Hey its Barb again. Wow this is quite the trip! You can read that literally and in slang “trip”. I have been so exhausted at night I just let Andy do the blog. Last night Andy was in charge of our potentially crying girl. Mama got to sleep. It is hard to sleep, I just worry too much. Is she cold, hot……breathing…you know that kind of thing. FOI has quite the schedule and so much to do. Haley and her parents are skipping the silk market today…..Gary and Joyce are going. I really would like to get rid of Haley’s cold which has been persistent. A little regular napping and Tylenol should get rid of it. It is so hard to be consistent on all the outings. I really have so much to be thankful for, she will eat anything, she is happy, and she only has a little cold. Some of the other kids have ear infections, some have had fevers, and others will not eat. Haley is a big girl and a busy girl. Loves to move around and look at things. Switching to Canadian formula was very easy, we could have brought more. However, she has absolutely no desire for Cheerios. Well, only as a play toy. They are great to throw on the floor. We have the right amount of clothes for us and Haley. Her favorite toy is a spoon, the lid from her bottles and the rolling balls that make noise. I think we will need to haul out some Tupperware at home.
Our hotel room is a mess, stuff everywhere. Her parents look tired. It is a true joy to have Gary and Joyce along with us.
What about Beijing….Bei means North and Jing means capital. Northern Capital. 30.8 million people. This is hard to fathom. It used to be the city of bikes it is now the city of private cars. Too many if you ask me. We could never drive here….it is chaos and the rules don’t make any sense. Traffic jams are the norm even on Sunday night. It is the strangest mix of new, old, very old and ancient. They have some very modern new buildings. Steel construction must be difficult, everything is made of concrete. The modern new buildings incorporate steel. It is why they look so “wow” modern in this city. It is a very big progressive city. Construction is everywhere, all over China. The people are absolutely lovely. You really get into the “harmony, happiness, good fortune” talk being here. They have such strong customs for eating and being social. They are very polite and from what we can see….very hard working. At the jade factory yesterday, we saw a master carver working. He makes $4/day. It was a government factory. We have received so many great greetings from the locals we meet around town. They just love our baby girl. The Chinese people have been absolutely lovely. I think they are very much looking forward to inviting the world to China for the 2008 Olympics. So much is written in English.
We visited the pearl market today – great deals on all kinds of stuff – especially pearls of course. Fresh water pearls (the less expensive of the two types of pearls) are very common in China. We purchased a bunch for what seemed like a very small amount of money ($50 CDN would buy a full strand of pearls) but not much else. Gary and Joyce are much better bargain hunters than we are. There was no planned group dinner tonight so we went out for McDonalds of all things. A chicken nugget tastes the same in China as it does in Alberta.
After dinner we went to see the Chinese national acrobatics team perform. Kind of like Cirque de Soliel – they were wonderful. Of course Haley was a bit of a handful and spit up all over daddy. Oh well – these things happen. Tomorrow we will visit another market which specializes in textiles. Talk to you then.
Explanations for pictures:
#1 – Chinese acrobatics
#2 – Haley at the Acrobatics performance
#3 – Andy feeding Haley
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