August 22, 2005

Today was another relatively easy day. We had to deal with Hannah's unsettled night and Abigail's fever which both caused some sleep loss, so we slept later than we intended. Jophy went to arrange all of the paperwork for our Consulate visit tomorrow afternoon, so one of us had to be in the room from 9:00 to 10:00 this morning in case there were some questions about the paperwork we filled out, so I had to rush through breakfast in order to get back to the room on time. The phone never rang, though, so we must not have had any problems. We go to the U.S. Consulate tomorrow afternoon for our swearing in ceremony, then we can begin making plans for the trip home. Victoria and Hannah went to meet with Jophy at 10:45 to go to the pearl and jade markets and to have lunch at Pizza Hut. Yes, more capitalism at it's best. Pizza Hut and McDonalds are well represented here in this city, and I understand that there's a Walmart as well. Chairman Mao must be turning in his grave.

Abigail and I did some shopping for necessities while they were gone. We stopped at the supermarket and got diapers and formula for Hannah and some sodas for the room. It's always interesting to see the unusual varieties of drinks they have that we don't have and the differences in packaging. I don't think we'll be seeing things like "Sprite on Fire" (tastes like spicy ginger ale) or some of the Fanta fruit flavors they sell here, nor can I imagine that some of the half-dressed characters displayed on the Coke cans would make it in the U.S. We're not in Kansas anymore. We also stopped at Jennifer's Place to look at some items for Victoria. Abigail picked out three pieces of jade to make a necklace for her mother. Each of the pieces represented Victoria (rooster), Abigail (dragon) and Hannah (ram), based on the Chinese zodiac. We hope that Abigail can get with our friend Bella to work on the design of the necklace. We had to ask the store to set the jade aside until Vicoria got back since she had the bulk of the shopping money, but we planned on picking it up later in the day.

We thought we were going to go back to the room, but found that it was being cleaned when we got there. We dropped off our bags of stuff and headed back downstairs to give them a chance to finish and Abigail wanted to go back to the Swan Room to play. I was surprised to see that no one was in there, so Abigail and I had the room to ourselves. She went and got a ball and we spent some time bouncing it back and forth to each other. Just as we were about to head out I noticed some packages that someone had left behind. I've seen the same type of boxes before, but I'm unsure whether they contain artwork, parasols or something else. Whatever they were, we brought them to the front desk in hopes that the owners would come ask for them. The rest of the afternoon was spent back in the hotel room playing games and watching Charlottes Web again since Abaigail wasn't in the mood to do any more walking around. I was happy to give Abigail some time just for her since pretty much everything has revolved around Hannah for the last week or so.

We had just gone downstairs to kill some time looking at the coi pond in the hotel when we saw Susan and J.T. Willingham walking through the lobby. They let us know that Victoria had just headed up to our room and that we had probably missed them in a different elevator. We headed back upstairs to find Victoria working on getting Hannah's diaper changed and down for a nap. We welcomed them back, helped to get a bottle readied, then I took Abigail back to the coi pond while Hannah got settled down. I wasn't surprised to have a couple of people ask if they could get Abigail's picture while we were around the pond. People still comment about how pretty she is and she enjoys the attention for a while. People really look at blonde hair as a curiosity here. We returned to the room to find Hannah asleep, so we spent a couple of hours quietly talking and resting. Victoria showed us the things that she purchased at the markets and then gave Abigail a six-color pen to draw pictures with. No more switching pens when she's drawing!

Since we saw it was getting late we decided we'd better head out to dinner and also to get a few more souvenirs before we go. We went to Michael's where we purchased a custom made chop with Hannah's Chinese name engraved on it and a watercolor scroll. Then we went to check on the pictures we had made with Abigail and Hannah's names on them. Unfortunately, since it was raining most of the day the pictures weren't dry enough to be picked up, ad it also seemed that they had gotten Hannah's zodiac sign mixed up because they thought she was a horse instead of a ram. They said it would be remade and both could be picked up tomorrow. The next stop was a Jennifer's Place to pick up the jade pieces that Abigail had picked out for her mother's necklace. While there Victoria got another toy for Hannah to keep her occupied since we don't have many toys for her while we've been here. Once we get home that won't be a problem.

The last stop was to eat some dinner at the coffee shop before going back to the room. After dinner both girls got another bath and then it was play time for a while. Since I give the baths, victoria was able to enjoy some time away from Hannah for a short while. After the bath, Hannah and I played on the bed and Abigail created another picture with her new pen. After about a half-hour or so, we decided to see if Hannah would let me give her a bottle for a change. Success! I'm not sure if she's trusting me more or if she was just enjoying me enough as a playmate to allow mw to do it, but she let me feed her the bottle. We all hope this is a sign of trust that will continue.

Not much news after that. Hannah didn't want to go to sleep and made a fuss, but eventually gave in. The rest of the night passed in peace. We REALLY like nights like that.