A Day in Zhengzhou

 We managed to get downstairs for another amazing breakfast.... this time with an Instagram Live with Lottie eating.  We met Celine at 9:30 in the lobby after a quick time in the playroom and proceeded to the Provincial Museum and park.  (Lottie is an AWESOME eater..... watermelon, congee, croissant, cantelope.... she will try most anything.  If it doesn't suit her, she'll spit it out in her hand and throw it at you.  Scared me to death the first time she did that..... now I can see it coming before she actually hurls the food at me.)

The museum had a lot to reveal about the dynasties from over the last thousand years.  We found out they liked to be buried with their stuff - or replicas of it.  This gives a whole new meaning to "you can't take it with you."  Looks like they were trying!  With the many pieces of pottery and vases, all I could think about was 2 Corinthians 4:7... "we have these treasures in jars of clay"  These thousand year old pots had been broken many times and been put back together and preserved.  Mary was not very impressed.  We were the object of a lot of stares.  One young girl even asked our guide if we would allow her to be photographed with us.  We happily obliged.  Many others had been sneaking pictures and videos already.  (Yes, WE were totally the display at the museum.  Some are quiet with the stares and pictures.... others are bold. We try to keep our sense of humor about the whole thing or it can get old pretty quick.) The history really is neat and important, considering how much the Chinese focus on ancestor worship.  There was one exhibit focused on a famous Buddhist Monkey King personality.  (Apparently this is a famous children's story character.)

 We then ventured over to a very nice inner-city park. The park was pretty with a lot of beautiful plantings, huge lily pads in the lake, koi in the ponds....and we even stopped to smell some roses and see pomegranates growing.  Mikki carried Lottie in the little front papoose strap thing all morning and it worked great. (Lottie loved that thing. It's got her right up under Mama's wing.... she still won't let me put her down!  That carrier's gonna be a life saver for sure!) She also carried an umbrella to keep the sun off Lottie.  (Little girl's skin condition requires her to stay out of the sun.  She can overheat pretty quickly and her skin turns BRIGHT RED...almost blistery looking. But once we got back in the car and got the air on her, it went right back to normal!  The umbrella did help, though.... got that idea from all the Chinese women walking around with their umbrellas!) Mary did so well that we rewarded her with two theme park rides - the carousel with Dad and flying bees with Celine.  She is so sweet with Mary - they walk together and talk and hold hands.  Mary also got two cheap toys - loud phone type things.... Dad was in trouble for not choosing the Dr. Seuss book collection in Chinese.  (The ONE time there was a little shack to shop in, I'm stuck in the car with the little human.  Mary and Dad ran over there to get Mary a little treat.... when he told me that there was a complete set of Dr. Seuss books in Chinese, but he didn't get them because he didn't want to weigh the luggage down, I bout lost it!  Dude!  You should have never told me that. WHY oh WHY would you not get the Chinese Dr. Seuss collection?  I could have carried them onto the plane myself!  I'll never get over that.....)The rest of the day we were off, so we had nice naps and later ventured out to the Carrefour.

Carrefour is a very cool store.  You can find ANYTHING..... and it's CHEAP.  We stocked up on the famous banana little debbies (for emergencies), tiny little crackers, Coke Zero, and bottled water. We walked miles looking for just the right spot to eat for dinner, only to end back up at the Pizza Hut which has awesome fruit, fried rice, and, of course, pizza.  (Joe totally did not want to take these pictures in the Carrefour.  Said he didn't want to look like some ridiculous American tourist.  UH.  I think the gig's up on that one...... I begged him to take pictures of the whole DUCK WITH THE HEAD AND FEET ON that you could buy in the meat section, but he wouldn't do it.  Course, it didn't help that the whole store was staring at us.  I'm over that now, though.  I AM a ridiculous American tourist.  Own it. Take the picture of the weird Oreo flavors!)

 

A few more minutes in the playroom and then we were off to bed!  Lottie slept almost TWELVE hours.... and when she wakes up, she doesn't cry..... she just stares at you from her bed until you invite her to get up..... precious thing.