Seeing the real China....and finally crying

Our guide took us on foot today to a department store. Think Macy's Chinese style. Yes our Macy's has exactly one up and one down escalator. We had to go to the 5th floor of this store to get to the girl's shoe department. Found some decent pink tennies at a decent price, but not as cute or as inexpensive as Target. The ones I brought were at least 2 sizes to big. (A theme evidently as the same thing happened with Katie. How can you be that off measuring the length of a little foot?) And the ones she was wearing....just needed to be replaced!

Mary, our guide 

 by photographer Jake

We walked probably a mile to the store and then on to a nice park with a river running through it. Took Sophie on her first carousel ride which she liked.

For you, Jennifer!

Some musicians/singers in the park. It was the strangest thing. In the background almost 100 people were gathered around one group and this one hardly any! I couldn't tell a bid difference in talent!?

This isn't a close enough up picture, but this guy in the red coat and yellow shoes was doin' his thing! He was shufflin', Josh! :)

 We walked past some nice stores, some that looked similar to rural Guatemala/Mexico and Mary even took us down some alleys between high rise apartment buildings. We saw clothes drying outside, food being cooked outside, parked scooters, ridden scooters, scooters in the underground pedestrian crosswalk, grease puddles, high heels, low heels, boots, lots of smoking, and at least 20 cell phone stores with people outside the stores selling second hand cell phones. I also saw LOTS of people staring at us!

That's just one sense! I smelled exhaust (LOTS of it) and some cooking smells that weren't too bad and some that weren't too good.. I am SO thankful for my country, my city, my state, my house, my neighborhood, my yard? I heard honking (LOTS of it!) and sometimes people talking really loudly or yelling at someone. Even with it as busy as it was I really didn't bump into anyone. I did bump the camera I was carrying into a side mirror of a car walking the the alley though! We probably walked 3 miles total and while Jake complained verbally, Sophie complained physically (stop and drop). I couldn't blame her. Our guide kept telling us she was big enough to walk the whole way, but I felt badly for her and Shawn carried her a bit and so did I.

Sophie  had a great time coloring with markers today and did a great job. It was a "marker by number" paper and she even got the idea of coloring an area with the right number. She found the little tiny dollhouse toy I brought with and between those 2 things she played for almost an hour! While she was coloring Daddy was on google translator trying to find out how to say works in Mandarin. We finally got her to "teach" us some words and she repeated some English words. It felt like a "communication" break though!  I wrote the alphabet for her to try to copy and she copied every letter very well! I showed her how to spell her name and she copied that as well! Then she got a new piece of paper and without looking at the first one wrote: SOHI before switching to writing numbers! I was floored! She also played UNO and was really beginning to understand how to match not only the colors, but the numbers and take turns. YAY!

Balloon volleyball/soccer continues to be a big hit and we do it in the tiny "lounge" at one corner of our hotel floor, along with her Ninja moves, gymnastics and dance! She is a hoot!

We finally had our first sign of grieving tonight. Right before bed she was getting naughty (she seems to do this when she is tired) and was throwing things. And she kicked Mommy and Daddy said, "no hurts" and put her on his lap, she lost it and started crying hard. Poor baby. I'm glad to see it finally come though. She's been holding it all together for more than 48 hours. I'm sure if put in the same situation I would have broken down many times already. Mommy tried to pick her up and hold her, but she flailed so I put her in bed and  sat beside her and rubbed her back and hair until she fell into a quick and deep sleep about 10-15 minutes later. It will be interesting to see how she reacts tomorrow morning.

Sorry if there are typos, not proofreading, but going to sleep. Did I mention how thankful I am for home, my country, my state, city, soft bed....