Day 6 - More Changsha

Today we visited Hunan's largest park, Martyr's park. It's here in Changsha and was about a 15 minute ride from our hotel. It was nice to see some of the local people out in the park but most of all it was really nice just to be outside walking around. There was a small amusement park there and a large memorial building. It was really beautiful. There were children playing and people exercising but a little different than what you would see at home. For instance there was a stone path that people walked on to massage their feet. It was made of rocks. I tried it and it wasn't too comfortable. It's not meant to be but will make your feet feel good. There is a lot of history there - mostly around Chairman Mao and the Revolution. You should go0gle the park for a history lesson. Pretty interesting. Anyway, the park was nice. After wards we went to the Hunan Embroidery Museum of China. It really was fascinating to see the women doing embroidery on beautiful silk the old fashioned way - very carefully by hand. Tonight we are going out for another local dinner. We all told our guide XiXi that we preferred local fare over the hotel buffet. I'm not a big buffet fan in the first place and since we eat there for breakfast, we are all in agreement. Besides. the local food has really been pretty amazing. Even when ordered "mild", it's a little spicy (Hunan is known for their spicy food) but it is really good. We continue to see more and more of Lia's personality emerge. She is pretty happy and can play by herself for very long periods of time if we let her. We are trying to interact with her as much a possible (within reason) so that we can all continue to get to know each other better and so she will continue to trust us more and more. We are also still trying to figure out her eating schedule/habits and every day we are making progress. We have found that she loves bananas but steamed eggs seem to be her favorite so far - and she does like congee, a favorite of most babies here. Cheerios are a big hit too. We are trying new foods all the time (last night we found that she likes cauliflower and potatoes) but our selection is not really the same as what we'll have when we get home so we're working with what we have so far. She is quite mobile and rolls around more quickly than you can imagine. She is also crawling really well  (as we have seen to today!) but has almost no leg strength. She can sit up but where most babies fall backwards, she goes forward onto her elbows and hands. We're working with her on that and we know the strength will come as she is in her new environment more and more. Time is going by but not quickly enough. We are enjoying seeing the culture here and truly do have a new appreciation for China but home is pretty much the only place we want to be right now. We';ll get there. I don't know how well the comments section of this blog is working since I can't see it from here but if you are commenting, please know that we will very much enjoy reading all of them when we return. Until tomorrow....