The hotel has a small playground just outside the breakfast buffet, so we let them play there for a while after breakfast. Benjamin wasn't completely convinced about the ball pit, or about the small see-saw, but was definitely Ok with the rocking horse. You know, the one just like the one I figured we'd never need and sold at the yard sale last year......
We met our guide after that, and went to the Hunan Embroidery Museum. I wasn't expecting it to be as amazing as it was. The emboidery was spectular, and watching the people do that kind of work was unbelievable. The threads are so fine, the silk so thin, and the finished products are wonderful. We wandered through the store, but the prices were really high. Celia told us to come with her to another store where we could buy some of the embroidery much cheaper, so we went. Any excuse to shop!
She took us from there to a local mall, where we wandered around for a while, and found some gifts for the kids at home. We also found a Pizza Hut, and figured we'd give my Dad a break and let him have some food he wasn't terrified of :) By the end of lunch, Benjamin was feeding Christopher the spaghetti off Christopher's plate - it was hysterical, and none of the pictures really do it justice. But of course, I have to try....
We went back to the hotel, and Brian tried to get Benjamin down for a nap. Key word being "tried" Christopher and I went to the pool, where apparently he became the subject of a PR film they were shooting at the hotel. The camera crew filmed him for about 10 minutes just swmming around, and practicing his new jumping into the float ring skills. I should hire myself out as his agent.
We all decided to go wandering the streets for supper, and just get some noodles or something to have in the room so everyone could just chill for a while. We thought we found some sort of rice stuff for Benjamin, but once we heated it up, it was digusting. Brian's description was something like rotten pineapple with the texture of tapioca. It smelled horrible as I was flushing it down the toilet. We did discover that lime potato chips are pretty good, dried kiwi is excellent, Benjamin and Christopher both love bananas, and that there are lots of flavors of Oreos in the world. The raspberry / blueberry ones are pretty good - we saved the orange mango, as well as the apple grape for another day. We'll definitely be bringing some of them home for everyone to try.
There has been some slight progress on the dealing with Mommy front - I can be within 10 feet of him if I happen to have food. Particularly if I have snacks. It's baby steps, but right now, it feels like taking baby steps to run the Boston Marathon. I'm sure it will get better, but here and now, it's not a whole lot of fun. Brian would actually like to shower or give his arm a break, and I just wish I could hold my little boy without a hissy fit. All in good time, I suppose.
Tomorrow we have to go back to the Civil Affairs office to get the actual adoption paperwork, and then we're going to another museum. I'm hoping for an early evening, as we have to clean this mess up and check out on Friday to head to Guangzhou. I'll have to figure a way to take pictures of the hotel room we have - we have a corner room (bigger than the average size, I guess, with my parents in the adjoining room. It works out well when Christopher needs a break from everything to go hang out with Grama and Grampa for a while, and for just having us all in the same place. Hopefully we have the same setup in Guangzhou.
I'll see if I can get more pictures to post tomorrow. The internet works well, but Brian's computer is slow like death for uploading pics. Maybe I'll have better news to report on the Mommy front as well :)
Our daughter is from Hunan too,enjoy every minute there.
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