This morning we all slept until, drum roll please… 11AM. I think this was a combo of three things: good blackout shades, still being on Kazakhstan time, and entering hibernation due to the amount of duck fat we consumed last night. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the time.

We got up and ready and stopped in at a convenience store for some fruit and water for Millie. She got one of these little yogurt (?) drinks that we keep seeing kids with. It was like the richest ever Greek yogurt with honey in it, very good.

By this point it was past noon so we went to the mall hoping to get food. We went to the stall that looked busiest, knowing it would be good. It was so good that we had to wait an hour for a table. We killed the time looking in all the manga and cute little shops. There was a craft fair and lots of people in cosplay outfits. Great people watching.

We let Millie try a couple of these capsule vending machines. She would have done them all day if we let her.

Then we had our noodle lunch. We each got giant bowls of what I think are known as “Beijing noodles”. Millie ate hers plain and struggled with chopsticks. Nick and I downed ours.

Something I love about the restaurants here is that we pay when we order, which means that we can leave as soon as we’re done. As two fast eaters with an impatient child, this makes eating out so much easier. Tipping isn’t really a thing which also helps.

From here we took a car to the 798 Art District. This is a pedestrian-only zone full of galleries, museums, and cafes. We spent all afternoon here and feel like we only saw a small amount. We wondered into museums and galleries as we passed them.

We saw an exhibit of AI-generated animations. I wanted to dislike it but ended up loving it. There were interactive pieces and Millie spent a while dancing around with them. It wasn’t designed for kids but it was perfect for kids.

We saw another that had projections on large piece of fabric draped from the ceiling. Similarly Millie spent a while walking through and really interacting with it. She played for so long that Nick fell asleep on the carpet.

We stumbled into what was a… soap museum? Literally just a bunch of soap from throughout the years.

We walked around the neighborhood and just followed our gut for where to go. There were photo shoots all around us and people in different get-ups.

And so many purebred dogs in outfits. At first I thought this little gray one was fake but it was 100% real.

Another trend we noticed and then saw everywhere was girls wearing just one roller in the front of their hair. I think we saw probably 7 different girls with this look today. It was cracking us up.

We ended our day at a cafe where Millie ordered a pizza and Nick and I ate edamame for dinner. We were still so full from the duck and giant bowl of noodles. We thought back and confirmed that Millie has eaten pizza in every country we’ve visited yet. It’s everywhere.