Day 7

We've reached another major milestone: Zoe's first giggles and smiles. For the past 3 days she has been very serious, giving us the "hairy eyeball" most of the time. Last night I just finished feeding her some dinner and she erupted into fits of laughter that ran on for 20 minutes. Turn your volume way up for this one.





I think that might be the sweetest sound I've ever heard :-)


So, here's the pagoda we went to see yesterday. It's called the Teng Wang Pavillion.


From the upper floors, you can get a view of Nanchang. You may think these pictures were taken on a cloudy day--but that overcast you see hanging over the city is actually smog. The cities in China are extremely polluted and the air is pretty miserable to breath.



The food has been a pretty interesting experience so far. We like Chinese food as much as anyone, but after a week of Chinese for every meal, I've give my right arm for a burger and fries. You might be interested to know that they even serve Chinese food for breakfast here, right along side the bacon and eggs. On Wednesday, we were so desperate for something different, we broke down and ordered a pizza. It wasn't the best pizza I've ever had, but we inhaled it just the same. So far we've avoided any major digestive issues.


Everyone knows I am a serious multi-tasker. Turns out that Zoe is too. She will eat and sleep pretty much anywhere. She drank this bottle while we walked down the street.

When we met her orphanage director on Monday we asked him if there is anything he would like us to tell Zoe when she is older. He said "Please never forget your hometown." We thought that was lovely, so we wanted to make sure we took home some things made in her province. Today we visited some porcelin shops, which is one of the products Nanchang is famous for producing. We bought Miss Z a very beautiful tea set (for when she's older). Yesterday, I met with a dressmaker and she is sewing a custom pajama set for Zoe to wear for the coming Chinese New Year.

Since today was a free day (no official appointments anywhere) we went out to lunch with our group and did some shopping at a local department store. You should see the kind of attention we get on the streets. Crowds literally form around us and little old ladies all come over and touch the babies and give us "thumbs up." We went to lunch at a really cool restaurant near our hotel. Pretty much every restaurant has a giant lazy susan in the middle of each table to make it easier to access the food. Today, I was turning the lazy susan around to get to a chicken dish only to find that the dish had a face. A chicken face. The chicken head was propped up on top of the dish and it was staring at me. (All I could think of is that peking duck scene from "A Christmas Story.")

Promotions for the olympic games are everywhere here and they created these crazy animated characters as the mascots for the games. Here's Zoe and I standing next to one of them at Parkson's department store.

In case you were wondering, Mark is actually here...but he's been behind the camera. All the photos of him and Zoe are stuck in my camera at the moment. I'm hoping to have some time after dinner tonight to do a bulk download. I wish you could see the way he looks at Zoe. It's the dearest thing. All she has to do is look at him the right way and he gets all choked up. She has officially got him wrapped around her finger :-)

Overall, China is really amazing. We're having a terrific time.