Before we meet with our guide, we take advantage of the complimentary breakfast. Past few days, the dining room served the same food. But this morning, they had two new items: egg roll and hot cakes. They probably had hot cakes in previous days but I guess I didn’t care for it then or hadn’t noticed it because I was too busy stuffing myself with their other breakfast items.
After breakfast, we went back to the room until it was time to meet with our guide. In the room, Nelson decided to call Neftali who is taking care of our cat Smeagol at home. Hey Neftali, if you are reading this, can you also clean our bathrooms? 🙂 Back in Nelson’s office, Ling is taking care of his fishes. Wow, Nelson got people working for him. Don’t worry guys, Nelson will take you guys out to a nice lunch when he gets back. 🙂
My husband and I actually skipped dinner the past few nights because we are working with Nathan’s schedule. After we feed him his dinner, he normally plays a little then lays down in his crib or on the extra blankets we placed on the stained carpet. Once he lays down, he gets himself situated by rolling over to his right then back to his left then roll to his right side again. He would do this rolling maneuver until he falls asleep. So once he sleeps, we don’t want to wake up him. Even though my husband and I skip dinner, we haven’t been too hungry at all. Probably because we have been busy with Nathan that we didn’t feel too hungry at night. Also, once Nathan sleeps after dinner, my husband and I actually go to sleep too. We sleep whenever he takes a nap. So far, Nathan takes a nap around 11am then after 2pm. But since we went on a sightseeing this morning with our guide until past 12pm, he skipped his nap and got cranky after we got dropped off back to our hotel.
I mentioned stained carpet in our hotel room because our room 1620, 1720 and other rooms on the 16th and 17th floors are only reserved for families adopting a child in Wuhan City because these rooms are bigger than other rooms in the hotel. So I guess this explains the stained carpet. The stain looks like old juice spills or something worst like baby poop! Previous families who stayed in the room have definitely left their mark. Now we will leave our own mark in the room. I forgot to clean the muddy wheels on Nathan’s stroller. When we walked into the room, I didn’t noticed that I created mud tracks on the carpet! 🙂
Luckily, our housekeeper hadn’t cleaned our room yet after we returned from our sightseeing. So we went downstairs to get a late lunch and ate our lunch in the hotel lounge while our room was being cleaned. At the lounge, there is a nearby bar. My husband decided to try the long island ice tea. When he was ready to order, this young woman wearing a santa clause outfit asked for his order. Since she couldn’t understand English, this woman asked her other friend who spoke little English. After her friend got the order, my husband noticed that the person at the bar was looking at the ingredients for the long island ice tea! I guess not too many people order this drink. So it took about 10mins to make his drink. When he got the drink, I asked Nelson if he ordered coke because the drink looked more like coke to me than a long island ice tea. When he tried it, he did taste the alcohol but didn’t really taste like the long island ice tea he orders back home.
For our sightseeing, we first visited Hubei Provincial Museum. The big highlight of the museum was the Tomb of the Marquis Yi which dates back more than 2000 years ago. Our guide told us that when this guy Yi died at age 42 or 43, his concubines and pets had to die as well by hanging or poisoning! The youngest concubine was only 13 years old! The oldest was 26 yrs old. The museum had 4 floors I think. We didn’t go to every floor. Our son sat in his stroller most of the time. But he wasn’t quiet. He mumbled very loud. You can hear his echo throughout the museum! He was the loudest person in there. We try to keep him quiet without success.
When we were walking around the museum, people were watching us. Everyone in the museum spoke Chinese (Mandarin) but our guide talked to us in English. I don’t know if their staring problem was because we were talking in English or they were curious about our son. There was one old woman who just looked dead straight at my son without saying anything. I thought that was rude. So I turned his stroller the other way and walked away from her. This wasn’t the first time people looked at my son. While I was watching Nelson take pictures of our hotel room yesterday after having lunch, this guy on the phone just grab the stroller and turned it to look at my son! Plus he had a cigarette in his mouth. Don’t people know how to say ‘excuse me may I look at your son?’
Our guide told us that she overheard old grannies talk about our son. These grannies also had their grandchildren with them. The grannies says something like ‘is that boy (referring to our son) cold’? In Wuhan City, all the little babies are in multi-layers of clothing. They look like a big balloon that will float away or something. For us, we feel our son is wearing enough. He has a long sleeve shirt, sweat pants with socks, shoes, jacket and a hat. For me and Nelson, we just wear our shirt without a jacket because we weren’t cold at all. Matter of fact, we always feel warm. I sweat wearing my thin jacket.
Also, Nelson and I noticed that these infants wearing a balloon outfit have this slit opening between their pants. Their private part and butts are exposed! Our guide said that instead of diapers, most kids will wear these open slit pants and use the bathroom this way. I asked our guide, where do they use the bathroom? She said just anywhere! So these grannies think that my son is cold? I am sure their grandkids exposed tiny butt is freezing! Our guide told me that when she was young, she wore this outfit too.
After the museum, we went to the East Lake. I liked this tour more than the museum. It is a big lake where people can rent a bike, boat, have a picnic or simply just lounge around. Also this area is very big for wedding pictures. We saw a shuttle bus that drove about 8 couples dressed in wedding outfits. Our guide said that the couples take pictures 3 months before their wedding so they can have time to prepare their new home and wedding plans. In the park, we took a short cut through some muddy area. So this was how the stroller got muddy wheels after our tour. Our guide has been very nice to us and very helpful overall. She studied English in the University.
Hubei Provincial Museum
East Lake
Nathan admiring a dandelion (I think that is what it’s called)
Nathan was actually quiet the whole time sitting on his stroller. I guess he just enjoyed the view. The spot on his forehead is his birth mark. Depending on the lighting, at times his birth mark is very faint and at times his birth mark is obvious. He has two small birth marks on his back. According to our adoption agency, these birth marks are common for children born in China. 
How can the grannies say that my son is cold? He is covered from top to bottom! Should I make him wear a sleeping bag? 🙂
