Recent Trip to Pagoda Park

For the most part, the weather has been pretty cold recently. We have not been making it out as much, especially because we have been working on getting the new apartment up to speed. We now have telephone and internet, and we are borrowing our friend's laptop until break. So we are up and running with new commentary and pictures.

We got a break from the cold weather the other day, which we used to go down to pagoda park. It was a great day, nice and cool in the morning and even slightly warm in the sun. Here are a few pictures from that day.

At the entrance of the park, there was a large bed of red and yellow flowers. It matched Dan's yellow sweatshirt, so we grabbed this pic. Dan still has some sweet potato on his face, as we ate sweet potatoes made in a trash can before entering the park. The highlight of the park, for the kids especially, was the playground. Here is Evie preparing the climb the ladder which accesses the slide. She went up and down the same place roughly 600 times.

Here is a shot into one of the tubes on the playground. Evelyn and Dan are on the other side, but all that you can probably notice is the slit in this kids pants. This is how children are potty-trained here, or, put another way, it is how they are not potty trained. Almost all of the young children have these slits in their pants. Sometimes, you will see a diaper on the baby, but the diaper is simply a pad, it does not wrap around and tie to the child's waist. Jane and I found this out when we tried to buy discount Chinese diapers. What we thought were full-blown diapers were simply these pads. We used them for Evelyn, putting them on the inside of underwear. She is so close to being potty-trained, she tells us when she needs to go, but she refuses to go on her training potty.

Diapers here are extremely expensive, as are all childrens' items. Jane wanted to buy a sippy-cup the other day, but they cost about $10-12. Our hope is to potty-train Evelyn, and soon thereafter hope that Etain will follow suit. Maybe Jiu Jie will help in this crusade as well.

Here is a good picture of Evelyn, Dan and Jane in front of the pagoda. For the most part, the air has been very hazy. However, on our one day off, it was very clear. There were tons of Chinese families touting their children around the park, taking semi-professional pictures of the little ones.

Here is Evie smelling some flowers in the park, and ripping a handful of them out of the ground.

Dan and Evelyn in front of the pagoda.

Evie in front of the pagoda:

A good shot of the pagoda alone:

At the park, there is one section where there are about 7 or so fish tanks full of different types of goldfish.

Sorry Etain fans. She slept the entire time that we were at the park. We did not want to wake her, so we tried to keep her completely secluded in the stroller. Otherwise, there would be tons of people trying to peek into the stroller to see her, eventually waking her up. As a result, we could not get a single picture of her.

Across the street from our new apartment complex is another complex in which many foreigners live. In that complex is a kindergarten, conducted fully in Chinese. It is very nicely run, with many of the teachers speaking conversational English. Two of Dan's friends go there, so we enrolled him there as well. Below is a picture of him on his first day of school at the new place. So far, he really enjoys it.

Sorry for the short and succinct writings. Tomorrow we hop on a night bus to Chingdao for a 4 day vacation. We will be sure to take plenty of pictures, and we will keep everyone informed.