Our Girl

It is early morning on Wednesday,I think. It seems that the whole family needed to catch up on sleep, we slept about 11 hours and the little lioness is still just about to wake up and give a good morning growl. She sleeps on her back, spread-eagle, with her arms wide like an angel. Soon, we'll dress and go down to breakfast. There are 3 meals a day here for us; breakfast is a buffet with all kinds of interesting things, some Chinese and some american style. There is a chef with a very tall hat who will make eggs and other things, there are servers who will bring you coffee and high chairs and 'congee' for the babies. It is a sort of rice-porridge, served warm. Things can be added to it for different flavors. Jimmy and I make an effort to try different things all the time. At lunch and dinner, our group of 4 families meets in a dining room and we are served a selection of large plates on a lazy susan that everyone shares. There is usually a nice balance of poultry, beef, veggies, duck, tofu and noodles and a fried rice of some sort. For a few days, there were french fries and we mentioned to our guide Glen that there seemed to be an impression that Americans eat them at every meal. Since then, we have not had any. Yesterday we all went to Wal-Mart. We cause quite a stir wherever we go. Lots of people stare and some even come up and adjust the baby's clothes or blanket. They bundle up the little kids like they are in a blizzard. The little ones wear 'split-pants and some are trained to go to the bathroom when being held over the toilet and signaled by a whistle. Good thing our friend Hugh, who whistles all the time isn't here, things could get messy! Our guide is man named Glenn, he has only ever left China to spend time in Australia so his English is spoken with a combination of a chinese and an aussie accent, very fun to listen to. When we first received the children and got back on the bus(we went to another hotel), Glen offered to sing lullabies in Chinese, it was so nice. The main one that worked is basically "Frere Jacques", so we hum that a lot to calm her still. We are all starving so that's it for now. Hello to all our loved ones and to our kitties!