April 2nd - Jade Budda Temple, Silk Factory, Huangpu Tour

Hi folks,

Just wanted to say thanks for the emails and notes of encouragement. I'm glad you all are enjoying the webblog – I am enjoying all your comments!

I think we’ve turned the corner in the jetlag recovery today. Naomi slept from 6pm last night until 2am, then went back to sleep from 5am to 9am this morning (with a little help from Benadryl). At 2am, she crawled into bed with me and I finally convinced her to try some shrimp. Had to "wash" the sauce off before she would try one, but after two of them she gave into her hunger and probably ate about 20 “unwashed”, followed by watermelon and carrots. I was jumping for joy this morning as she devoured an egg, two pieces of banana bread, some cheese and fruit. The good eater Naomi is slowly coming back! Her appetite also reflected her activity level today as she was in supreme spirits in meeting the rest of our travelmates this morning. Once again, Mike and Lily are her favorites. I’m not sure what Naomi will think when Mike has his own baby to dote on.

This morning as I have time to stop worrying as much about peanut #1, I'm having more thoughts about peanut #2. The real purpose of our trip is getting more exciting and real now that Naomi's doing better. I'm feeling very emotional this morning as Lilah wakes only twice more in familiar surroundings. I had my first thought this morning about how strange it feels to be thinking of her eating breakfast at the same time we do.

Again today, the weather was stellar. Sunny and warm - a welcome break from cold ole man winter! Today we did a lot of touring and in hindsight it was probably too much. First we visited a Jade Budda Temple and did some tea tasting. Very interesting architecture, history and SHOPPING! I know that I said I have no room in my suitcases for buying treasures in Shanghai, but that all flew out the window when I saw the prices. I bought several items for the girls’ birthday’s and also a few trinkets for ourselves. Now . . . how to make more room . . .I think that bottle of Bailey’s will need to get finished before we even get to Changsha. Ah the sacrifices we must make in the name of a bargain.

Speaking of bargains, the sport of watch-buying is getting pretty funny amoungst our group members. Each of us is trying to see who can pay the lowest price for one watch. So far I have the record for 10 Yuan (about $1.25) for a brand new RQLEX! It was actually cheaper than the one that I bought this afternoon for 15 Yuan and an even bigger bonus is that it actually works (the first one doesn’t).

After the temple, we visited a Silk Factory. It was not as big as the one we saw in 2003, but the idea is the same. The prices seemed more reasonable and a few people did some shopping there. I only bought one item, for Jasmine actually.

We probably should have headed back to the hotel after the Silk Factory, but thought we would at least head to lunch with the rest of our group. Turned out that it ended up being a bit too late for our wee gal and the ride home was a bit noisy for the rest of our group who were admiring her crocodile tears. Ironically, we got back to the hotel and she wouldn’t take a nap.

This evening we were all to take a boat cruise down the Huangpu River, but since Naomi didn’t nap today we decided that Joel would stay back with her while Papa and I did the cruise. Naomi ended up falling asleep about 15 minutes after we left, as did Joel. Hopefully they will have a good night tonight as tomorrow is our last day in Shanghai. The boat cruise was very pretty and the lights on the Bund much more picturesque than in the photos below.

Tomorrow we are heading to the YuYuan gardens and then to a Water Village to tour around. We have a free afternoon as most of us have to pack for Changsha and have our luggage ready to go for 5am on Monday morning. Sounds like Monday at 3:30 pm is when we’ll actually get to meet our babies for the first time. YAHOO! Two sleeps to go!

I mentioned the cost of swimming at this hotel in a previous posting and got a few comments that people thought it was a typo. Nope, not a typo it really did cost $30 CAD for that dip!

Cheers, Karen