Local Dialect

Have I mentioned that LanZhou is the "none-where's ville" of China yet? Perhaps once or twice right? Well - not only does hardly anyone speak English - they don't exactly speak Chinese either, that is standard Mandarin. They speak something like a Gansu version and nothing sounds quite like you expect it to. The people here are quite friendly and curious and everywhere we go there is a stir. They are of course curious about what the children are doing with the white people - but that is not unusual even in Beijing. I try to converse - and learn some things... getting better at apologizing every day (duoy boo chee) and saying hi and bye and thank you A LOT!

We are having a quiet day - slept a bit late (Don't worry Kristen - I am not mad LOL) and thankfully we did wake up in time to have a bit of breakfast. The kids are getting along better and EBB is just following along behind DH every where he goes. I admit this is exactly what I was hoping for. I am not persona non grata exactly but DH is necessary - I am just along for the ride apparently. He does let me do things for him (feed and dress etc.) but prefers DH for everything else and is sort of fond of EFP at the moment - from a bit of a distance.

She is doing nicely. Her fever is almost completely gone and all the other scary symptoms seem to be disappearing nicely also. Did I mention the night-terror she had when we landed in Beijing? No, well LET ME TELL YOU! She had fallen asleep about 30 - 40 minutes before we started the real prep for landing.. and when I tried to right her in her seat she completely freaked out and started screaming and falling on the floor of the plane. Now, I am not Mrs. Clean but I had issues with that floor (especially since she puked once and the flight attendants now consider assisting passengers with menial task like cleaning up little pukey messes beyond their job description) so I hardly wanted her spending much time down there. Anyway - for a few moments I didn't catch on to what was happening because her eyes were open etc. but she was completely vacant and shrieking etc. It made for quite a bumpy landing but thankfully she woke up completely and all was ok again.

Now that we are here and most of the trip is just waiting to get to GZ - I am really paying more attention to the "real" China and all - it is amazing and sort of beautiful in it's primitive (but heavily polluted and trash laden) state. Driving out into the country is interesting - except for no tall buildings it does not seem all that different from within the city. I should mention too that here in the north they have a SERIOUS disdain for the south. They find the eating habits of GZ (everything with 2 or 4 legs except for the table) disgusting and are not too proud to say so. They seem proud of this region for its antiquity and ancient traditions - this is consdiered the oldest part of civilized China and the Yellow River is like where it all started. I bought a book - but it is in Mandarin (LOL) so it may be some time before I find out anything really interesting to tell you about all this.

I can't still post pix but will try again later...

Right outside our Hotel is a night market - and I wish we could walk through it - Perhaps when the others get back we may try tomorrow night some of the adults - obviously we can't traipse around with the children (and it does get cold here at night in spite of the heat and dust of the day - rather like the desert only not as nice!) so it would have to be some adults only. I wanted very much to try a restaurant that a few other families have used here that looked very pretty in an atrium or greenhouse but since I can not remember the name of it - have no idea where it is located.. I am SOL for the moment. I am not sure if we will have dinner here at hotel or try the crazy 24 hour coffee shop (Maraschino Cherry Pizza) for the amazing rice - but perhaps the hotel has something similar....

Well - I am off to foot massage and European massage - so I will probably be too loopy to write more later - HA HA HA - but I will let you know! If I could just have a giant carmel latte I would be the happiest Mommy anywhere - two sleeping kids and ecstatic DH and massages... whoopee!