City Life

We slept so well last night and woke up ready to take a tour of Chengdu. It reminds us a lot of Chicago. Lots of expensive department stores line the streets, and because it is the weekend, there are many people out shopping. Chengdu is a tourist town even for the Chinese, so lots of people have cameras and are taking photos of the sights. Our room is on the 22nd floor looking over the city and we can hear lots of cars honking during the day. It is really cool to look out and see all the activity on the street below. After an amazing breakfast, we met our guide, Susie, in the hotel lobby and took a taxi to the famous Jin Li Street, which translated means embroidery/brocade street. Chengdu is famous for the ancient art of embroidery and Jin Li is a tourist spot where many vendors show the various Chinese arts such as calligraphy, bottle painting, paper-cutting, etc. There many families visiting and they had their adorable kids with them eager to see the artists at work. We saw many babies wearing split pants - so cute! :) Susie has a 3 year old little boy and when I asked her what his name was she said, "Jerry!" I said really - he has an English name? She said yes, she named him that because he was born in the year of the rat and she likes the cartoon Tom & Jerry. Then she smiled and laughed. So funny! She is AMAZING! She gave us the history of many of the sights and she is so eager to help us. When we saw something we wanted to purchase for Mason, she quickly stepped up and began haggling for us. We didn't even ask her to do that, she just wanted us to get an excellent price. Bless her heart! We feel so blessed to have her with us and her English is excellent. She LOVES hot pot, so when we told her we would like to try it for lunch, she was so thrilled to take us. We entered the restaurant and it was like entering a different world. Everyone sitting around a giant cauldron of steaming chilies and hot spices. I knew we were in trouble when I noticed even the locals where teary-eyed and wiping running noses. lol! Fortunately, Susie had mercy on us. lol! And instead of ordering teh hot and spicy hot pot, she ordered the tamed down version. Which by our standards was a 10 on the hottness level! She kept telling us - this not too spicy. ha! We ordered beef, cabbage, mushrooms, rice noodles, and lotus root to eat. The bring it to your table and you put it in the hot pot to cook. In the center of our cauldron was smaller circle where they had something called "fish broth". There was a whole fish in it and that is where most of David's food was cooked because he was a wimp. lol! :) The lotus is China's flower and Susie told me they eat the seeds of the flower, they are very sweet, and in the fall (Sept.-Oct.) they pull the root of the flower up out of the ground (they grow in the water) and harvest the root for eating. She encouraged us to try lotus root for one of the items and it tasted exactly like water chestnuts back home. I wonder if it is the same thing? Or at least from the same family of plants? It was delicious! I was so glad she stayed and ate with us so she could share so much of the traditions with us. Plus, it is always nice to have someone with you who can translate "I need more tea" to wash away the spice. :) After lunch, we walked to the Chengdu Embroidery and Brocade Museum. Beside it was a scenic river known as Jin River. Jin means embroidery. Chengdu was a main capital on the Silk Road back in the ancient times. We were given a wonderful tour of the museum by a young woman who spoke excellent English. We learned about the different patterns and colors of each of the pieces and we were in awe of the marvelous works of art that they have created using hand-embroidery. You can't imagine how much time and effort goes into these pieces! Each one has millions of threads and from afar they literally appear to be oil paintings - so fine and delicate is the work. I tried to take some photos of them, but it just doesn't capture th beaty. She also showed us how they do the brocade pieces on a loom. The loom requires two men to work it and the man sitting at the top controls the pattern of the piece by pulling specific strings - she said it takes him 4 months to memorize the pattern and which strings to pull. The man weaving the shuttlecocks through the threads controls the color of the piece. She asked me to guess how many silk red threads there were...I had no idea! I guessed 2,000 - she smiled and said 10,000! wow! just wow! She said that these two men were taught by their master how to create the piece and the master is the one who designed the pattern. She said many of the masters are around age 70 and can no longer climb up and down the loom, so they must train younger apprentices to do the work. And in all of China only 10 people know how to do this. A very rare art indeed! Some of the embroidery pieces were double-sided having one picture on one side and something entirely different on the other. The artist has to be very careful not to push the thread all the way through the other side - it so detailed and so intricate, I can't imagine how strained their eyes must be at the end of the day. After the tour, we came back to the hotel for a nap, and this evening we are going to see the Sichuan Opera. Susie said it is good that we are doing so much today, since tomorrow will be all about our new son. :) We are going to meet her at 1pm to go to the orphanage. It is about a 1 hour trip to the northwest side of Chengdu. I got out his little backpack to bring some snacks and toys with us. We are praying for a peaceful transition, as much as possible. They are going to send up a crib for him to sleep in tomorrow morning, and we will need to go buy a bottle too because she told us more than likely he will still be drinking from one. Jessa was using a cup at 17 months, so it didn't occur to me that he would be using a bottle still, so didn't bring any with us. I guess we will learn all about him and his schedule tomorrow. Getting a little nervous, but also excited too! Just thinking that this will be the last night he will spend in the orphanage...tomorrow is full of new beginnings for all of us.