July 11 – Nanchang
We awake early this morning. Zoe has gotten into the habit of soiling her diaper some time in the middle of the night, so we always have a surprise for her morning change. Emma did not sleep well and woke up early this morning as well, so we slowly get ourselves downstairs to breakfast in the hotel.
Emma is not feeling quite right and does not eat much. Zoe appears really thirsty and drank lots of water, and really enjoyed a large helping of Congee soup (which looks like a Rice soup) – a popular morning breakfast we have seen. In fact, it’s so popular that Zoe decided to get a second look at it by immediately throwing it all up into Karen’s lap at the breakfast table. And all over her cute dress (which was the same dress that Amy made for Emma but now fits Zoe perfectly). We diagnose “too much food into too little tummy” because Zoe just keeps on eating after that – and puts down another helping of Congee soup as well as hard boiled egg, and fried rice with egg.
Back upstairs for a change of clothes, and we are a little late for our 9am group meeting to head to the porcelain district where we can browse for some china in local shops. Today is pouring rain (and thunder) so our planned park trip is delayed until at least tomorrow. Michelle, however, knows of some good local shops with reasonable prices on all sorts of china and suggests we go there instead.
We board a van and head out as a group. The city is crazy with traffic, but the trip to this shop is worth it. The selection is amazing – china tea sets, china vases, china tableware and jewelry boxes. I’ve made the mistake of putting the camera in the bag with the cold water bottles, which leads to fogging of the lens and prevents me from taking good photos in this store until the camera clears up. It’s a shame, because all of this is beautiful, and Karen and I would love to take lots of it home if we thought it would ever survive the airplane trip in one piece. Instead we settle for a few smaller items that should travel well and walk out of the shop having spent hardly any money at all.
Nanchang’s province, Jiangxi, is famous for fine china, and it’s no wonder that we see an endless array of beautiful things. We would love to return here and spend more time in the future browsing the shops.
After shopping we stop at a Buddhist Temple and tour. It’s amazing as well – monks are in residence here and there are many buildings with a variety of Buddha statues. The largest Buddha is 13 meters tall and cast in bronze – this statue almost touches the ceiling. After taking many photographs, we see the sign that tells us photos are prohibited – whoops!
We return to the hotel for an afternoon with family. I head to the store and buy some bottled water and some “cup of noodles” for lunch. Zoe loves these – she will grab a few of these fine noodles, get them into her mouth, and suck them up like an expert noodle eater. I remember this skill took quite some time for Emma to master when she was a baby, so it’s clear that Zoe has had some noodle practice in her past.
Zoe has a lot of the same habits that Emma had as a baby. She is quiet – a good sleeper, and she likes to make a sucking motion with her lips when she is getting sleepy. On the other hand, she likes to play a bit rough compared to Emma and gives herself a good laugh when she swings and hits you with her hand. And she is still really into Karen and hates being left alone – although she prefers being left alone to the alternative, which is me holding her.
Karen has been using her new ErgoBaby backpack and it is working like a charm, particularly with Zoe being so tactile and needing that direct contact with Karen. The only downside is that it’s 95 degrees and humid here, so two hot bodies surrounded by any sort of backpack leads to quite a bit of sweating.
New Blog Feature – Emma’s Corner (transcribed verbatim):
We went to the Buddhist temple and looked in a couple stores and bought some stuff. My favorite thing that I bought was a fancy tea set. My favorite thing that Zoe does so far is chew.
We awake early this morning. Zoe has gotten into the habit of soiling her diaper some time in the middle of the night, so we always have a surprise for her morning change. Emma did not sleep well and woke up early this morning as well, so we slowly get ourselves downstairs to breakfast in the hotel.
Emma is not feeling quite right and does not eat much. Zoe appears really thirsty and drank lots of water, and really enjoyed a large helping of Congee soup (which looks like a Rice soup) – a popular morning breakfast we have seen. In fact, it’s so popular that Zoe decided to get a second look at it by immediately throwing it all up into Karen’s lap at the breakfast table. And all over her cute dress (which was the same dress that Amy made for Emma but now fits Zoe perfectly). We diagnose “too much food into too little tummy” because Zoe just keeps on eating after that – and puts down another helping of Congee soup as well as hard boiled egg, and fried rice with egg.
Back upstairs for a change of clothes, and we are a little late for our 9am group meeting to head to the porcelain district where we can browse for some china in local shops. Today is pouring rain (and thunder) so our planned park trip is delayed until at least tomorrow. Michelle, however, knows of some good local shops with reasonable prices on all sorts of china and suggests we go there instead.
We board a van and head out as a group. The city is crazy with traffic, but the trip to this shop is worth it. The selection is amazing – china tea sets, china vases, china tableware and jewelry boxes. I’ve made the mistake of putting the camera in the bag with the cold water bottles, which leads to fogging of the lens and prevents me from taking good photos in this store until the camera clears up. It’s a shame, because all of this is beautiful, and Karen and I would love to take lots of it home if we thought it would ever survive the airplane trip in one piece. Instead we settle for a few smaller items that should travel well and walk out of the shop having spent hardly any money at all.
