Walmart

Yesterday after nap time we decided to take a walk to Walmart. It's about a 20 minute walk. Zhengzhou has even dirtier air than Beijing. My eyes itched and my throat scratched by the time we got there. It's a three level Walmart, though not very big as far as Walmarts go. We needed some baby food, baby wash, saline, and fruit. It appears that Anna does not know yet how to feed herself and expects me to do it. She can eat crackers by herself. Baby food must not be popular in China as there were only a few jars on the shelves. We could not find any saline. There was a lot of fruit I have heard about and wanted to try, but without knives or a kitchen and the hotel room being small, I had to pass them up. Bummer. I did have jackfruit at the hotel breakfast buffet yesterday. It was kinda boring. The fish section at Walmart was the most interesting. There were sea snakes on ice and a lot of other things that I had no idea what they were. I would have loved to take some pictures, but thought that might be a bit rude.

We bought a stroller the day before and decided she would sit it in for the walk to Walmart. She is not a light weight and I knew I couldn't carry her all the way there. I would say she weighs close to what Mia weighs. She threw a hissy fit when I put her in the stroller, but then became very calm and never let out a peep the whole trip. She even ate her dinner in it back at the hotel. Needless to say, she was not a happy camper when I took her out!




When we got an updated report from her home on the first day of the trip it said she had to be held to fall asleep. I thought, uh oh, that will never work. Mia fights sleep like crazy and has never fallen asleep in my arms. I was surprised when Anna fell asleep the first time in about 30 seconds. Last night, it was again less than a minute. So maybe this will work! It might be the best thing if they are sharing a room if one of them is already asleep before they even go in there.

Mia has been having fun with Aunt Dar Dar. Dar "forgot" to take her to swimming lessons. That's why all my kids like her so much. She only remembers to do fun stuff!! We are just emailing right now, but hopefully we can Skype as it gets closer to the time to return home.

Today is just a rest day for us. Most of the families are going to their child's orphanages to do the passport applications (a new law in Henan province), but Pingdinghan did them before the law went into effect so we don't have to go. I'm fine with that as she was only there for one month, a long time ago. We thought about taking a day trip to an orphanage where we sponsor a little boy, but after hearing about the road conditions of a family that went out yesterday, we feel safer staying put. Tomorrow we will go on a temple tour. We have to stay in Zhengzhou for a whole week because of the new passport law.

Dan and I have had a hard time adjusting to the time change here. In Europe it only took about a day. But the extra 3 hours in time difference has really made it hard. We struggle struggle struggle to stay awake until 9:00. The first morning we were wide awake at 2:00 AM. We are now making it to about 4:30 AM. Which is why I have time to write this post!

Our hotel is a five star hotel. We are finding out what exactly that means in China. The carpets are very old and dirty. The air conditioning (that's a loose term) is shut off from 9:00PM to 9:00 AM. We did get a fan yesterday and that made a huge difference. You have to boil your water or use bottled water to brush your teeth. On the upside, the beds are really comfortable and the sheets are nice. The breakfast buffet is awesome with Western and Asian foods. The service is good and quick. There are a few English speaking television stations. We are spoiled as Americans, definitely.