Thursday, September 25, 2008

Drum Mountain and More!







It is Thursday, September 25, 2008 at 3:30 pm. Charlie (and Pete) are napping. First, I will say I think we now have a different child! Did someone flip a switch last night? He woke up happy and chatting. Everyone told me after a few days they become a new person, but I wouldn’t have believed that 2 days ago. He is funny, animated, silly and giggles a lot!! It melts my heart! OK, he’s still absolutely obsessed with order and neatness, but that has to change, doesn’t it?? He has to wipe his face if he gets a drop on it, pick up each and every grain of rice that falls, line his fork and spoon and bowl up just so, etc, etc. I told Pete at least it entertains us!

Katherine (our #1 guide in Fuzhou) took us to Drum Mountain today. It is about 45 minutes up to the middle of the mountain. Up a twisty, windy, Chinese-driver filled road. Talk about barfy! Thank goodness my upset stomach had settled, otherwise I’d have lost it! The temple is incredibly beautiful! Katherine said it is 1500 years old. There are several buildings filled with gigantic Buddha statues with many people praying and monks walking about. And, the view to Fuzhou from up there is breathtaking!! What a lovely morning!

Then, off to Pete’s favorite thing…SHOPPING! We went to get “chops”. They are carved stone stamps with the kid’s names on them. Shhhh…don’t tell them we got them (it’s a secret). Oh yeah, they read this blog. Oh well. Then to the jade store to do some bargain shopping. As a side note (on Charlie)…he had to go pee pee. I took him to the squatty potties and he freaked out! He doesn’t like dirty bathrooms…he refused to go (I don’t blame him).

Katherine asked us if we wanted KFC, Pizza Hut, etc. for lunch. I think that the guides think we Americans live on that stuff. No, I know she is being considerate to us…she wants us to feel comfortable. But, I’ve made myself a promise not to eat any American fast food while we are here. I think I can do it…only 6 more days! Ah, but if we find a Starbuck’s, I think we’d break down and cry! So, we said “NO! fast food.” She ended up taking us to a tiny, little, local dumpling restaurant. We had loads of food (delicious…are you getting the theme of our trip here…FOOD!) and guess how much it cost? For the 5 of us (us and the driver and Katherine)? Less than 10 dollars!! We are going back for dinner.

That’s it for now…sleeping boys will be up soon. Tomorrow evening we leave for Guangzhou…the last leg of our trip before we go home!!

2 comments:

Karen said...

Drum Mountain looks beautiful! How wonderful that Charlie has opened up more. The three day mark seems to be the magical day.

Karen said...

Me again:-) In case you don't get your e-mails I want to be sure I asked you to get Katherine's contact information. We want to use her as our guide when we travel and our agency will need the information to contact her and set it up.

Thanks