Hot Pot, Cakes and Xi Yang Yang

Wednesday in Lanzhou, naptime, peaceful time. Jetlag almost gone.

We've had some culinary adventures over the last 24 hours. Last night, I thought it would be fun to take Tal for some Hot Pot, a traditional winter time meal. A big vat of hot, spicy broth is brought to your table and placed in the center on top of a gas stove/heater -- the servers can control the temp and bring more hot water as the broth boils out. We had two types of broth - in two containers - the inner pot had chicken stock with vegetables, ginseng, chinese berries, scallions, taro slices; the outside had hot peppers and a special kind of pepper called "Ma La" -- which tingles in your mouth and sinues. Lots of hot oil. The place was packed with people - I couldn't really read the menu except for a few characters like "beef," "chicken", "cabbage", "stomach" (tripe). We ended up with some sliced beef, cabbage, lettuce, greens, tree mushrooms, pork balls, shrimp, and freshly cut eel, i.e. with blood, which I referred to as "scary fish." And 2 bowls of rice. For the Chinese speakers out there it was "te bie re nao" -- extremely lively - very Chinese. As we walked out, we passed by a table of men with little bottles of grain alcohol with 16 oz. bottles of Pepsi - mixing and doing shots along with their food and cigarettes.

Dalia had so much fun, as usual. We sat her in the chair next to me - she laughed and laughed, ate her cheerios and sweet potato puffs. Meanwhile, Tal was turning red and sweating from the Ma La spice. One of the waitresses brought Dalia a pink balloon which she held onto the rest of the night.

We had a little adventure in the room yesterday when the electricity went out. Two service men came in and navigated a huge ladder around the stroller (which she doesn't like), stacking cups and baby stuff. One crawled up into the ceiling while the other held the ladder. Dalia came over and held the ladder, too.

Nothing "official" on our schedule today. Went out exploring this very interesting city. Not so crowded as Beijing - surrounded by small mountains.

Dalia's orphanage director told us that "She takes her botlle and she likes to have "cakes."" This was the translation - I hadn't seen the Chinese word. We have been wondering what "cakes" means -- and found out today! We went for breakfast at a very simple local place (see photo) -- had amazing hand-pulled noodles, "niu rou mian" - beef noodle soup, along with some kimchee. Picked out a steaming sesame cake and a corn cake... brought to the table and for the first time, Dalia set aside her cheerios and dove in. The women in the restaurant adored her and gave her a few more corn cakes to go. Great meal all for about $4.

We have been getting a lot of stares, which we understand. We smile back; Dalia smiles and sometimes waves, too. One woman at the restaurant asked, "That baby isn't yours, is it?" Then I explained we had adopted her and she understood.

After breakfast Mama discovered two favorite street foods - Jian Bing (fried egg wrapped in a thin crepe-like wrapper with cilantro and scallions and another crunchy breadlike thing; and candied apples on a stick -- very traditional Beijing winter snack. Dalia loved them like a good northern China baby girl should!

She mostly sleeps through the night with usually a time of waking up and crying, then back to sleep. She is a very happy baby when she wakes up. She is very fond of two stuffed animals that we sent to her in December, talks to them, kisses them, gives them her bottle.

We are well, we are grateful for your messages. We stay in Lanzhou two more nights and leave for Guangzhou Friday night; return to U.S. the following Friday night.

Love,
Dina, Tal, and Dalia/Dong Ling

For the hard-core baby lovers:
I wrote that I love all the sounds she makes, like when she is having her bottle, and when she is sleeping.
She'll point to her bottle or a toy or a balloon and say, "Guh, Uh" which correlates to "Gei Wo" in Chinese, which means "give [it] to me". When she's really happy she says, "yah yah yah yah" or just "yah yah." In our photos of her taken in January, she is wearing red shoes with a cartoon character on them. Fortunately, she arrived wearing those shoes along with her warm "OK" pants. We have learned that the cartoon charachter is named "Xi Yang Yang," or "Happy Sheep". She'll point to her shoes or her pajamas and say "Yang Yang!" and have a great laugh. We have already started spoiling her; today we bought her a Yang Yang fingernail clipper/trinket that also hangs from one's backpack, AND a blue hoodie with a huge Yang Yang that came with a Yang Yang backpack.