Nanchang’s province, Jiangxi, is famous for fine china, and it’s no wonder that we see an endless array of beautiful things. We would love to return here and spend more time in the future browsing the shops.
After shopping we stop at a Buddhist Temple and tour. It’s amazing as well – monks are in residence here and there are many buildings with a variety of Buddha statues. The largest Buddha is 13 meters tall and cast in bronze – this statue almost touches the ceiling. After taking many photographs, we see the sign that tells us photos are prohibited – whoops!
We return to the hotel for an afternoon with family. I head to the store and buy some bottled water and some “cup of noodles” for lunch. Zoe loves these – she will grab a few of these fine noodles, get them into her mouth, and suck them up like an expert noodle eater. I remember this skill took quite some time for Emma to master when she was a baby, so it’s clear that Zoe has had some noodle practice in her past.
Zoe has a lot of the same habits that Emma had as a baby. She is quiet – a good sleeper, and she likes to make a sucking motion with her lips when she is getting sleepy. On the other hand, she likes to play a bit rough compared to Emma and gives herself a good laugh when she swings and hits you with her hand. And she is still really into Karen and hates being left alone – although she prefers being left alone to the alternative, which is me holding her.
Karen has been using her new ErgoBaby backpack and it is working like a charm, particularly with Zoe being so tactile and needing that direct contact with Karen. The only downside is that it’s 95 degrees and humid here, so two hot bodies surrounded by any sort of backpack leads to quite a bit of sweating.
New Blog Feature – Emma’s Corner (transcribed verbatim):
We went to the Buddhist temple and looked in a couple stores and bought some stuff. My favorite thing that I bought was a fancy tea set. My favorite thing that Zoe does so far is chew.
We have a quiet afternoon as Zoe naps for 3 hours. Yikes! Not sure how this will work out at bedtime. Once she wakes up, we decide that we should get out of the hotel and walk down the street onto a retail block where we are quite popular with the locals. We feel a bit like the pied pipers as groups of people slow their walk to match their pace to ours, and suddenly we’re trailing a group of curious locals. As we have often heard, they tell us Emma is a beautiful girl. The Chinese are really warm and friendly once you say hello to them, and a few we have met speak excellent English.
We leave this area of the city and head down the block near our hotel to a very nice restaurant that Michelle recommended for dinner. Thankfully, she had written out a few suggestions that she thought we would like – green beans, sweet & sour pork white rice and bottled water. The wait staff is very attentive, and they provide a high chair for Zoe. This is a real test – can she eat dinner while not sitting on Karen’s lap? Turns out she did reasonably well. The food was delicious and we also ordered an egg & dumpling soup that we thought Zoe might enjoy. Zoe feasted on rice and soup (and the occasional green bean) but she was not crazy about the pork. Emma seemed to enjoy all of the food as well, but her eating pace is a bit slower than Zoe’s frantic table manners. Finally we decided that Zoe had made enough of a mess, and Karen took her outside while Emma and I finished up.
How do you ask for the check in Chinese? I had no idea, and apparently if I just sit at the table looking stupid, they will let me be. After some time I flagged down a staff member, who had our waitress bring the check. I tried to leave her a tip, but apparently if you want to do that, you should give it directly to them instead of leaving it on the table. I had some peculiar stares as I left some money behind. We walked out of there leaving a ton of food on the table for about $11 US, in a rather fancy establishment.
Back to the hotel and baths for both girls. Zoe is still not happy about it and protests loudly that she is not attached to Karen full time. I get her reasonably clean and hand her off to Karen in a bundle of towel, while I spend some time with Emma’s bath. Emma has been a real trooper and is feeling really left out that we need to spend so much time with Zoe. It’s easy to forget that she’s only 5 years old some times given how easy she is as a kid. I make a mental note to try and spend a bit more time with her.
Zoe is not quite ready for bed when the rest of the gang is. Could it be the 3-hour nap this afternoon?! Karen lays with her on the big bed to help her quiet down, and then we try to transfer her to the crib. Forget it – she is screaming in protest and there is nothing I can do to calm her. On our first night with her, Zoe was good at self-soothing in the crib. But clearly now she is wound up and the only calming force is a bit of Karen time, so Karen leans over the crib to be close to her (and to give her lower back a bit of extra workout today!) until Zoe calms and falls asleep. We’re all off snoozing by about 9pm.
I find Zoe’s regression a bit frustrating until the other half of my brain reminds me that this poor kid is going through a major change in her life and I am sure this is stressful. In fact, it’s pretty incredible that she is already comfortable enough with us to laugh and play games, and it’s amazing that she can sleep an entire night with very little fussing considering the circumstances. She has a very sweet, soft voice and a cute laugh (sweet and soft, that is, when she is not yelling for Karen’s attention). And she has excellent dexterity with a spoon – able to feed herself with little extra help. So far we have seen no evidence that her 6th finger is anything but a nuisance – she does not use it, and it appears to lack dexterity, and it seems to get in her way more than anything else. We also cannot tell her hand preference – she can feed herself equally well either left- or right-handed.
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