Con Gee: Rice congee is a type of rice porridge that is eaten in many Asian countries. The word congee derives from the Tamil word kanji. In some cultures, congee is eaten primarily as a breakfast food, while in others, it is eaten as a substitute for rice in other meals.

So, it's gruel. After tasting it I guess you could also call it Nas Tee. But it's about the only thing we can get Julianna to eat. She will not take her formula.

We made the mistake today of going with the group to what Kelly called a "women and children department store" or something like that. What it was, was Times Square asian style. The store itself was on the third floor of a building with several different stores that sold everything a Chinese person could need. We spent all of five minutes in the children's department before Julianna started making her customary sound (uhh, uhh); which we interpreted as hunger, seeing as how the last congee she had was at breakfast. She had turned down her bottle of formula, naturally.

So, off we went to find sustenance. Among all the stores were a couple of McDonalds, a Pizza Hut, a KFC, and hundreds of booths selling fried duck heads and whatnot. Our first stop was a little grocery on the first floor of the children's store building. The one thing they didn't have wast the cornstarch crackers the other (read: perfect) children in our group adore. The helpful lady took my hand signals to mean our baby was teething and presented us a box of what looked like long skinny crackers. We also bought a box that really was long skinny crackers. More on the fake crackers in a minute. Anyway, once in Julianna's hands, she made an elaborate point of dropping the crackers to the street in disgust.

So we thought we could find some congee or noodles (she loved the noodles at the restaurant last night), and we went by all the booths looking. Apparently this is one of the cultures that only eats congee for breakfast.

Ok, how about good old McDonald's? we got some chicken mcnuggets and managed to slip a piece the size of a lima bean into her mouth. Mom and dad had to eat the rest.

So, we found the old standby, the steamed bun we thought was her comfort food (she was holding one when we first got her) at a 7-11 on the far edge of "asian times square" but we never even got it out of the bag before she turned her head from it. By now the "uhh uhh" was real crying, and it was time to get on the bus to come back to the hotel. We never should have gone in the first place.

I'm sitting here in the dark now, wondering how in the world a kid can survive on breakfast alone.