Day 6: Getting our bearings in Xi'an

Our first night in Xi'an was fairly uneventful.  Jemma ended up moving into our room during the night because it was too far to walk every time she fussed and it was hard to hear her from the other side of the apartment.  She got up for only a couple hours during the night and then went back to sleep.  Everyone but Phil was up about 5:30 although Lily said she woke up at 3:30 and couldn't get back to sleep.  I woke Phil up around 6:45 and told him the kids were counting the minutes until the breakfast started at 7 downstairs.  He got up and showered and we headed down for breakfast about 7:30.  It is a smaller buffet in space, but has about all the same foods as the Holiday Inn Express.

OK - PHIL TAKING OVER THE BLOG - MWAHAHAHA!  Ok, so it's not really a takeover.  But Momma earned a break, so I'll pick up.

We sat at a round table perfect for our family - the only one with a lazy susan, which works great for our family style approach.  I handed over our four breakfast vouchers and paid for four kids.  (Which as I just typed that I realized Ian wasn't with us, so I only needed to pay for three kids.  Oh well.)  We were seated by the entrance door which was fine as long as the door stayed close (otherwise the cigarette smoke from outside would waft in).  So, periodically I had to reach over and close the door.  Well this inspired Jemma, who took it upon herself to walk over to the door and push it shut each time someone left it open.  The cleaning crew was very eager, as any time I stood up to get more food for someone they cleared my place with no regard for how much food was left on my plate.  We had fun for sure.

We got back to the room and after a while we heard Phoebe say something about Jemma.  We went to investigate and realized that Jemma had locked herself in Ian's Room.  The one with the glass pane walls.  The one no one is allowed into.  Well she was standing at the glass door not exactly sure what to do.  I tried my best to help her to know to turn the lock the other direction - but she seemed intent on trying to turn in the opposite way of how I was saying.  Finally, she figured it out, and out she came.  Dad super hero points.  And thankfully we didn't have to go to the front desk and try to explain in English to non-English speakers that our 2 year old locked herself in a room and we need someone to get the key to let her out.  And for those wondering, Jemma has not gone back into that room since.

After the rescue, I took Lily on a date to walk around.  I got an umbrella from the front desk and we braved the drizzle.  We had a good chat about our expectations for meeting Ian, and making sure we are prepared in the event things aren't exactly how we've been dreaming about.  We memorized the street names we walked on so we could find our way back (and practice our Chinese).  We got back to the apartment in time to get ready to meet Celine at 10am for a walking tour around the area.

We headed over to Muslim street not too far away.  It is a quasi-misnomer of sorts, if that's a thing.  There is a lot of traditional Chinese architecture, shops and food.  But there is also a mosque and a few different food items.  It was raining, so the walkway was fairly dirty (or really really dirty), but the boys did a great job not jumping in puddles.  It was a super fun experience for the kids.  We saw goat feet, fried squid and fried crab on a stick and a lot of other fun food items.  We saw the traditional candy makers stretching out taffy and pounding nuts into it with giant hammers.  Both boys got a chance to help pull the taffy.  We saw pomegranate flowers at the end of the district and then headed back to the hotel.  I dropped Bethany and the younger four off and then headed off to the supermarket with Celine and Lily.  We picked up some snacks, water, yogurt and bananas.  We went back to the hotel and Lily and I had the leftover, leftover pizza and the other kids laid down for naps. (Bethany and the other kids ate lunch while we were out).  After lunch, Lily and I joined the others for nap time.

We woke up and played a game of family uno.  Jemma was on my team.  We were awesome - even if we had more cards than some of the other participants - style points baby!  The game ended in a tie - everybody wins!  We then headed out in search of walmart.  I tried taking an alternate route to avoid the rain.  There are several massive roads in the area, so you can't cross the street, but instead have to head into the underground tunnels.  Which is awesome.  So I headed to the nearest tunnels.  We went through them and upon reaching the end, I realized they were not connected to the much larger tunnels nearby that lead to the walmart area.  Detour!  We found starbucks on the way to the way to the proper tunnel system.  We made it to the exit and I again decided to take an alternate route - because it looked more fun.  And it was.  We saw a bunch of cool looking shops, including an arcade and a donut shop.  We finally made it to walmart and headed in.  We bought some more snacks, some paper plates and some garbage bags because we make way more garbage each day than the few small waste baskets in the apartment can hold (which are presently being used in the full court basketball hallway).  We headed back to the apartment following the original planned route which was at least half the distance of the route we took to get there, if not even less.

The older four took showers while Bethany made cup o'noodles for supper.  There is a small counter with four chairs in the kitchen, so we needed to be creative with the seating.  We put two couch cushions over two of the chairs to turn it into a bench to hold Phoebe, Titus and I.  Bethany, Lily and Sammy pushed two chairs together and sat across them.  Jemma sat up on the kitchen counter.  We really do have fun being a large family.  Everyone who finished their supper had some strawberry filled oreos for dessert that Lily had picked out for everyone while we were at the supermarket.

Jemma and Sammy played with play-dough after supper and made me a bunch of dessert items for my birthday.  They sang me happy birthday and I pretend ate way more dessert than I should have.  But it was delicious.  And it was my fake birthday - so I can eat as much dessert as I want - don't judge me.  Anyway, the other kids played a bunch of make believe games in the girls room and had a blast doing so.

Jemma stayed awake!  Past 3pm!  Amazing!  She might not get up at midnight!  But seriously, it is good to see her adjusting to the time change.  All of the kids have done such a great job.  We have thrown a lot at them this week.  So much for them to take in and process.  I am so proud of each of them.  I travel internationally for work every couple of months or so and have always wondered what it would be like to do so with the whole family along.  It is even more fun than I thought.  I love to travel, and see new places, and try new things, and learn about new cultures.  Getting to do so with the whole crew along is the best.  I love it.

(Bonus points if you caught the Nacho Libre reference there. Double bonus points if you caught the reference and then were confused if I really meant it was the best, or if I was being sarcastic like in the film.  Triple bonus points if you knew I was being serious - it really is the best.  You lose a million points if you have no idea what Nacho Libre is - but don't worry - this is a blog post, not a game, so points don't really matter.)

Anyway - as that last paragraph indicates - I am rather tired and ready to call it a day.  It was a fun day getting to experience Xi'an and find our way around.