Sightseeing.........

Sunday we went to the Chen Family Temple and a park to see the Five Goats statue.  While I thought it was at least interesting, the boys were completely bored!  However, I thought it was cool because there were elderly people in the park ballroom dancing and doing hackysacks!  My two strapping, healthy, strong young boys refused to hackysack,though i bought them each one.  They were totally chicken about looking bad in front of the older people!   Later that day, we met up with the Gerbers and hit the Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street.  It's a huge street just full of shops, more things for sale than you can imagine and probably more people in this one area than all of Kansas City! 
When we got back to the room, Trish wanted to go in some of the shops on the island, but the kids didn't.  So we left them all in our hotel room with James in charge and got some browsing in. 

We're finding out that NingNing is not used to a lot of activity, so all our walking and doing things kind of wears him out, but what else am I going to do with two teenage boys?  No way I'm going to let them stay on their electronics all day; we usually come back in the early afternoon to rest at which point James will do Facebook and NingNing jumps on QQ, then later we head to dinner (Lucy's), look in a few shops (ok, purchase a few more gifts for people back home), then back to the room.

I found an app on our Ipod and we started English lessons Sunday evening...basic words as well as 1, 2, 3, etc.  NingNing is very quick and said almost every word perfectly. 

Monday (today), we met up with the Gerbers, got the TB test read (negative), and went off to the Safari Park.  We rode the tram through and then walked the rest of it.  The boys were dragging until we got in the van, then they and YanPing started horsing around.  Finally, they calmed down and NingNing fell asleep.  Did our afternoon rest, then went to Lucy's again.  I got to thinking, Lucy's charges 18RMB for a Coke.  You don't think about it when you're handing out notes, but that's $3 USD!  Prices are NOT what they used to be here and it is getting expensive to keep two growing boys fed.  Tomorrow we are going to try and find a WalMart so I can get a few snacks to have in the room and quit going to the darn 7-Eleven.  P.S. When we went to Lucy's, NingNing chose a double-cheeseburger with fries!  He ate everything but the bun, tomato, and lettuce (went just for the meat); but hey, at least he's trying American food already!

As American as Apple Pie!

Chen Family Temple

Family Pic in front of Goat statue

Shangxiujiu Pedestrian Street

When we got in the room after dinner, I announced "English!" and NingNing crawled under the covers and hid, lol.  Tonight through another app, we worked on the alphabet.  It says the letter then has the person draw it with their finger.   Each time he was done with one, I had him go back and say all the letters before up to that one.  When he finished Z, he went back on his own and said every letter perfectly.  Sooo...either he's incredibly smart and memorized them that quickly or this boy knows the English alphabet when he said he didn't. 
Our guide told us this morning that Ningning said he didn't do well in school because he started having some issues in 4th grade, especially with math.  Because there were brighter and harder-working students in the class, he said he was ignored by the teacher and not encouraged at all; he said they just let him be.  It will certainly be a different story now and we'll make sure he gets lot of encouragement and support from us and his new school.

Didn't move fast enough to avoid the camera!

Chen Family Temple

Panda on "Ice"

James and NingNing have completely broken down the "newness" barrier and have commenced tussling at various times.  NingNing actually had James pinned down on the bed, when James flipped him completely over and pinned him.  Since this "brother" thing is still new to me, I just try to referee and make sure no one gets hurt.  NingNing also gave James a "fan" lesson.  A shop guy gave James a fan as a gift, and there's a knack for flicking it open.  He showed James numerous times and then he got it; so now he's an expert "fan-flipper" like NingNing:).

Till the next time........................