This is the third missing post from when our computer was blocked in Beijing
August 17th
Well this morning dawned with our big miss feeling much better. Plus they were serving chicken congee so little miss and myself got to eat some really delicious congee this morning. Yesterday they switched to preserved pork and egg congee. Little miss spit out every piece of egg and pork. In other words, she ate watery rice. Very nutritious for someone who is under weight.
After breakfast we walked as a group over to the Forbidden City. On the way, we passed the building where they actually matched us with our babies. That was pretty cool. I mean, it is really just a plain building to look at from the outside but the inside happenings are what is special.
The Forbidden City was a lot warmer this go round but also a lot more crowded. Elspeth seemed to be fascinated with the buildings. She spent much of the visit pointing here and there making a vocalization which we have come to interprete as “What’s that?”. Katrine was also fascinated. You can tell because she spent the visit taking photos, reading signs and actually looking at things. I know, she wasn’t constantly in motion?? Yep, she looked and learned. I think that Glenn and I enjoyed seeing the Imperial Gardens the most. They were barren in February but now were a wash with green. I think that the most dynamic aspects of the garden were still the rock formations arranged at various spots around the garden.
We headed out after nap time for some shopping therapy. Didn’t buy much though. We did find a few more really cute statues on the side streets. My favourite was of a group of kids playing around with grown-up shoes. If you look closely, you can see that one little fellow is wearing split pants.
This evening our group gathered in the lobby before heading out for tea tasting and the Olympic Village. I was surprised by how interested in the tea tasting Katrine was. She and the other older sister in our group did a great job of watching what the girls were doing as they made each type of tea. Plus, both girls tasted each tea sample. They were however, even more excited to walk around the gift shop after the tasting critiquing which tea sets were the prettiest. As with last time, we ended up buying tea, a new tea set (it has dragons that change colour when hot liquids are poured in) and a peeing boy. We got two boxes of our favourite pu-er type of tea, a nice jasmine tea with a beautiful fragrance, a litchi tea that I can’t wait to try and make into iced tea and then a fruit tea which actually has bits of dried fruit floating in it. I can see that one getting good use for Katrine’s tea parties. Now for the peeing boy. He is really just a little boy made out of clay with a strategically placed hole. When cold water is poured over him – nothing. BUT, if the water is hot enough to make good tea watch out because the boy has a good trajectory. Katrine can attest to that because when the girls demonstrated the boy she got hit in the face.
After we left the tea shop we drove to the Olympic Village. We had driven by it a few times this week during the day and the stadiums are impressive to look at then. Quite grand, doing justice to the fact that they were host to the best athletes in the world for that year. At night though, they are lit up and truly come into their own. The bird’s nest is lit with red and yellow. The lights highlight the crisscross of beams supporting the structure. The water cube however steals the show. During the day the walls look like they are made of silvery pebbles. At night, you can see each blue bubble. The lights really highlight the texture of the walls. Gorgeous. I was also really excited to be able to buy a mug with all of the Fuwas on it. I think that they are among the cutest mascots ever. I use to have a sweatshirt with them all on it, which I adored and in true Heather fashion managed to destroy in a kitchen accident.
We are having a nice time here and finding time each day to work on building our family. We are figuring out how to give Katrine one on one time through both little and larger things. She is getting more use to the fact that she now shares us with another kidlet. Elspeth is accepting me and trusting me more although Glenn is still her centre of security. She is also learning that we do not give in to temper tantrums. Figure that there will be even more of them to come. We are by no means at the end of our learning curve but at least we are moving along as opposed to standing still.