Hanging out

The day after our visit to the CWI was sort of a take it easy/get a few things done day.  We took the girls to the pool, which is unheated.  E wanted right in, but it took Baba awhile to warm up to the idea.  "Get IN, Baba!  What you DOING, Baba?  Get in, get in, GET IN!" she yelled while Baba tried to acclimate himself.  Eventually, the two of them were in, doing their pool thing and having a blast.  R wasn't too sure of it, so she'd sit on my lap and dunk her feet in, get up, put her shoes back on.  Shoes off, back on my lap, dunk feet in, get up and put shoes back on.  Repeat.  She seemed happy enough with that, so I went with it.

We had some noodles in the room, and we were delighted to see that R let E feed her some noodles.  Much like with E, we've done a lot of the "feeding each other" game, and that has started to work.  The girls colored and then we headed out for some shopping.  Even our guide is surprised at the stuff we do on our own, but we feel like with the experience we got last trip, we can do pretty well ourselves.  We went to the same pearl store where we got E her beautiful pearls and had them string an equally beautiful pair for R.

Dinner was quite an experience.  We went to a restaurant in Liwan Plaza that had been recommended by both our guides and the pearl store ladies.  Outside, there's a big sign touting how it's a specially approved Guangzhou restaurant for tourists.  We figured this would be an easier meal than most.  Of course we walk in and the petting and snapping photos of E begins.  I can't tell you how many iphones in Guangzhou have pics of E on them now.  The meal was delicious, but to say it was a labor is an understatement.  No one spoke one single word of English, which we normally expect but were surprised to experience at a place "approved" for tourists!  We did a lot of pointing at the food at the next table.  We asked for 4 forks (by drawing a picture on E's Doodle), and when the waitress came back with 2 we indicated we needed 2 more.  She literally threw her hands in the air and rolled her eyes at us.  Tourist friendly, indeed.

We discovered a great coffee place in Liwan plaza adjacent to a McDonalds, so I sipped a mocha while P had a McFlurry.  R was pretty terrified of the McFlurry, but liked it when it got melty.  It was a lot of fun just hanging out like a regular family.

R is still strongly preferring her Baba, calling him by name frequently.  E and I still get the "Rosie Headshake" quite a bit.  I call it the "Rosie Headshake" because it's a very distinctive "no" headshake, at about 10x speed so that her little bowl cut goes flying everywhere.  Bedtime is really hard for R, with a lot of crying.  Part of me wonders if she just doesn't want to go to bed, but when I look at her face, it looks very scared to me.  We feel terrible for her, but we know in time it will get better.

Impossible to get them both looking at the same time.

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Yay!  Letting big sister feed her!

E:  "AAAAAAHHHH!  OPEN!!!!!"

Hanging out at a cafe.  One of E's favorite things at home,
and here, too!

Baba with his girls.

This cracks me up.  She's not actually mad here, just being a punk.
For some reason, sometimes when we take out the camera she makes this face
and then laughs.  Wiseguy!