 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Our Trip
November 29, 2001 - Day Eleven: Bonding click HERE for Day Eleven Photos Paige’s Comments: Ann is back with us, still sick, but up and breathing. Which is all we ask. The Sleep Update has Sophia clocking in an astounding ten hours straight last night. How cool is that? We've also observed her pre-sleep maneuvers, which involves approximately three minutes of stretching and arching, burying her face into what ever is closest, then 20 seconds of sniffling and then BANG: she's out. Very interesting child. She's dying for stimulus. In the car, her head whips back and forth, unable to and unwilling to miss a thing. She loves to make noises and enjoys games where we imitate each other. And she's especially enthralled with all things tactile. Texture fascinates her. As does carpet, which, at nearly a year old, she is experiencing for the first time. She just loves to run her fingers through it and scratch it. She was clearly under-stimulated at the orphanage. With Ann in bed all morning, I pushed her around the neighborhood in the stroller, and drew a lot of attention. Sat with her in the park down the street and watched seniors doing Tai Chi exercises, which is something she probably won't see a lot of at the Lions Park in Scandia. The afternoon was spent around Nanjing, seeing a brocade weaving plant that is a cultural icon and kept running by the government to maintain this lost art. From there we walked to the Nanjing Memorial Museum which chronicles "the rape of Nanjing", when Japanese troops massacred 300,000 civilians in 6 days in 1938. It's more of a tribute to the concept of peace, then anything morbid. But we left Sophia with John our guide, nonetheless. We then took a leisurely driving tour through the neighborhoods of Nanjing. With the introduction of free enterprise, this has become one giant market. Every five feet of street front has been turned into some kind of shop or service. It's something that you really need to see and we'll try to snap some pictures tomorrow. But if you have a chair or a table or a hot plate, you're in business. One guy was doing straight razor shaving on the sidewalk. Bicycle repair is another sidewalk enterprise. In a city of 6 million, 1 in 5 have bikes. Do the math. Our final tourist stop was the Nanjing Yangste Bridge. The Yangste is the 3rd longest river in the world, stretching 6300 kilometers through China. This bridge is the biggest river crossing. Double decker with traffic on the top and trains on the bottom. Built in the 60's this is the ultimate communist construction success. We toured the bridge headquarters and had Sophia absconded from us by the women in the gift shop who doted on her while we were up on the observation deck. They even took a wood carving out of the display case and gave it to her. As we've written, kids are "inspected" by the passersby on the street. We underdressed her today. Anything less then four layers of heavy clothing wasn't going to pass muster and we were treated with the same disapproval as the people you see beating their kids at Walmart. Lots of stern lectures about the importance of dressing her warmly. I'll do it just to avoid the accusatory stares. We got stuck in traffic in the neighborhood narrow streets and Sophia, who was getting tired and in need of a nap, melted down. First time in two days. Images of the ten hour flight to San Francisco from Seoul flashed through my head. We're flying separated with me in First with the baby and Ann in Business. This has given me something to worry about for the next eight days. Nice dinner down stairs. Sat next to a guy from Massachusetts and his three and a half year old daughter. Mom is at home with their three other kids. She's from the same orphanage in Changzhou as Sophia and we missed them by an hour the other day when he came to pick her up. She's an adorable, very polite girl. HUGE smile. She was abandoned at two. They think when her parents finally had a boy. That's it from me. Sophia, who doesn't seem to like clothes, is playing with Ann in her diaper. Sophia. Not Ann. Ann's Comments: I think I left off on Monday after we received Sophia. Have been pretty sick since Monday - a severe cold. Most of the kids in the orphanage had colds and Sophia picked one up from them as well. The orphanage doesn't have heat - just a portable heater - so the children are dressed in about 3-4 layers of clothes. Yesterday we had our family picture taken. The photographer delivered the pictures late last night to our room. They turned out nice. He picked the one that Sophia was waving. The shopping experience at the equivalent to the Sam's Club was overwhelming at best. We stood out among all the customers. We bought a shopping cart of warm clothes for the children at the orphanage. I'm so happy we waited until coming here and seeing the orphanage. We know that the sweater and warm pants, hats, mittens, and jackets will be used. I don't
think Paige wrote about how he left me alone with Sophia in the
baby aisle at the shopping center/supermarket. He, John, and I were
in the baby aisle and a couple of women came up and were admiring
Sophia. They decided to go to another section and I continued to
shop. I turned around and was shocked. Over a dozen women were standing
in a semi-circle around Sophia talking quickly and smiling and fawning
over Sophia. They started to ask me questions, but I couldn't understand
them. I wanted to, so I looked for John. He and Paige were gone.
I just smiled a lot.
|