Day 2

Day Two (January 13, 2010)

Computer issues continue to plague us, but we are working at still getting these out each day. The hotel staff is still looking for a transformer for us so we can plug in our electronic devices. We are here for 10 days total and we are not holding out much hope at this point. The battery on the computer is not dead yet, but we are trying to conserve it. I am using the computers in the business center which is fine for internet access, but not processing our pictures. So, I am not sure when we will have pictures. I am sure it could be figured out, but we are pretty busy with Katie right now so I am not sure how much energy we have to figure it out.

But anyway, we made it through another day. Things are going about as well as we dared hope. I think the biggest "problem" is that she doesn't have jet lag and we are still dealing with that ourselves. She is very energenic and keeps us on our toes. She is definitely warming up to me, but once she gets upset, Dean is the only one that can calm her down. She is definitely a "Daddy's girl". Of course, she still loves to play with Kristine. She calls Kristine "jia, jia" which means "big sister" and just before bed tonight, she pointed to the pillow we sent her a couple of months ago with our picture on it and named each one of us "Baba" (Daddy"), "Mama" (Mommy) and "Jia, jia". She has not called us that directly yet, though. She loves to color, look at Dean's camera, wrestle with Dean and play with her toys. Most of the time she very active, though I got her sit for 1/2 an hour playing with the travel game Kristine got from Aunt Tina and Bob for her birthday. It has little pieces of different shapes that she placed on the game board that had a raised grid (like a piece of graph paper). It was fun to watch her concentrate on fitting the pieces together until she got them all on the board, then put them back in the baggie, then dump them out and start over. My job was to help press the pieces down into the grid. Occasionally she would purposely place one crooked so I had to "help" and she would smile at me while I fixed it. Very sweet.

This morning, our guide (Aggie) took us to a park near the hotel where we watched people exercise in the park (Tai Chi - some were using swords) and rented a paddle boat and cruised up and down the river for an hour. Next she took us to the biggest and most popular shopping center in Guiyang - Walmart. It is across the street from our hotel and completely underground. It is a supercenter, so it included a grocery store. There were New Year decorations, candy, etc. everywhere - just like Christmas in the U.S. (and it is over a month away -- Feb. 14 this year). They call it the "Spring Festival". The store was extemely crowded and if it were not for our guide, I am sure we would still be there. It was a labyrinth. I am sure it is not really that different from our Walmarts if you account for the different language and cultural items for sale, but to me, it was quite overwhelming. We were doing really well until our guide directed us to a snack food that is popular with Chinese babies (3 year olds are still considered babies here). When Katie saw them, she wanted them right then and thus began our first temper tantrum in public! Whew - I am glad that is over. Once Dean got her settled down and I paid for our purchases, it was lunch time, so we went to the KFC in the store. Again, familiar but very different. The chicken is not made with the Kernel' Original spices, but peppers and boy was it spicy. It was a good thing we had a big breakfast in the hotel this morning.

After this, we were dropped off at the hotel and had the afternoon to ourselves. Kristine didn't sleep well last night and she was feeling very overwhelmed. I also didn't sleep well so Dean and Katie (both of which slept fine) out for a walk so we could rest. We didn't sleep, but it helped. We made it through the rest of the evening and Katie was sleeping soundly when I came done. Overall, I figure I am not as tired as I was right after Kristine joined our family 11 years ago and Katie slept through the night and is potty trained. Thankfully, we are all healthy. Hopefully, we will all sleep soundly tonight and be ready for another adventure tomorrow. Tomorrow we are planning a trip to a popular area park that features wild monkeys! :)

There is so much more to say, but this is pretty long already so I will stop. We are learning a lot about China. Dean will probably write tomorrow.

Karen