Hotel Madness or "I'll Have my Omelet Medium Rare"

     I think today we finally hit the peak of our hotel madness.  Every morning we go down to one of the hotel's restaurants for the breakfast buffet.  They have a wide variety of dishes that span Chinese and American cuisine.  Sometimes they're a little misguided about what Americans eat for breakfast, though.  Every now and again they sneak chicken nuggets into one of the buffet trays.  They're never in a tray labeled "chicken nuggets" so it's kind of like a scavenger hunt finding them.  Today they were in a tray labeled "fried eggplant."  It's a pretty strange breakfast item, but I'm usually happy to see it because it means Stephen will eat something other than what has become his normal menu of breakfast sausages and a boiled egg.  If we're lucky, he'll pick the pieces of fruit off of our pastries.  Otherwise, it's sausages and a boiled egg.  Sometimes he'll even throw a few sausages in his pocket for later.
     I usually try to stick to local fare.  It's all part of my plan to condition my stomach to the local style of cooking which usually consists of a lot of peppers with a little meat and noodles mixed in.  However, every now and again I'll get a hankering for eggs so I head to the omelet station.  Every time I go, it is only because I forget that the people in this hotel have no idea how to cook an omelet.  They have the basic concept down, but I haven't yet figured out how to tell them I'd like my omelet well done.  They put the eggs in and wait just long enough for the bottom part to cook so they can fold it over.  As soon as the fold it, though, it's out of the pan and onto the plate so you're left with an omelet that's cooked on the outside, but soft and chewy in the middle.  They would be amazing at cooking steaks, but eggs are out of their league.  On one occasion, I remembered my past omelet woes and opted for scrambled eggs instead.  In front of the omelet station, for the benefit of those who aren't fluent in Chinese, they have the list of various egg-cooking methods in English with the Chinese translation next to it.  I approached the cook, who was wearing a badge that said "trainee" and politely asked for scrambled eggs while pointing to the Chinese characters on the sign.  The lady stared at me for a while and then called over a supervisor who walked me over to the buffet line and pointed to the the boiled eggs.  I took him back to the sign and pointed to the scrambled eggs characters again.  He explained it to the cook-in-training and in a few minutes I was handed.......a plate of medium-rare scrambled eggs.  Kate continues to brave the omelet station every morning, but I've decided to stick with Chinese food for breakfast.
     Tonight I was sitting on one of the beds eating a bowl of instant noodles.  We picked some up at the store because you can only take two small boys out to eat so many times before losing your mind.  Anyway, I was eating my bowl of noodles watching a pre-recorded DVD of Yo Gabba Gabba that we brought with us.  At some point David decided that unless Yo Gabba Gabba was on the TV, he would refuse to eat and only scream at the top of his lungs.  I thought we had at least a year before I got all of those songs stuck in my head again, but no.  So as I'm watching Yo Gabba Gabba, Stephen is flying back in forth in front of me playing naked basketball.  Earlier, after we had gotten back from a walk in the park, he decided to strip down to nothing but a baseball hat and play basketball.  All summed up, we have David in the corner staring at Yo Gabba Gabba on TV while eating, Stephen making naked jump shots and slam dunks like it was his job, and Kate and I eating instant noodles like we were still in college.  We'll definitely be a unique kind of crazy by the time we move into our apartment in 12 days.
     On the bright side, we did submit all of our paperwork to get my residence permit and to get Kate and the boys the visas that will let them stay for the year without having to leave every 30 days.  Progress is progress and at this point, we'll take whatever we can get.