Yay for New Shoes and Icecream!!

February 21st

Today we slept in a little and went to Yu Gardens in Shanghai. THIS was an experience!! I think a million people were there. And lucky for us, all million had to pass over a narrow bridge all at one time! Let's just say we are never doing that again. People have no sense of personal space and when they want to move faster they just start pushing. This is especially fun with a 19 month old ;) I was carrying Ava and Matt walked in front of me and mom behind to try and protect ourselves from pickpocketing and all the shoving. Mom said that the people behind her were pushing really hard at times but she just stood her ground!! The Chinese don't see any of this as rude, it's just normal for them. When walking on the street, they don't watch where they are going and will not stop in the direction they are going to avoid a collision. They also don't consider staring rude. And believe me being Caucasians with an Asian baby has afforded us many looks. Most of them smiling, but others you just don't know what they are thinking. Again though this is not considered rude in China, they just stare if they want to. And in all honesty, we've kind of gotten used to the stares and either ignore them or just smile back. A smile is definitely a universal language.

The Yu Gardens were still decorated for the New Year celebrations and it was awesome (when we were off the bridege ;)). We also got some great shopping done here. We were able to get some fresh tea leaves to bring home, Chinese dolls for Ava and gifts, and some decorations for the house.

We spent the rest of the day walking through the city, exploring some of the local shops and parks. We went to The People's Park in the afternoon and walked around. The parks are beautiful and they all have exercise equipment everywhere (that actually look like playground equipment). There are people on the exercise equipment all the time. It's rather fun to watch.

I only bought one pair of shoes for Ava before coming to get her since we didn't know what size she would need. The shoes I bought were cheap ones from Old Navy with a soft sole. She has already ruined them with all the walking she has been doing!! So new shoes were definitely in order. She is totally my baby girl...she loves her new shoes! She looks at them all the time. When in her carrier she'll look down every once in a while to make sure they are still there. When they are, she grabs for them and laughs or smiles :)

Ava also had icecream for the first time today. There is a Hagen Das everywhere and it called us in today. Ava and I shared a vanilla scoop. At first bite, her facial expression looked like “wow, this is cold” but by the time she finished the first bite she was ready for her next bite! She loved it and got way more than her fair share of the scoop ;)