Today was spent visiting the White Pagoda Mountain Park. We parked the car and crossed the Zhongshan Bridge, the first permanent bridge over the Yellow River. This river is considered the mother river of China. It passes through all China from east to west, but Lanzhou is the only city on the country it flows through. This and Lanzhou's location in the geographic center of China, are part of the reason Lanzhou is considered the heart of China and the birthplace of the Chinese people. Sophie has some pretty interesting history behind her! The White Pagoda was at the top of the mountain, and it was quite a hike to the top, although easier than climbing the irregular steps of the Great Wall. The views of the city were excellent - the smog was not that bad this morning. We went to a muslim restaurant for lunch--again the food was excellent. We are always the star attraction, American woman with a chinese baby. Steed feels odd, because all the people look down at him, since I am carrying Sophie and he is not. He sometimes feels obligated to help me in order to save his face with his people.
A lot of the restaurants that we have gone to have private rooms. Each room has one or two servers. Our room starts out that way, but quickly gathers more attention, because of Sophie and I.
Sophie has been getting used to me, she sings a chinese song at night and talks to me chinese and laughs when I give her a goofy face. She has been throwing a consistent fit when she is tired, which as gotten shorter, since she knows I won't tolerate it. Still quite frustrating, because I can't communicate with her well, this may add to her dispair. She cried when Steed offered to hold her while I went to the bathroom, I'm sure she thought I was going to leave her behind. I hate that. Most of the time she is very quiet and well behaved in public. She eats like a horse, so no issues there.
She woke up last night screaming, I picked her up and held her and she fell back to sleep. That was a frightening surprise in the middle of the night. Thankfully, I was able to comfort her and she slept peacefully aside from that.
A funny adventure when I tried to communicate with some local people, ever tried to ask for feminine products or panties to someone who doesn't understand? This was one opportunity to play charades that I wasn't going to accept...ha! Needless to say I wasn't successful, so then I had to send Steed in...really funny, poor guy!
Only a few more days in Lanzhou...Leaving to head south to Guangzhou and see my friends and their new little ones on the 9th.
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