Exploring Nanchang

Today was a day with no plans so we relaxed, played, and did a little exploring.

Nanchang is a city of about 1.7 million, with about 3 million when the surrounding areas (suburbs, we would call them) are included. It is the capital city of the Jiangxi province, which is largely an agricultural province. As a result, it is not very industrialized, and there is almost no tourism here. This means that very few people outside of the hotel speak English, despite the presence of Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut, McDonalds and KFC.

We walked to a large park a few blocks from our hotel, and some of the images below are from that outing. What is now the park was the site of a large battle at some point in the city's history, but that is about as far as we got in reading the sign before Sydney decided we needed to move on. As I alluded to in a previous post, she is making progress but still does not like to be put down or removed from contact with us. Putting her in the stroller is a guaranteed way to make her cry up until the wheels start moving. The wheels can stop for about 10 seconds before she realizes again that she is not being held and starts to fuss. As shown in the last photo, we were able to let her play on the bed for a while without actually touching either of us, though she did continually look over her shoulder to make sure I was still there.

The morning nap was somewhat interrupted, and it seemed that the only way to get Sydney to go back to sleep was to lie on the bed and let her (twist my arm!) fall asleep on my chest. She squirmed for a bit, and wasn't sure she really wanted to go back to sleep, but she finally gave in and put in a good hour of z's while I studied her face and hands. Absolutely priceless! The reward of seeing her smile or look up and reach for my arms is just an incredible feeling. I'm sure all the daddies out there know what I'm talking about, but it is a pleasure to discover it for myself. Having her look into my eyes and then drift off to sleep more than made up for all of the angst and stress that the adoption process can entail. I can't recommend it highly enough!

We had dinner as a group at a restaurant where they put about 10 widely varying dishes on our table. Most were very good, though several people seemed to burst into flames when eating the one dish that had a little kick. It turns out there were some seeds from the peppers used to cook the dish hidden where unsuspecting folks would eat them. I ran into one and it set a nice glow going, but I actually loved the dish, zing and all.

Tomorrow our group will visit another large park farther from our hotel, and Saturday and Sunday will likely be spent on tours of some kind to the sites that are of interest to tourists. I get the feeling from our agency representative that that is a short list, but we'll see.

Below are a few of the pictures.

First, a new fun outfit, courtesy of Betsy:



Next, a few photos of the park, including some men working out and a group of musicians:






Next, Sydney eating soup noodles, which all the babies seem to love. And yes, she does eat them right off the chopsticks!



Playtime, as long as you're still within reach...