The museum was interesting. I really don't think there was much old stuff in the museum. The stuff on display didn't look old but they all had labels saying what dynasty they were from. At the end of the tour I didn't realized I had wandered in to the gift shop because the stuff looked the same. So I bought a bracelet for cheap and I'm pretty sure its from the Qing Dynasty. The natural history part of the museum was pretty amusing. They had one set of dinosaur bones, but I just don't think they were real and one prehistoric jawbone. That was the entrance to the dinosaur world. The exhibit was a large room full of large fake plastic/foam dinosaurs. Our guide said one used to move but it doesn't anymore. It was kinda like wandering in to an old amusement park that had shut down years ago. everything was dingy and broken. One dinosaur had fallen over. One display had a set of 3 dinosaurs sitting around the table, it kind of looked like they were playing prehistoric poker with a bunch of rocks. The English sign just said "Plesiosaurus" but there were three different kinds of dinos playing poker and actually that is one of the few dinosaurs I can name and none of them were plesiosaurus. I asked our guide what the plaque said about these gambling dinos and she said it was depicting their last meal. Chinese museum humor maybe?
We then wandered in to a room set up like a forest that had a sundry of the worst taxidermy animals I had ever seen. They had bulging eyes and mishapen faces and broken ears. The boa constrictor had packing tape wrapped around his poor neck to try to keep him in one piece. All of Noah's Ark seemingly occupied this one forest in Nanchang. Boas, tigers, porcupines, rabbits, foxes, cranes, dic dics and racoons. A big antelope had fallen over. All the white animals showed layers of dust.
Next was a room dedicated to trees in Nanchang and had a bunch of brown dead leaves pressed under glass and on display. Another room was huge and the only thing in the room was a case with no plaque on it displaying a tiny ornament. We found a brochure on the way out and in English it said the ornament was a "small jade dragon with a bird on its head with 3 rings attached". Exactly what I thought it was! I think it might have been the only authentically old thing in the museum therefore it's place of honor. It looked like a keychain.
After the museum our guide took us to Walmart. Yes a Walmart! It's 2 stories. I wanted to find some more shorts for Jack. I packed 5 outfits for him like Brent and I packed for ourselves. Again, first time parents of a boy. How would we know he would have gone through all his clothes in the first 2 days? He eats with 2 hands and gets food all down his front. At the pagoda he fell flat on his face in a puddle about 4 inches deep and was soaked for the rest of the tour. Every time he pees, well, in the US we would be changing his clothes every time, I'll leave it at that.
Anyway, couldn't find any shorts at Walmart. For his size I needed to know how tall he was, and then convert it to centimeters to figure out what size chinese clothes he needs. pretty confusing, and I didn't see anything except swim trunks. Come to think of it, that's not a bad idea...
After Walmart and lunch Jack went down for a nap. 2 days in a row yes! He still hasn't taken to his momma yet. He is really attached to his daddy and follows him everywhere. It's hard on me, and really hard on Brent because Jack panics every time Brent is more than 2 feet away from him. He'll play with me and he likes to tease me by grabbing whatever I have in my hands. But he won't let me touch him otherwise. This morning he played peek a boo with me in a closet we have in our room. He stood in the closet and kept closing the sliding doors and waited for me to open them and then he'd scream. We played for a bit and then I couldn't open either of the doors. I thought he was holding them closed but soon his laughter turned to wails and screams for daddy. Brent rushed over and pried the doors open, he somehow locked them, and dad was the hero and mom was the bad guy. He stayed mad at me for most of the day about that. When he woke up from his nap, I was lying next to him watching tv. Brent was in the bathroom. he looked at me and started howling for his daddy. Once he figured out Brent was in the bathroom he sat in front of the door and wailed and kept calling for his BaBa the whole time Brent was in the bathroom. Every time I approached him he'd scream. After Brent got out of the bathroom and all was right with the world, I had a good cry and then we went out for some shopping therapy. It's best to go walking every afternoon until dinner to keep Jack from bouncing off the walls in the room.
We walked back to the Walmart and walked through shops around it too. Dinner at KFC where he decided to be nice to me again and played with both of us and fed us french fries. He loves ketchup with his fries and Brent accidentally squirted ketchup all over Jack and I when he was opening a packet. Jack laughed and laughed and told us the story over and over again how dad sprayed us with ketchup and showed us how it got all over his arms and face.
Walmart is next to a People's Square public park and we stayed into the evening and watched the water fountain show it does every night. We liked that. There was a crowd of people there watching and taking picures with us. One lady tapped me on the shoulder and said 'excuse me, take picture?" I said yes and held out my hand for the camera. She grabbed me and a group of Chinese people surrounded me with their arms around me and we all said cheese for the camera. Oh yeah. I'm a rock star.
1 comment:
Maybe you should try squirting him with stuff? I'm just kidding! The Ineson Family is praying for you and Brent and Jack. Your son will be hanging on your leg soon, I know it.
Post a Comment