Out and About in
Nanchang
Today James (our
fabulous CCAI Rep) had an outing planned for us. We
met in the lobby at 9:30am and we headed out to the
TengWang Pavilion.
Since I am so not a tour
guide, I have provided you a professional overview:
The Tengwang Pavilion,
located on the bank of the Yangtze River, west of
Nanchang City, is one of the three famous pavilions
south of the Yangtze River. The pavilion was built
in AD 653, when Tengwang Li Yuanying (King Teng), a
younger brother of Emperor Taizong of the Tang
Dynasty, was the governor of Nanchang. It was
destroyed and rebuilt as many as 28 times until it
was burned to ashes in 1926. In 1989, the pavilion
was rebuilt again according to the style of
architecture in the Song Dynasty. This nine-storied
structure stands at 57.5 meters in height and
occupies a construction area of 13,000 square meters
with a 12-meter-long base symbolic of ancient city
walls.
Besides the Forbidden
City, THIS was the most enjoyable tour. The
pavilion showed a lot of true traditional Chinese
architecture. It was wonderful to see since all lot
of the Chinese cities have become so dang
Westernized!!! There is literally a KFC on every
corner!!! James took us to a Chinese show within
the Pavilion. They performed traditional Chinese
music and dance. Then to cater to us "Americans",
they played the song "Old Susanna" on their Chinese
instruments!!! Everyone got a good laugh!!! There
were many souvenir stands so since we all have
visited. the Chinese economy is looking GOOD!!!
Actually, we all purchased Authentic Chinese toys
for the kids however it appears that the dads are
getting more use out of them!!!
As always, a group of 8
American families with 9 Chinese babies gets the
crowds going. Everyone LOVES Kiah's cheeks. She is
just now getting comfortable being in larger groups
of people. She sees Brandon as a source of
protection and will cry for him if she feels
threatened in some way.
We then had a
traditional Chinese lunch at a hotel restaurant.
The restaurant was within walking distance of the
Pavilion. We must have been there for almost 2
hours. We had 4 families at our table with 5
babies. I think that they had to call in HazMat
when we left!!! The table was trashed!!! The
babies threw noodles and rice EVERYWHERE!!! The
adults weren't so clean either as some of us don't
know how to use chopsticks and at traditional
Chinese restaurants there is no Western
silverware!!! Kinda wish I hadn't had that camping
silverware confiscated at the airport in Hong
Kong!!! I forgot to put it in checked luggage and
the X-ray scanner picked it up. They accused me of
having a knife and I was adamant that I didn't. How
embarrassing to have the bag searched and find the
miniature silverware stuffed in a pocket!!!
We then headed back to
the hotel for some down time. Kiah took a nap and
Brandon exercised in the room. It is amazing how
you can place different pieces of furniture together
to create a gym!!! I got tired WATCHING him. He is
adamant that he will not gain weight on this trip.
We then decided to take
a walk to the Wal-Mart to get some provisions. We
had a lot more fun this time. I kinda think it is
because we have been here SO LONG now that things
that may have irritated or upset us before are now
just plain funny!!! We stopped at a camera store to
drop some film off for processing. We sent a
disposable camera in Kiah's care package several
months ago. We received it back the day we met with
the Orphanage Director. We hope that the camera is
full of pictures of Kiah with her foster family. We
will see tomorrow when we pick it up.
Wal-Mart was crowded as
usual. This time we just slowly strolled around.
We are the talk of the town!!! Our agency gives us
a laminated card that explains why we are here on 1
side and has our hotel name on the other. just in
case any of us get lost. Essentially the card
reads: "We are here to adopt this beautiful baby
and bring her back to America with us. We will love
her forever." We have begun to show the card to
anyone who stops us. We get a ton of "thumbs up"
signs from everyone.
As we were walking back from Wal-Mart we stopped in
front of the KFC. We quickly discussed whether we
wanted to have another processed chicken dinner OR
go to the lovely buffet in the restaurant. Well, we
had heard good things about the buffet so we decided
we would go. OK. that's not 100% true. The reason
we decided AGAINST KFC was because they did not have
a ramp to roll the stroller down and we didn't want
to carry the stroller down 20 stairs with all of our
bags from Wal-Mart hanging on it as well. 1st
MISTAKE!!!
