More Chinese hospitality and a roller-coaster of emotions! ~ Steph

We were once again the recipients of wonderful Chinese hospitality, this time at the hands of long-time friends of James and Elaine Hu.

As Sara mentioned in the last post, we spent the morning visiting the Hubei Museum.

I felt bad for our tour guide as she was trying to give us some information on some of the very interesting artifacts but between the 12 of us (including the 2 little new additions), there were often only 2 or 3 listening as others were busy chasing down or dealing with the youngest ones!  The most of the time was spent in the section containing artifacts from the tomb of The Marquis Yi.

This coffin weighed in over 7 500kg!

One of the most fascinating finds is the oldest know set of chime bells

Our free time at the museum to visit the rest of the exhibits turned into a 'lets follow Li Lin' time trying to keep the little monkey out of trouble!

After an early afternoon nap, we were picked up around 2:30 from our hotel and headed out to Han street.  This is a new modern pedestrian shopping street that is quite upscale.  There is major development going on in this area at this time, including hotels, condos, office buildings and the shopping area.

There has also been the construction of a river to join two lakes here in Wuhan.  After a bit of wandering around in the shops, we took a boat ride heading towards the East Lake, which is the largest lake in Wuhan.

Unfortunately, Li Lin started crying and so we ended up turning the boat a round just before we got in East Lake.  When we got back on shore, Li Lin perked up a bit so we drove to East Lake and visited along the shores for a little bit.

 

 

Then our hosts wanted to take us our for dinner.  We were unsure if we should go since Li Lin had been quite upset but we decided to join them and we were glad we did!  Once again the food was delicious, and once again we had plenty and to spare.  Li Lin was happy and ate more food at that meal than we have seen her eat since she joined our family!

Li Lin is going through a complete roller coaster of emotions.  At times she is joyfully playing with the other kids laughing and giggling and even teasing them.  This evening at the restaurant, Sara left with her to go outside early because she was getting antsy.  When she got downstairs and noticed is was only her and Sara, she wanted back in immediately to go get her siblings! Sometimes its hard to remember that she has only been part of our family for 3 days now.  At other times, it is not so hard to remember.  At any time, Li Lin can become sad and weepy.  It tends to happen when she is tired.  Then you can see the heartbreak of our dear Li Lin.  The good news is that the outbursts are becoming less severe and less frequent.