7 July -- Bustin' Loose Day!

Or Liberation Day...

Spent the day in the People's Park with Ron and Mai-Ming Hollander. Amusement rides, watched singers, lunch in a tearoom (accompanied by massages for the adults), feeble speedboats on the park's wee lake, Ron and Donna did ballroom dancing. We later returned to the scene of the dancing where Donna then boogied with... a strange guy. Other sights: the wee babies, two Buddhist monks at the shooting gallery then chilling at the lake and a middle-aged guy with a massive reel of kite string with his kite, I dunno, at least a couple of hundred feet up. (Our local guide, Jane, the Singing Guide, later told us that they were fakes, that guys would shave their heads, and dress as monks to shake people down. Again, dunno, but didn't seem these two do any shaking.)

We returned to the hotel then we five went to a nearby restaurant recommended by the front desk. Again, as in the case of the park, I navigated us flawlessly, like a Chengdu native.

But while five of us went to the restaurant, only four dined. So after dinner, I shlepped Shayna to KFC -- except we never quite found it. (Saw a picture of the Colonel but never the actual restaurant.) Instead, spotted a Pizza Hut and got a cheese and pepperoni pie -- ingeniously made with the pepperoni under the cheese.

Walking up the avenue on the food run, picked up a couple of DVDs. As later at Pizza Hut and later with the ride back, Shayna did a little communicating in Chinese! The general couple blocks -- from around where the DVD guy was to Pizza Hut -- were all large stores, lit up and hopping; the whole street was hopping (DVD guy was not the only sidewalk seller.)

For the ride back (walking one way was fine, round trip too much for certain people), we took a pedicycle, which Shayna loved -- and I helped the driver with navigation -- I knew better where we were going than he did (he had the general idea but didn't know 100%.)

So ended our time on her own; fun, fun, fun and no danger experienced....