Day 7 Guiyang, day 2 with Scarlett (Wednesday, 8/10)

Last night was rough. Scarlett initially fell asleep in the crib but woke up like the night before and we brought her into bed with us. She moves around a lot when not in the crib and we all had a hard time sleeping. When we went down to breakfast, she wouldn’t eat and didn’t seem to feel good. When we got her on Monday, she did have a slightly runny nose. We asked Kasumi if we could delay our original meet time by an hour so she could rest. She did fall asleep (so did Nathan), and we ended up meeting at 10:30 to do the sightseeing that was planned for us. Kasumi was very understanding that we needed to do what was best for our daughter. But when we woke her up, she was so happy and ready to go. Phew! I was worried that she was getting super sick. The first place that we went to was the monkey park and Buddhist temple at the top of this small mountain. The van ride up was neat with wonderful views. We stopped by a pretty lake where people were on little boats and took pics. When we got to the top, there were monkeys everywhere! They were so domesticated that they would come up to you and steal your water bottle or snacks, so everything needed to stay in the backpack. We also held onto Scarlett, just in case they got too close. The Buddhist temple was very pretty. It’s a sacred place so we couldn’t take pics inside. We got lots of monkey pics, though! It was getting hot and Scarlett was getting hungry since she didn’t eat breakfast. 

 We headed back down the mountain to head to lunch. When we got to the bottom there was a huge traffic jam. This is very typical in China. Traffic doesn’t flow like in the US. Drivers just cram in and squeeze their way through. It’s quite entertaining to watch. We’ve come so close to other cars on this trip, yet you don’t see many wrecks. Luckily, there are always people selling all kinds of foods on the side of the roads. Kasumi got out and bought us sliced watermelon. We watched the guys slice it up from the window. Scarlett ate so much watermelon. She’s very addicted to it! It’s the cutest thing. So, this helped fill our bellies a bit and pass the time while we waited. Scarlett was so happy and played mimicking games with us, as she likes to do!

For lunch we went to a delicious place where everyone gets their own big bowl of hot broth. You order what you want to put in it (Kasumi took care of this part for us), and we dumped it in. And then you just eat it. Scarlett loved the noodles, meats and veggies. This is stuff that the other kids would never eat! It’s fun to see the variety of foods she eats and how good she is at it. She slurps up those noodles no problem! Kasumi, Constantine, and our driver joined us. They mostly spoke in Chinese the whole time, so have no idea what the conversation was. The driver has a grandson, so he got a kick out of Scarlett. I loved to hear them speak Chinese to her, and her little face would light up because she could understand them. It’s a helpless feeling knowing that your kid can’t understand you and you can’t understand them! The lunch was only $3! Things are so cheap here. We can see why it would make more sense to eat meals out than to cook, and it’s mostly healthy. I love love love the food here. And my stomach feels so much better than it did from eating in the states!

After lunch, we headed back to the hotel. Kasumi had sent a list of questions to the orphanage representative since we didn’t get all of our questions answered by the foster grandma. We found out that foster grandma’s name is Yin Gui Fen. We also found out who some of the people are in the pics that were sent in the thumb drive for Scarlett. I’m glad to be able to tell her who those people are. She also said that to comfort Scarlett, she’s hum or sing songs to her. Very good to know! She said that she’d give Scarlett a bottle of formula right before bed and then lay her down and she’d fall asleep on her own and sleep through the night. I’m sure once we’re home and she’s used to her crib we’ll get there, too! The orphanage rep gave Kasumi her email so that she could pass along pics to the Yin Gui Fen as Scarlett grows up. She asked that we let her know when we are safe in the USA. I think it’s so sweet that she cares for her so much. It makes me feel terrible breaking those 2 apart. I know Scarlett misses her and wonders when the babysitters will be taking her home…

We thought Scarlett would be ready for a nap after lunch, but she perks up after a meal, so we decided to head over to Starbucks and the City Mall. This area is about a 15 minute walk from the hotel, but it’s pretty busy sidewalks. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that the sidewalks here are uneven in places, there are weird things sticking up here and there, and random steps in places you wouldn’t expect there to be steps, so you have to watch where you’re going. Also, some of the sidewalks get slick in the rain and it rains here a lot! I put Scarlett in the baby wearer and strapped her to the front of me. Baby wearing is great for bonding and also to take pressure off of your back and arms. But, we sweat in it. Especially outside on a hot day. Lots of sweat. She fell asleep almost instantly in the carrier. She slept through our time at Starbucks, and through most of the time at the mall. The mall is huge- many levels of mostly western things and stores (we browsed through H&M, for example). We found this awesome kid’s area called Neverland Kids. They had a big room for kids to go down slides, play with big blocks, and play in a ball bit, and much more. We finally got Scarlett to wake up. It was hard to understand how much to pay and what we needed to do, but the people are very patient with us. It’s frustrating to be in a place where you don’t know the language and can’t communicate with people! We like the restaurants that have pictures so we can point if we need to! We played at Neverland kids for about 45 minutes. It was a great place to bond with Scarlett through play.

 We walked around for a few more minutes then headed to get dinner at Pizza Hut. We weren’t expecting this Pizza Hut to be a nice sit down restaurant that was so popular. We had to wait for a table. Oh my goodness. Their food was amazing! I had a pomegranate and raspberry juice and Nathan was in heaven with a Corona. They gave us water, too. Something about China- they believe that warm liquids are better for you and more healing, so it’s hard to get cold drinks here. We also got the Hawaiian pizza and some friend rice with Chicken. Both were so good. The cheese was different- much higher quality! I want to go back tomorrow night, except I’m not a fan of the walk back. The sidewalks are so crowded and people really stare at us everywhere we go! By the time we were heading back, it was later than we’d planned and Scarlett was ready for bed. She was fussy but I remembered what Yin Gui Fen said and I hummed and sang to her to calm her down. She stayed awake, but was content.

We got her up to the room, got the pajamas on and gave her her bottle. We laid her down in the crib and she went right to sleep. Ahhh we are so blessed. This could be such a hard time for her, but she’s doing much better than we dreamed of! I know she must be grieving inwardly and wondering what’s going on. I remind myself that when she gets super upset- she’s coming from a hard place. We need to be loving and patient with her, no matter what.