This morning began with more firsts as MelodyJoy was laughing and talking up a storm, saying “DaDa” and babbling. It feels like we’re seeing a year’s worth of development in a week as she comes out of her shell and shows us a new trick every time we turn around. She no longer cries when we lay her down to do diaper changes and she seemed excited about bath time. Today she also refined her crawling ability, began to enjoy peek-a-boo and let me toss her in the air. Just a day or two ago, I would have felt she was too fragile to do that but she was laughing and smiling and wanting more. She still can be quite serious but the smiles are coming very frequently now. And she’s certainly not a quiet little girl anymore. As Jeannette just commented, it’s almost like we’ve had two different babies this week: A quiet, somber little one and now this child that babbles and plays loudly.
Our itinerary today included a trip to the Guangzhou Folk Arts Museum, which was built over the course of four years around 1890, financed by the Chen clan as a temple to worship their ancestors. In 1959, it was converted to a museum to preserve the local arts and architecture as modern construction began to overtake the city. There were examples of embroidery, paper cutting, tapestries and painting, porcelain, wood and bone carving, sculpture and household furnishings. Some of it, especially the carvings, was intricately beautiful.
From there, it was to a tea house where they taught us how to choose a top quality teapot (buy clay and make sure that the tea doesn’t dribble down the side of the pot as you stop pouring), how to make tea (don’t let the tea leaves sit in the water more than ten seconds) and had us sample four or five kinds of tea, from oolong to jasmine and ginseng. As expected, they very generously offered us the opportunity to buy their tea and cups and pots and dolls and so on.
To give Jameson a break, we went back across the street to the park this afternoon and visited the amusement park. Jamey even had his first solo driving experience on the bumper cars. We believe that this is how all of the taxi drivers in China learn to drive.
Dinner tonight was at the hotel’s Japanese restaurant. We were seated in a private dining room with the Lymans—sans Sophie and Lindsey, who was enjoying her babysitting assignment—and Stephanie and Andrew Pollara from Maryland, with their new little one Elaina. We got to sit on the floor (thankfully, they had a little pit under the table so you didn’t have to sit cross-legged, and they provided chair backs for us). It was fun to hear about the Pollaras and Lymans about their time in the Wuhan province since they experienced such a different part of China.
The food was okay but the meal service followed what has become a familiar pattern here in China. The dinner plates are about the size of saucers and napkins are small, or nonexistent. Tonight, the role of Napkin was played by Kleenex, from a box in the middle of the table. From there, the different courses appear in random sequence and timing. One person’s steak arrived five minutes before any rice showed up. Soup came toward the end of the meal. One plate of noodles was delivered to the Lymans early on but my noodles showed up just in time for dessert, which was really the only thing that showed up when it was supposed to . . . at the end! I don’t mind all of this Asian food but I’m really looking forward to having the courses show up when they’re supposed to and having a big plate to eat from again!
Tomorrow will be highlighted by the delivery of our paperwork to the US Embassy (all I have to do is sit by the phone in case there are any problems) and then, in a surprising new development, a shopping trip. As Beth’s dad commented tonight, the folks here are very efficient at separating us from our money!
The day we got MelodyJoy, I said I was ready to come home. At the same time, as we near the end of our stay in China, I can tell that I'm going to miss being with this group and living out this experience. The next two days will go by fast, I think!
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