China Trip - December 17, 2004
Today was our day to travel from Chongqing to Beijing.
Last night, we had to really strategize about how to get Elisa to bed without too much trouble. She loves to play, and she hates the idea of "bed-time". So our idea was to put her in the crib and when she starts to cry, just to comfort her but not take her out of the crib and not play with her. We were going to show her who's the boss... Well, that did not work out as we expected. She got so mad that we gave up and took her out of the crib. I guess she showed us who was the boss. We found she needs to be held and walked -- standing still blows the whole thing. But if you keep walking, she falls asleep. So my forearms are getting into better shape.
Here's a picture of Elisa taking a nap, wearing an outfit from the Grammy collection.
Everything is China is decorated for Christmas. No manger scenes, just lots of Christmas trees and Santa Claus. In the lobby of the Holiday Inn Chongqing, there is a huge tree with a sleigh. Elisa thought the sleight was great fun.
On the bus, Elisa is very social, flirting with everyone and especially with some of the children that are in our group. Elisa insists on having a good view of everything, and loves wiping her hands on the foggy windows. However, when she gets sleepy, and Daddy can't walk her, she puts on quite a show.
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On the way to the airport, we had a little bus tour , passing by miles and miles and miles of newly constructed or under-construction high-rise condominium buildings to reach the mountainous countryside, with terraced farms and little villages. At one point, the tour guide asked the bus driver to pull over next a randomly-selected house. He got off the bus and went into the house to ask if it was OK if the people on the bus had a tour of the house. Amazingly, the lady living in the house said "yes". She was a young girl who had just had a baby two months ago. The house had a room in the front with a pig pen (literally). Behind that was a room that was the kitchen, with a wood-burning stove that was smoking up the place and a two build-in woks that were about 3 feet in diameter.
This is one of the two bedrooms on the first floor. The house had only gotten electricity within the last couple of years, and was lit with bare bulbs and dangerous-looking wiring. There were two additional bedrooms upstairs. Across the street was a steep hill with terraced farms below.
Elisa in the brand new main terminal building of the Chongqing airport.
The flight was about two hours in duration, including one hour when Elisa was eating Cheerios, playing with a book and flirting with everyone, and the second hour, when Elisa was personally conducting a test of an air-raid siren. At the end of the flight, when everyone was standing up to leave the plane and looking around to see which people had such a loud baby, we just tried to looked innocent.
