Life With Emilia: Last 2 days in Nanchang

December 21st (Thursday) - Today was a shopping/tourist day.

The day started off by what I am now referring to as the "Mater Photo Session". These are some of my favorite pictures of baby girl.

I put Emily down to do something - and you can tell by the pool of tears in the eyes that she was not happy with my decision.

Kleenex shredding to the rescue

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We went down to the hotel restaurant and were able to join our new friends and hotel neighbors for breakfast.

Princess Lili

Princess Lili and Daddy David

Princess Aly and Mommy Shelley. We enjoyed spending time with this couple, their children, and their travel mate Babs so much. They are a fun bunch. :)

Visiting with Santa in the lobby of the hotel. Emily looks like she's thinking, "Who the heck is this dude?!" LOL

Daddy's turn to pose with the jolly guy

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We headed out for the day with Bruce (our guide) and Mr. Wong (our driver) to again experience Nanchang traffic. I can't remember if I mentioned this in my previous post - but I have never in my life experienced anything like Nanchang traffic.

As an example - notice the sign above? It clearly states that there is an area for cars and an area for bikes......do you see what side of the median we're on?!?!?!? YES---THE BIKE SIDE!!! ROFL

I imagine you’ve all heard the expression “Bull in a China shop”?….well, on this trip I turned into the Bull in China!!! In general, I am not a very clumsy person - and I don’t know if it was all the flying/travel or what, but I had a couple of bloopers on our trip. One of those bloopers occurred at the orphanage yesterday, I almost fell out of my chair (which was really embarrassing because everybody came running towards me like they were going to catch me - LOL) and another happened today while we were out shopping.

Bruce (our guide - who was an absolute riot and is now referred to as Uncle Bruce to Emilia - hee hee) took us shopping for the day, and took us to a porcelain store (Jiangxi Province is known for their porcelain) and when we had checked out (at least I thought we were done) I went outside to get a picture of the store front. I didn’t know John and Bruce had gone back into the store, and I was outside taking pictures. I wasn’t getting the whole picture like I wanted, so I backed up….backed up again….and all of a sudden there’s a crash!!!. I knocked over someone’s bicycle!!!! I looked around helplessly because I had Emilia in the pouch on the front of me and I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to get the bike back to the standing position - and before I knew it Bruce came flying out of the store. I kept apologizing and was so glad the owner didn’t come out and slam me. It’s probably this persons only means of transportation - and I knocked it to the ground!!!! LOL I was really thanking GOD that it was only 1 bike and not the line of 20-30 that I saw lined up elsewhere. :)

Me, Emilia, and "The Bike"

Well don't you just know I had to get a picture of the bus with David Beckham on it!!!

We went shopping at the Pedestrian Mall

Anorexic Santa hanging out at the shopping center. I don't know what happened to Santa's waist - but it wasn't there. LOL

Wishing well

Split pants. The part that got me is the clothing police would constantly tell us Emilia wasn't dressed warm enough in the arctic suit she wore (the poor child was always sweating) and they'll let their kids walk around with their privates totally exposed. I just don't get it.

We saw a lot of Chinese people wearing puffy clothes, and when I saw this store it made me laugh. It's the puffy coat store.

After leaving the Pedestrian Mall, we went to this huge department store

Here is a wonderful picture of Nanchang traffic. LOL

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Back from shopping and in for the night.

I love this picture

Eating prunes trying to get poopy :)

AAAAAAHHHHHH!!! This was the best. We had been told the we wouldn't have any ice while in China, but our little fridge at the hotel had a freezer - and we made some ice. It was glorious. :)

The view from our hotel room. This is some sort of nightclub. At night the neon comes on and it is quite pretty.

The little white structure is the entrance to the nightclub, and in the background is Nanchang

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December 22nd (Friday) - FINAL DAY IN NANCHANG - Bruce and Mr. Wong took us out again in the morning to pick up Emily's passport, to do a bit more siteseeing, and Bruce wanted to take us to lunch before we had to leave for the airport for our trip to Guangzhou.

This is a very common site in Nanchang. Laundry hung out to dry? Check. Meat hung out next to laundry? Check. LOL Yummy huh?!?!?!?

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Bruce took us to this beautiful park, and we truly got to experience daily Chinese culture. It was really neat, and I'm thankful we got the opportunity. We got to interact with quite a lot of people, and we truly enjoyed ourselves.

Older folks getting their daily exercise

Playing music in the park

In the middle of the park was a reptile exhibit. We went through it - and all I could think was these things will probably be on someone's plate before long. LOL

The park was truly beautiful

Bruce took us to a restaurant he frequents quite a bit (he lives nearby), and he had his wife meet us for lunch. She was very sweet. Lunch was very good.

The lunch group