Trying to adjust to this Chinese culture! :)

Abram has been so snuggly in the mornings.

This morning, Jeff was the recipient of many more kisses from Abram (some snotty, some not!). Jeff laughs and says, “he’s a good kisser!”

After breakfast, today (Wednesday), we took a bus over to the Teng Wang Pavilion. As we waited for the bus the locals stared at us and one man came up to our tour guide and started asking questions about us. As he was talking, I was noticing others congregating in our area, listening in on their conversation. Our guide, Tina, translated…”He wants to know where you are from? I told him to guess, but he said that all the foreigners look the same.” We laughed and told Tina that many times we can’t distinguish between Chinese, Japanese or some of the other Asian countries.


As we were at the Pavilion, our camera battery died! Jeff was so disappointed, as this was one place he really wanted to see and take lots of pictures. So instead, we bought a bunch of post cards in the gift shop as a keepsake.


This wasn’t a kid friendly outing for our busy, active guy. With so many people around, we can’t let him run around. After an hour, it was time to call it “quits” and we headed back. The bus wasn’t going to be around for awhile so we walked back to our hotel…a forty minute walk.

Abram wanted nothing to do with the stroller and only wanted Jeff to hold him. Poor Jeff, his arms were so tired! On the way back, we walked along “Suicide Street” or so we have aptly named it after watching traffic and trying to cross it a few times.

(Random picture of Bill Clinton with a Chinese leader at the Teng Wang Pavilion)

This afternoon Jeff went to the supermarket to get more bottled water, snacks & fruit.It was quite the adventure looking for various things and not being able to read most of the packages.

He did manage to find M&Ms, Chips Ahoy cookies (not quite the same as back home, but still decent), kiwi & yogurt. I had no desire to go because I didn’t want to have to cross Suicide Street with a 2 ½ year old, much less by myself. Jeff actually enjoyed looking at all the very, very different foods from what we’re used to and all the workers trying to be helpful but not speaking any English. One thing we’ve noticed is how gracious and helpful everyone is here. It truly is a treat, especially knowing how our culture is. In some ways it’s convicting, thinking of how unhelpful we are to those who might need it. We’re always in a hurry and they don’t seem to be (except when they’re going through an intersection!).


In the evenings we are on our own without our tour guide. Tonight we decided to venture out(instead of room service or the hotel restaurant). Our tour guide had showed us a restaurant that had a good menu with pictures. So tonight we tried it out. We were early and no one else was eating. It was an interesting experience as we tried to communicate what we wanted, what to drink…We had at least 3 waitresses standing around us, trying to help. The waitresses looked like they were in high school and giggled a lot as they tried their best to communicate. Even as we were eating (which we were pleasantly surprised that we enjoyed it) the waitresses stood maybe 3 feet away and watched us.

(Funny comment about the “peace sign” – since I couldn’t count in Chinese, I held up one finger, then 2 then 3 so they’d know when I was going to take the picture. When I held up 2, she misunderstood what I was doing and held up the peace sign. We thought it was really funny!!!:))


Abram struggles with using any eating utensils (even though we brought a child silverware set). As we were eating (tonight) and trying to help him, one of the workers walked up and started feeding Abram…shoveling spoonfuls of rice into his mouth. At first, I felt frustrated with it (and feeling like personal boundaries were invaded), but soon realized she was only trying to help….so we just smiled and would stop her if she was shoveling in too much too soon. After that, there were at least 2 other waitresses who walked up and did the same. Needless to say, personal space is not regarded like it is back in the States (you should see them pack into an elevator!!)

We laughed at our experience and the giggling waitresses….who knows, maybe we’ll go back tomorrow night! Oh one more thing….we had enough food for all 3 of us, plus a fair amount left over, ordered 2 Pepsi’s (yes, Pepsi!) and it cost $7 (US money)!! Can’t beat that! I don’t know exactly what our dish was, but it was good and sometimes ignorance is bliss!

We ended our day with swimming and watching Bob the Builder (in Chinese…which Jeff found at the Supermarket the other day along with Thomas the Train for $2 a piece-US).

(Bundled up after swimming)

Abram continues to warm up more and more giving me several kisses this afternoon and tonight…it melts my heart! Adjusting (him to us and us to him) has gone way better than what I ever expected! Chase, Aubrey, Jeff and I have prayed for months that God would be preparing Abram for the changes that he would face. I have to give God the credit for how things have been going. I realize there will be other issues down the road, especially with Aubrey adjusting to him (I think there will be a jealousy factor there!) and much more change for Abram when we come home, but for now, I step back and I thank God for these days.

(1 more picture of the little guy eating his first poptart!:))
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Love,

Jeff, Chelby & Abram