Sunday & Monday

Sunday we walked from the hotel to a large park across the street.  It was an overcast day but shocking still hot and humid.  :)  We saw something called "Children's Playground" on the map - but in reality it was an amusement park.  Oh well.  The kids rode a small rollercoaster (ZiRong loved it) and another ride.  Harmony, Medora, and Lian also rode a giant swing - ZiRong was too short to go on it, and she really didn't ask to even try it, so it must have seemed a little too much.  More time in the pool in the afternoon.





Monday was the medical appointment day.  The US requires all immigrants to undergo a physical exam and blood tests.  Only one parent is needed, so I went with ZiRong while Eric took the older girls to the park again to ride more of the big-kid / adult amusement park rides (slightly sketchy, but no obvious decrepitude...). 

ZiRong did great at the medical appointment until the blood draw ... then they had to bring in not one, but two, additional nurses to get it done.  :(  Parents are absolutely NOT allowed to go back with the kids.  More swimming this afternoon.  ZiRong is wary of going in the water but loves to splash on the edge and dangle her feet in.  I'm sure she'll love some of the zero-entry pools we have in the US - we'll go visit a bunch in May while the other girls are in school.

Alas, I twisted my foot this afternoon (DUMB MOVE!) and now I can't walk.  Eric called our guides to ask where to purchase crutches - and they instead said he should buy these 2 Chinese medicine sprays.  One is for the first 24 hours, and one is for after the first 24 hours.  They said these sprays are magic.  So we're going to try that.  Eric and the girls are out buying the sprays now, and the guides will come down to apply them - they were very clear that we are NOT to attempt application by ourselves.  :)  In a coincidental turn of events, right now in my Mandarin class, we are studying a chapter about illness and injury - so I just learned how to say and write "my foot hurts" as well as "Chinese traditional medicine" and now am going to be the recipient of 中药 (Zhong yao - Chinese traditional medicine).  :)

ZiRong was concerned about my foot - thanks to the handy-dandy just-in-time Mandarin chapter we are learning in class, I could tell her that my foot hurt.  She brought a piece of paper over to me with a solemn expression.  When she got near, she brandished it with pride and said "A!".  She'd written the letter A on the piece of paper, clearly intending it as a special treat, as she knows that writing letters gets a lot of praise/excitement out of us.  :)  So she's got the capital A mastered.  She also knows that B comes after A and asked me to write a letter B in dots for her to trace.  She's working hard on B, and she already knew the letter C when she came to us.  So ... 3 letters learned, 49 letters to go.  :)