There were two tours planned today. I opted to send Rob to the morning one so I could stay behind with Mary. She has been missing her morning naps and has been getting very crabby because of it. (Her schedule is REALLY messed up) Plus it gave me a chance to work on the travel journals. The outing this morning was to visit a local kindergarten. Rob took over a hundred pictures and video taped the whole thing so I could see it. The children sang for the Americans and then, the Americans had to sing for them! Rob said they taught them Old MacDonald and Itsy Bitsy Spider. I am glad that I stayed back though. Mary only took a 45 minute nap and was REALLY CRABBY! We tried to "walk off" her bad mood in the stroller...wasn't happening. So I let her cry herself back to sleep. THEN we got a good nap out of her. She woke up in a slightly better mood. She has attached herself to me and wants me to hold her all the time. If I am holding her and she has my undivided attention, she is happy and laughing and being silly. If not, its 50% / 50% what kind of mood she will be in. We think she becomes momentarily possessed. :-) Rob is feeling left out and my arms are soooo sore from carrying her!
We had room service for lunch. We were feeling lazy, plus we didn't have much time
before the afternoon tour. Rob ordered a "Hamburger without the fried egg on top" (every sandwich of that type has a fried egg on top...we cannot figure out why). We were able to get some fried rice for Mary and I was dying for some fresh fruit. Rob had to tell the poor Chinese guy on the phone "FRUIT" probably a dozen times. He eventually had to spell it. When lunch arrived, the waiter took the lids off the food, we signed the ticket and he went on his merry way. I turned to look at the food and about fell over laughing. Rob got EXACTLY what he ordered. A HAM-burger! A nice (he said tasty too) burger with all the fixings and a piece of HAM on the top! They took him LITERALLY! Oh it was so funny. It took Rob a minute to figure out what I was laughing at. I told him he needs to be very careful how he words things from now on.
The afternoon tour was to the Embroidery Institute/Factory. Rob tried to dog out of it, but I made him go (and bring the charge card)! It was rather neat. Hunan is known for their embroidery and now we see why. It was amazing. The embroideries that were displayed in their museum were breathtaking. It was hard to believe all of these items were HAND stitched. Then they led us into one of the working rooms to watch the women stitch. I have no idea how they are able to do that. It was astonishing the things they could do with silk thread! One woman showed her work-in-progress to the group. It was a tiger head about 12 inches in diameter. It was double sided, so the same image appeared on both sides of the fabric. The needle was so small, you could hardly see it! She had been working on this embroidery for SIX MONTHS and still was not done. Whew. What patience. Then they led us to the showroom of course. Absolutely beautiful stuff. Some with beautiful price tags too. We didn't buy anything large. We bought Mary a stuffed tiger with an embroidered face and an embroidered fan with a bird on it. Just a little something from her home province. Trust me, we could have spent a fortune in there. And to think, I was still feeling guilty about spending $250 at the jade factory!
Then it was a quiet evening. Daphne had us pre-order dinner, which she delivered to our room for us. It was some WELL needed western food. Pizza Hut!!!! Don't get me wrong, the food here has been amazing, but that pizza tasted awesome! We were only brave enough to order the Cheese Lovers as the other "options" on the menu all included some weird stuff (like tuna and chicken WITH pineapple...pass on those ones!!).
Here are some pictures from today.
Mary playing on the bed (she is an early riser!)
The kids and our travel group at the school
An embroidery that took FOUR years to complete
Mary didn't like the stroller too much!
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