Thursday - City Hall & Eling Park

Waiting in the hotel lobby
At Eling Park - Chongqing in the background, you can see how hazy it is here. Chloe Grace was pressing her cheek against mine really hard!

The view from the tower in the park


Art professor writing ShuNan

Today has been another great day! Chloe Grace is really starting to come out of her shell. She's a silly, independant, fun girl! She is repeating more words after us & babbling in chinese a lot. Sometimes we figure it out, sometimes we don't!

We started our day at City Hall. There's an art museum there. An art professor gave us a demonstration painting chinese calligraphy. It was beautiful! We are having a scroll painted with the charactor for goat, since Chloe Grace was born in the year of the goat. On one side of the character is the name of the artist. On the other side is her chinese name, Shu Nan.

We asked Alison, on of our guides, what Shu Nan means. Shu means comfort & Nan means south. Steve said "Are you kidding me??? Our daughter's name is Southern Comfort???" Too funny!

Chongqing is know for spicy food because of it's Sichuan influence. The girls adopted from here are often called "Spicy Girls". Our girl loves spicy food - she'll have to eat it with daddy!

Michael told us that Chongqing is known for it's 5 H's - hot, hazy, humid, hilly & huge. It is definatly hot and humid here. It's like Houston. We just walk out of the hotel and are dripping sweat by the time we reach the bus! The hills here are comparable to San Fransisco. In Beijing there were people riding bicycles everywhere. Here, you see people walking, but not on bikes like in Beijing - the hills are too steep. The haze is part fog and part pollution.

Tomorrow we leave Chongqing and head for Guangzhou. We'll be there the rest of our trip. We are supposed to meet the rest of our group in the lobby at 3:30. We'll head to dinner before we go to the airport. The flight is an hour and a half long. I've heard that blogger doesn't always work right because of the internet service in Guangzhou. If I have trouble posting from there, that's why.

Jarod, Madison & Jason - Daddy and I miss you all very much! We can't wait to get back home to see you.

Jarod & Madison - Have an amazing time at camp! I know you'll have so much fun! I can't wait to hear all about it when we pick you up.

Madison - I think big sister in chinese is "jie jie", I'll find out for sure & let you know.

Love you all so much!