Exploring the Great Wall

ASIATIC: In our running around today we made a fun stop a The Great Wall Mall in Kent, in search of some special gift items at the mall's anchor tenant, 99 Ranch Market, , the largest Asian grocer in the United States.

As soon as we walked in we were greeted with the tempting scent of something cooking nearby. The mall has multiple restaurants and a bakery, so it was hard to tell where it was coming from.

One sign that caught our attention right away was this ...

The fun neon made me want to get some bubble tea even though I'm not really a fan. ;)

We walked around for a bit, checking the storefronts. There were also tables in the middle of the mall, as well as a number of coin operated video games and rides.

Annabelle took a shine to thins pink carousel unicorn.

Eventually, we made our way to 99 Ranch Market. We walked every aisle, marveling at all of the foreign-to us foods. While the vast majority of the packaged goods were in a language other than English, nearly everything had an English label and price tag along the shelf, so we were able to mostly figure out what was what.

The kids' favorite part of the store was the live seafood market. Dozen upon dozen crabs were stacked in tanks, and a crowd of live tilapia stared out at us, probably not hoping to be our dinner. The seafood counter was doing a brisk business.

As we were driving away from the store with five bags full of exotic-to-us goodies, I asked the kids, "Did you notice we were the only white family in that whole mall?"

"No," they immediately replied.

That made me happy.  

ON THE MOVE: See this here capsule? It's Orion, NASA's next manned spaceflight 'ride.' IMHO, it can't come too soon (especially in light of the 'trouble on the ISS news yesterday).

Image Credit: NASA/David C. Bowman
This test version of Orion is about to take a long road trip, from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., to the Naval Base San Diego in California. There, it will be used in a test to simulate the recovery of Orion during its first mission, Exploration Flight Test – 1 (EFT-1), which is scheduled for September 2014.

SCHOOLY STUFF: The kids' school-ish activities today included some science and math homework, and they read an issue of Time for Kids mostly about Abraham Lincoln (from mid-November), marking the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg address. They also answered some comprehension-question type worksheets, and we went on the Time for Kids Web site and watched a video about the speech, where the crew of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln celebrates the 150th birthday of the ship's namesake by reciting the address.

Hard to believe there were just 271 words in that speech for the ages. 

I recalled seeing a photo of Lincoln delivering the speech on the Library of Congress' web site, so I hunted it down. 

Can you spot Honest Abe?  What a treasure it is to have a photo of that seminal moment in time. The print was made from a glass negative.

Fun fact: Lincoln gave copies of the Gettysburg Address to each of his secretaries,John Nicolay and John Hay.

They also practiced some guitar today ...

RAPPER'S DELIGHT: We're off to a show tonight - the last night on a long tour by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. 

Ben Haggarty (aka Maclemore) is one of Seattle's favorite sons. This is the last of three sold out shows at Key Arena, and his final night on The Heist tour. Should be rockin' and sound a little something like this ...