Balloons, Bonding and Taxi Rides

We had a great day yesterday, but for some reason, Joshua became withdrawn and quiet at dinner.  He had done the same thing at the end of dinner in the same restaurant the night before.  Last time, he stuffed himself and then became quiet. This time, his countenance changed right after we sat down.  He wouldn't speak to us or to the waitress who saw what was happening and tried to speak with him. He didn't want anything to eat or drink.  After the broccoli arrived (which he devoured the night before) and he showed no interest, I decided perhaps I should just take him back to the room. I wasn't sure how he would feel about leaving with just me or if we would have a scene in the restaurant, but as soon as I got up and said, "Let's go" he took my hand and walked out.   There had been a few quiet tears in the restaurant. When we got back to the room, he went and sat on the bed. I grabbed his blanket, wrapped it around him and just held him and told him it was okay to be sad.  I don't know what, if anything, he understood of what I was saying, but the tears started to really flow for a few minutes. I didn't know what else to do but just hold him and tell him all of the people that love him. After a while, I got him some tissue and held him some more and sang a couple songs that I always sung to my babies (or toddler in Anna's case) when I rocked them – Jesus Loves Me and Amazing Grace.  Those songs are pretty deeply ingrained in my kids.  Sarah sang Jesus Loves Me to Joshua the first time we called her.  Anna sang it to him today.  Mark wanted to sing Amazing Grace while we were here.   Joshua was very quiet, but he allowed me to hold him and I think that was good.  After a while, I went in search of the photo albums and on the way, found packages of balloons we had brought with us. They are those balloons used for making animals.  I sat next to him and started pumping one up.  He started looking sideways at my work, then wanted to blow one up himself.  We ended up blowing up several balloons, making some creatures that could only exist on a foreign planet and finally had a balloon sword fight with the helmets I had attempted to make out of the balloons.  (I really needed my girls here to help make balloon art – I'm the least qualified person for such a task!)  By the time Pete and Mark arrived, we were ready to ambush them with our balloon swords.   This morning, we had another fun breakfast, called all of the kids (after I figured out where they all were – I had lost track but they were all at our house with both sets of grandparents, my sister and her boys!) and then set out with our guide to Red Hill Park. The boys had a great time again. We had a little balloon misadventure at the start. There was a midway type game of shooting lasers at balloons.  The sign said .4 yuan and our guide said it would be about 1 yuan for both boys to play (remember – there are 8 yuan to one USD) so this seemed really cheap and we said, "okay". So the boys start blasting away at the balloons.  I'm watching two employees stand there with a big bag of balloons replacing the popping ones as fast as they could go and thinking – boy this seems like a lot of work for them for one yuan….  After the boys had been blasting away for a few minutes I signed for them to stop.  We had a big shock when they told us it was .4 yuan PER SHOT….  Between the two boys, they had taken about 500 shots before we made it clear to these employees that we wanted them to stop.  SOOO, when you see the boys in the pagoda picture holding stuffed parrots, please admire them since it cost about $30 for those two parrots!  Yikes!  A good lesson learned for us and our guide.   We enjoyed visiting Red Hill Park – note to my girls – it was MUCH cooler this time. We actually got rained on for a bit. The park is at the highest point in the city, so you can get a good view in every direction.  The pagoda in the picture is filled with photos of the city and a history lesson for Urumqi city (pronounced either "ooo-rooom-chee" or "wooo luh moo chee".)  The city is considered a young city since it was established a mere 200 years ago.  It is smack dab in the middle of Asia – as far from an Ocean as you can get. The photo I'm attaching shows the main highway that sits where the original Urumqi River was diverted away. This is part of the Silk Road. Anna and Joshua are actually from Shi He Zi (pronounced Shir Huh Dzah) about a 3 hour drive away from here. Shi He Zi used to be a military headquarters. After the cultural revolution, they sent the surplus soldiers there to work as farmers until they might be needed as soldiers again. At the peak of Red Hill Park, there is a small, but tall pagoda that was built 200 years ago. There was a story about a dragon in the river. When the water would flood, they thought the dragon was angry and the city leader had the pagoda built to subdue the dragon…not sure how that would work…but the river still floods…   After leaving the park, we caught a taxi with the intention of visiting the Grand Bazaar for which Urumqi is famous. We had planned to have mutton shish kabobs and rice pilaf.  However, the drive there was a bit crazy. Seriously crazy.  Truly, it felt like something out of a movie – picture pedestrians darting to both sides as your taxi careens through alley ways and between cars driving both directions within an inch or so of your car… when we became completely stuck between cars our driver started shouting out the window at the other taxi driver who apparently violated some mysterious crazy cab driver etiquette…  (Sorry mom and dad – promise we won't do it again and we're all safe J) Anyway, before we reached the bazaar, Joshua started to get that withdrawn look again…well it turned out he was car sick.  He told our guide his stomach was upset and he didn't want to go to lunch (who could blame him), so we asked the driver to take us back – now he was careening even faster…along the way, Joshua threw up all over the back seat. Thankfully, we had stopped at our hotel to drop off the parrots and pick up a jacket for him – so that caught most of the fallout.  Before we got back to the hotel I had him and the cab cleaned up with my trusty supply of wet wipes. (Sarah, I thought of you and that tram ride years ago…)  This is the second time Joshua has felt car sick – the amusement park rides today probably didn't help much.  Prayers for a smooth flight tomorrow would be greatly appreciated. Flying will obviously be a new experience for him and I think our flight is 4 or 5 hours.   When we got back to the hotel, Joshua slept for almost 2 hours, but woke up feeling much better. Pete got some num bread and fried rice (they have their own yummy type of rice here) and Joshua had something to eat and seemed quite content. Pete and Mark went out to the street vendors to buy an outfit for each boy to wear tomorrow since we figured out it cost less than laundry at the hotel. We attempted to find a place to do laundry today – another long story – We're trying to hold off on laundry until we get to Guangzhou!   The boys are off swimming again, so I'm off to see how they are doing.  Thank you again for all of the prayers and encouraging words. One more week in China to go…it will be good to get to Guangzhou tomorrow and meet up with some of the other families from our agency.