Day 10

Hard to believe we've been away from home for 10 days. At the same time, though, it feels like we've been away from home forever. 

Today was our first full day without a guide. As we were thinking about it last night, we weren't sure what we would do with ourselves all day. But this morning we walked down to the Confucian Temple area and did some more shopping. Anne has a killer sense of direction, and she decided to take us down a different street. It is fascinating how you can get just one block away from the high end, highly Western style mall and end up on a street where people have duct taped their belongings together and are crammed into tiny little spaces. China continues to surprise us. I am glad we brought our kids so they can see how other people in the world live. There seems to be a high value on not throwing things away, but instead reusing and repurposing them, even past the point where it would seem sensible. This seems especially true among the older people. Their bikes are worn and rusty, with broken wicker baskets taped on to the back. Their brooms and mops are so old as to seemingly be ineffective, but still they use them. There is a sharp divide in China between the "haves" and the "have-nots."

Once in the market, we found a different side street than we had been on before, and some different shops. I say "shop" loosely, as each stall is about 6' X 8' with stuff all over the walls and hanging from the ceilings. The Nanjing area is known for a few specific things, and they are all for sale in this market. Wooden fans like you typically associate with China are famous here in Nanjing, as well as a certain type of tea called Yuhua Cha. I'm told it is one of the finest teas in China. People here carry around bottles of this green tea in the same way Americans drink water. Everyone you see, young or old, is carrying this tea and drinking it. The leaves are pretty big, so in the bottom of everyone's bottles are big leaves that look like green beans. We haven't tasted it yet, but that's on our list.

After our shopping trip, we were hot (it is almost 100 degrees and very humid here), so we went swimming at the hotel. Ruthie eased into the swimming a bit more today, and let Anne hold her in the water and walk around with her. Yesterday, she kind of "endured" the pool, but today she was smiling a bit.

We picked up some fried rice for lunch (it is hard to say no to lunch that costs $2.00 for all of us), and ate in our room. Ruthie took a nap, and we spent much of the afternoon hanging out in the room. Kris got some work done, and the kids played. We put some music on after a while, and that really got Ruthie going. I wish I could describe to you how silly she is. She is just about the silliest person we've ever met. We've tried to capture on video her silliness, and this is the best we can do:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21147169/IMG_1340.MOV

One other interesting thing she does: laundry. We've been washing a few things in the hotel tub, and Ruthie is helping. She will stir the clothes around in the water, beat them on the side of the tub, and then wring them out. She's obviously done this before.

Another fun thing she's doing is learning the kids names. She calls them by their names (or at least close to their names) and she calls Kris "ba ba," which is Chinese for daddy. But when she wants Anne's attention, she'll call her "Anne." Weird. We're trying to reinforce "mommy" as her name, since we discovered what she is saying.

She still is very chatty, which is fun. We've tried to figure out some of the things she says, but there's a few things that we don't quite get yet. Maybe our guide will help us tomorrow, if she says them then. (One funny thing that happened yesterday: when we were walking up the steps of the city gate, the other couple who was with us has their grandma on the trip with them. Grandma was taking her time climbing the stairs, and Ruthie turned around and said in Chinese, "Come on, grandma!")

We decided to eat dinner at the hotel's restaurant, since it would be easiest. They have a buffet even at dinner, so we took advantage of that. It is kind of nice, because you can be a bit adventurous in your eating, and if you don't like it, you can always get something else. It's a win for our whole family.

After dinner, we went out of the hotel to explore some of the night life we've seen outside our window. There were huge crowds in the street and in the intersection where our hotel is. We saw what looked to be a poodle owners convention, we saw people selling all manner of cheap junk, and we saw some older people writing calligraphied Chinese characters in water in the sidewalk. There were also a group of older ladies line dancing to some loud music. Now we know the source of the music we can hear each night.

So, that's the story on today. Ruthie continues to be more and more at ease with us, and we are falling more and more in love with her and with her silly expressions and her fun personality. We're praying that all goes well in a few days, as we add one more kiddo to the mix...