Terra Cotta Warrior Day

Today we went to visit the Terra Cotta Warriors. I would love to say it was the most exciting thing ever, but we've been bombarded with replica warriors and photos of them since we arrived -- I realized the enormity of it, but I was somewhat distracted. Sally is incredibly knowledgeable about the history and lots of pertinent information regarding the surrounding area. She is from Northeast China originally and she told us the funniest/saddest story about her first year in university here in Shaanxi. She said she could not afford to fly home for Chinese New Year so she bought a train ticket with her friend, but they told them there were no seats or sleep cars available so they would have to sit on the floor the whole 26 hours to her town. She said by the time they got on the train it was literally jam packed with people and they barely found a place to stand. She said she tried to give right leg a rest for a while and then give left leg a rest by standing like a stork, switching back and forth. One time she closed her eyes and she lost her spot for the other leg and almost fell over, etc. She was laughing so hard telling this story (which sounded like absolute torture to me!) She's adorable. She loves to tell us Harkness stories too!

Yesterday we went to this restaurant for lunch with Sally and a whole group of the waitresses gathered around our table to watch Frannie (and us) eat. The teeniest bit distracting, but they were very nice. I wanted to cry when one of the waitresses picked up Frannie (yes, we had not even had her for 24 hours at this point, but...) and when I tried to get her back, she latched on to this woman and turned away from me. The ladies kinda giggled and although I knew it wasn't Frannie's fault, it made me sad for just a minute. She's better with us today, stretching her arms up to be picked up. This picture is a tummy tickling photo.

Frannie is eating like a moose today, thanks be to God. We're trying not to give her too much Western food yet so she's been eating rice cereal, rice, noodles, formula, fruit and some crackers. She sits and does this little hand motion thing like she's doing interpretive dance (ha ha Karoline), bringing her hands together and rotating her wrists around in front of her face like ... Chinese dance, I guess!

I just had the weirdest massage in my life -- it felt great, but the tiny lady actually climbed on my back and kneeled on my lower back and butt while massaging my back and shoulders. Sixty minutes for about $25! Tomorrow we are shopping and Thursday is the orphanage visit. I'll blog asap after the orphanage. In case any Yahoo Group people are reading this, we were told we could see the Hope Haven kids AND the Chinese side too! I've got everyone's name written down to ask for. I'll take as many pics as possible. FYI: We have spent quite a bit of time driving to and from the Office of Civil Affairs and noticed that the Sofitel Hotel is directly next to this office and if we had to do it again, we would have liked to have stayed there. We had 3 or 4 trips ? to this office and the traffic is horrible and the time taken adds up. We like the Shangri La, but check the prices for the brand new Sofitel! Kevin and Frannie are napping and we are heading out to the Fish Head Restaurant later. Just kidding. That's next door to the chicken and rice place that Kevin picked out. Our best to everyone -- how is my Brett? XOXO Ellen