What a wonderful, fun day today was! Anya came alive and we saw a little Anya Mei we have not yet seen:) She is just amazing and so special! She was full of laughter and smiles! Nate bounced her around and tickled her tummy and she thought this was very funny:) Anya just laughed and laughed, which made Daddy and Mommy laugh and laugh too!
Late morning, we decided to take a stroll through the park near our hotel. It was filled with people singing, dancing, exercising, swimming in the river, and playing games (board and physical games). Oh, it was such a pleasant sight to see! Age did not matter. The old were playing and dancing with the young and they just mixed beautifully with one another! It was just neat to see people who are complete strangers coming together to participate in one common thing - so different from things in the states where we tend to keep to ourselves. Here in the park, the trees are even laced with ladies purses with no fear of them being taken. It was very neat and I am so thankful that we got to experience it! From what we've heard, the parks are like this every day.
As we walked on, we saw people out swimming in the river. Their outer clothing were hanging on the fence (of course they had on their T-shirts and boxers) and there they were out swimming, some with inner tubes and others with styrafoam ice coolers tied to them to keep them afloat as they swam across the river. Everything is just so different here. Life is slower paced and there is a "different" kind of beauty you see as you look around. Each day I am loving being here more and more. We are having such a great time experiencing the culture and getting to know as much as we can about the province Anya is from. Not all that we see and hear is great (our hearts ache for the people in many ways) but closeness of family, the respect for the elderly, the sites, and history have all been very neat to experience. Anya attracts a lot of attention amongst the Chinese people and she gets lots of little pinches to her cheeks:)
In the afternoon, it began to rain, so after enjoying our lunch at the deli, we headed for the White Swan play room. Anya really enjoyed it there and it was fun for us to meet and visit with other adoptive families.
For supper, we went back to our favorite restaurant again, Tao Ran Xuan. We have had so much fun at this restaurant and it has been fun experimenting a bit with the foods too - though we try to be very conservative on what we select:) Tonight we had a little surprise awaiting us though. We ordered soup with our meal, and after taking a few sips of the soup, they brought out a platter with the things that had been cooked/prepared in our soup. There before me was shriveled up chickens feet! I about gagged! I could not go on. They kept coming to our table and offering to dish me up more and to show us that we could eat the things on the platter (there was also carrots, roast, etc.) but I just smiled and shook my head. I had to take pictures to share with the kids back home. I knew they would really get a kick out of it:) I did have to chuckle about the whole thing!
What a fun day! We are now back in our room, Anya Mei is fast asleep, and Nate and I are snuggling as we watch a movie on t.v. Sigh! This is so nice:)
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