Tuesday....

Not a great start to today as Grandma woke up with a swollen cheek due to a dental problem, but we were fortunate that the first person we encountered at breakfast was an ER nurse who called her hospital for advice and donated her supply of amoxicillan. The swelling is improving and G'Ma is feeling better. Hopefully even better by tomorrow. Needless to say, she skipped out on the Peking Duck dinner tonight (and was the luckier party in that respect---let's just say that two tired/wired and very hungry preschoolers in an overheated room with too much noise and activity was not a particularly lovely event for us!). We went to a place that's at the top of the new Silk Alley market---things have changed in the 'old neighbourhood' from our last trip---when the old Silk Alley was still around and lots of older small restaurants. Once Grandma was feeling a bit better we walked along Jiangomen to the "World Trade Centre" which has also gone even more upscale. We visited a big grocery store in the basement where they had a lot of things for Chinese New Year---the decorations are coming out everywhere, which has been really interesting to see. Xian did a lot of walking (and Rachel YueYue travelled by stroller---her favourite item so far, she just adores it! Good thing!), probably about 5 km over the day (so, no wonder she was tired by dinner time...).

Not too much on our agenda for tomorrow, aside from getting our immigration paperwork and baby's passport/visa back. The group is taking our guide for dinner (to TGIFridays of all places!), but we'll see how the kids are doing before making our final decision. They're starting to get a bit tired of being dragged out for all meals...and we're starting to feel ready to have those home appliances nearby, too. Xian's missing her 'princess attire' and finding her travel duds a bit lacking in fashion sense. YueYue seems to go through three outfits a day, given that she is so independent about feeding herself and refuses to have any bib, napkin or other clothing saver near her! She is one determined kid...must walk up all steps herself (including the big ones on the bus), shell/peel/spoon all food items, and insert all straws into milk drinks. She repeats something that sounds like "YueYue da! YueYue da! all the time, and we're figuring it means something like "YueYue do it! She's picking up a lot of English---today after the Peking Duck dinner we went through the main floor of Silk Alley where people call, "Hello lady! Hello lady" and YueYue responded back with "Hello lady! Hello lady!" (While Xian said, NO, THANK YOU! -- she seems to have a good way with those sellers!). A lot of her new vocabulary is related to Grandma---she now says, "GoSee Gamma! GoSee Gamma!" after hearing us say, "Let's go see Grandma." She's still eating like a linebacker---she loves noodles, eggs and Kentucky fried chicken (yes, we took the kids for fries and chicken for lunch). She loves to be a ham and get people to laugh at what she's doing---and will amplify such actions at bedtime to avoid sleep. Little crying except when we've got her on a bus and she can't be mobile or when we're attempting to get clothing on her in a hurry (she wants to do it all herself, or just remove all items!).