin is still fussy at times, but also doing much better. He keeps begging to drink soymilk, but the different brands of soymilk here have a much stronger soy taste to them. He is so used to Silk and 8th Continent with vanilla that he won’t drink the brands here. Hopefully we’ll be able to find some kind of soymilk that he likes.