China Trip Day #9 - Sightseeing in Anhui

After yesterday's emotional day, we all needed a day of lying low, even if most of today was not that exciting.  I thought for sure we'd be dealing with regression in Matteo's attachment process and was surprised by how much he continues to open up to us.  We're seeing so much more of his personality and yesterday's experience doesn't appear to have set him back. 

Matteo was getting downright silly at breakfast and when Chris had to go back to the room, he didn't cry when he left (but still looked concerned that he was gone) and continued to be silly with me.  He liked playing peekaboo and showing me how many noodles he could stuff in his mouth.  I got so many laughs and smiles out of him, which is unbelievable, because he's attached himself to Chris and at times seems to merely tolerate me. So many times when I interact with him, he looks up at Chris with eyes that seem to ask, why does this woman keep trying to talk to me?   Worse is if I try to hold him, he cries, and if I kiss him, he turns his cheek away.  In light of yesterday and how slowly he's warming up to me, our interactions at breakfast were so encouraging.  Of course once we approached our hotel room, he started to cry and once he discovered Chris inside, he was all about Daddy again.   
After breakfast we met our guide and driver and headed to the Anhui Museum, which is a history museum of Anhui Province.  It's similar to the Minnesota History Center back home, except that it covers a history going back thousands of years and up through the Qing dynasty.  Of all places for Matteo to introduce us to his two-year-old self, (in contrast to his shell-shocked self) he chose a museum full of antiquities.  Chris had to keep him from climbing on things or wandering into roped-off areas and I'm sure the museum staff had to retrace our footsteps with a bottle of Windex to remove sticky little hand prints from the display glass. 

Before going back to our hotel, we stopped at different mall than the ones we've visited in search of underwear for Matteo.  At barely two and a half years old, he doesn't even need diapers at night.  We lucked out with a completely potty-trained kid!  It's difficult to find underwear for a kid who's barely in a size 2T and even more so in China where split pants are the norm. 

After naptime back at the hotel, our guide met us in our room to drop off the remaining paperwork for Matteo's adoption.  She also delivered our laundry from the wash house.  China is known for being inexpensive, but there are plenty of things that cost a lot more than expected and one is laundry.  It cost $80 to have less than a week's worth of clothing for two people, plus one outfit and a bunch of bibs for a toddler washed. Laundromats, as far as I have seen, do not exist, so our only options were to send the laundry out, have the hotel do it (which would have been two to three times as expensive as the wash house) or wash it by hand in our hotel bathtub, which I was not interested in doing.

Since it was still snowing this evening and the sidewalks were a wet, slushy mess, we nixed our evening walk for a taxi ride a little farther afield.  Our guide had written out instructions on various pieces of paper, such as "Could you please call us a taxi?" or "Please take us to [      ]." so we could get where we needed to go.  (And back to our hotel again.)

We decided to go back to the mall we visited earlier in the day.  It was clean, the stores were more in our price range and there were a lot of restaurant options.  We had spied a place called "Taco" and since we eat a lot of Mexican at home, we made a beeline for our version of comfort food on our evening trip to the mall.  Unfortunately Taco had very few tacos and none that were vegetarian.  I presented our waitress with the slip of paper our guide prepared for me that said in Chinese, "I'm vegetarian. I don't eat meat or fish."  It took no less than five waitstaff gathered around our table to point out the one option that had no meat.  The menu was in English and had pictures, and the vegetarian dish was under the Noodles section, but who knows what got lost in translation, because much to my dismay, I ended up with a pile of sauteed mushrooms.  I really, really do not like mushrooms.  I dislike them so much that when the other entrees arrived and we realized that Matteo ended up with two entrees, I ate one of his thinking it was spaghetti with marinara sauce.  Halfway through I realized it was meat sauce, but I kept eating because I was so darn hungry.  I kept telling myself at least I wasn't eating the "Fresh Scallop Asshole," because yes, that was on the menu.  (Although I'm assuming something really got lost in translation with that one!)

The kids clothing store we had been in earlier in the day had a kids play area, so went there so Matteo could play and I could try to find him some more clothes since we only brought two sets of clothing.  We know Matteo has played on a playground before, but all the kids running around like wild must have overwhelmed him, because all he wanted to do was watch.  Chris found a quiet area with a small slide, which he eventually got Matteo to slide down.  By the time I came back, Matteo was all smiles as he tossed balls back and forth with Chris. 

We left the mall and I managed to hail a taxi on my first try.  I dug in my purse for my slip of paper with the address of our hotel in Chinese and thrust it in the taxi driver's face, who in the darkened car, hadn't noticed that we are not Chinese.  As we sped away, Chris turned to me and said, "I hope you didn't accidentally give him the 'I'm a vegetarian' piece of paper."  We ended up back at our hotel, so I obviously had given him the correct one!

Tonight marks the first night that Matteo did not cry at bedtime and this being only his fourth night with us, I consider that miraculous.  Until tonight, he'd cry 15-20 minutes, which I also realize, could be a lot worse. We decided we're going to give him Melatonin until we get home and recover from jetlag, so that surely plays a role in how quickly he's falling asleep.