Mao and Ling on pet street??????

I never thought I shop on pet street!!!

You read right, "PET STREET!" We knew we wanted cats, but had no idea how to get them. So we asked a friend, who has a cat of her own (and a rabbit) and she said, " you just have to take a cab down to pet street " . You could have imagined our faces to that comment.

So yesterday we decided to give it a try. We went to our little deli in our neighborhood, and asked the waitress (she speaks a little english) to write down the chinese characters for Pet Street. She looked at us saying, " is that what the foreigners call it".

So we were on our way.. We had no idea what to expect. We didn't know if it would be pet shops or exotic food street for the chinese.

To our relief, it was a big strip mall type place, with every type of dog you can imagine, lots of cats, and a few pigs...and all accessories to go with them.. This is also the strip where you can find Vets, and groomers...Needless to say, I was impressed... Mind you there was some funny looking dogs, with their butts shaved, (he probably had an issue), the smallest toy yorkies I have ever seen, but I think the funniest was the pig laying on the sidewalk... Just laying there...

So we started looking at cats.. let me tell you, the cats in China have different faces, No Joke... Most of them anyway. Several of them have small ears, huge eyes, and their markings are out of this world! Almost like grey tigers. They had a whole store full of those. But they wanted 500 american dollars for them. Ahhhh!!! NO!!!!
These Chinese see foreign nationals coming a mile away... I guess to them we look like a sac with a dollar or a Yuan sign on the front... and stupid written in the back...

So we found 2 little kittens with the help of a chinese boy that also spoke a bit of english, ( he says they robbed us blind ). One is a long haired female, orange and white and very soft. We named her Mao. Mao is very mischievous.

And the other is a tiny little white cat, female, with a grey spot on her forehead,(reminds me of the cats we had when I was a kid), and what looks like a dirty tail, but it's a spot of grey as well. She has one baby blue eye, and one avocado green eye. The chinese thinks she is ugly and unhealthy because of her eyes, but to us, she is just precious...We named her Ling...Ling is skiddish.. for now...

And we are happy...

So your word of the day is Mao... pronounced " Ma - o" meaning cat...

Meow meow meow,

Pauline : )