Tuesday Report

Today has been BUSY!

The morning started at 3am, when I woke up and didn't get back to sleep. Julie and Steve were both up when I woke up, but were able to get back to sleep. I gave up and had a shower around 530 and then Julie was up too. She showered and we snuck out to go to breakfast leaving the kids asleep. I had to block the doorway with the stool in case Wen woke up before Steve and tried to leave the room in the hopes that he'd hear funiture crashing and wake up in time to catch her. We had a nice breakfast - no food or utensils were thrown. When we arrived back in the room, I had to break in, pushing over the stool to get the door open and prooved my booby trap didn't work - Steve didn't wake up.

We got them up and AnnaWen had breakfast in the room. She loves bananas, so she had one of those but turned down the bread and peanut butter. Apparently she doesn't like milk. That's scary. She did drink most of a box of milk drink with strawberry flavour in it (not the syrup we have, more like strawberry icecream) and she liked that a lot. I figure we can start with strawberry milkshakes and step down to milk gradually. Anyway, with a light breakfast in her belly, we headed out to meet the other families in the lobby for 9am. I had AnnaWen dressed in a tshirt, a jean skirt and a sweatshirt as a jacket. The guide came over, spoke to her in Mandarin and turned to me and said "she's cold". I've read that Chinese people like to cluck over lack of clothing on children but I wasn't ready for the guide to look right at me and say "We don't treat our Chinese babies this way" and dismissed me back to the room to get some pants. UGH. Of course I only brought two pairs of sweats (and those only last minute) and neither fit.

I thought she looked pretty cute, even if they didn't think it was warm enough.

We headed to the Gansu Museum. They had dinosaur and elephant fossils, pottery and some artwork. I think the exhibits talked a lot about history and social culture, like a Natural History Museum, but I'm not sure since I was trying to entertain a two year old with no English. It was a very interesting place, and important for us to know about her home province but difficult to get the most out of it with a child in tow. It would have been a good place to go had we had time in the province before collecting Anna. The most important thing there was the Bronze Galloping Horse. The statue is the symbol of Tourism in China and is in the running against the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty for world tourism. According to our guide it has a good shot to be chosen b/c "tourism has nothing to do with liberty and the other is the 'suicide tower' where people jump". Hm. Interestingly, I have seen the horse over and over in my research about China and Gansu, but I pictured it to be a big statue, like our Wawa goose and Terry Fox, but it was small.

Exhibits at the museum, including the Horse and AW "playing piano" with Kiara.

From there we went to see the Water Wheel, which is an old, well, water wheel that was used to generate power. It still works, but is not in use. It was raining so our visit was short before we stopped at the gift shop where we bought Christmas ornaments and a small version of the Horse.

The Wheel, an interesting building across theYellow River, and the statue of the Mother of the Yellow River.

We went for a late lunch to a restaurant that served beef noodles. OMG it was GOOD. We each had a bowl of noodles in beef broth, then around a Lazy Susan they placed sides that you add to the broth - pickled garlic, cabbage, tofu, jalapenos, sprouts, green beans, shredded veggies, etc. It was DELICIOUS.

Our table at lunch, and the street the restaurant was located.

We got back to the hotel and Steve and Wen played, then napped while Julie and I went shopping with another mom and aunt. I needed to buy pants. The store was expensive though, the only pair of sweats I could find that looked like they'd fit were $25 USD! The other mom had a brain wave and we decided to get tights instead - for half the price. It should be warmer in Beijing. I also got her a blanket to travel with, and a magnetic map of China and a hoodie I couldn't leave behind even though it was more than I should have spent. We wandered back and saw a bunch of shops to visit another time.

Now we're sitting around trying to wake AnnaWen from her nap (she's just like her sister in that respect) and decide what, if anything, we should eat for supper. Our lunch stuffed us full.

The highlights of the day? AnnaWen immitated "shoe", "push", "more", "eye" and "pee"!!!

N