March 11

Ni hao! We went to the Nanjing Brocade Silk Museum and Factory this morning. It was amazing to see the old-fashioned looms making all kinds of silk items. One fact that we learned at the factory was that it takes two workers 8 hours to make 2 inches. Crazy?!? We got to see the workers in action, see beautiful clothes from the emperors, and buy a piece of artwork for the house made right in the factory. (picture included of factory)

Next, we headed to a Memorial for the 300,000 Chinese that died when the Japanese attacked in 1937. In the memorial building, they placed the remains (bones) of about 10,000 Chinese. There were statues on the outside that depicted different scenes from the invasion. The statues made you feel the pain and anguish that the Chinese people felt when this occurred. Our guide said that it was still hard for her to visit knowing what people went through during the attack. (picture included)

After the memorial, we went to the Confucius Temple area to look around again. We took our guide to help us buy some souvenirs and bargain with the vendors. At night, all of the temple area is covered in lights and they have a fireworks show at 7:30 each night. We have an amazing view from our window of all the fun.

We went to eat with our friends from TX at a Chinese restaurant. No one speaks English so we got our guide to write down what we wanted to eat. We took the piece of paper in and gave it to our waitress. They brought different dishes out to our table about every 4 minutes. We enjoyed the company and the good food. (picture included)

Macy started out the day kinda rough. She had a hard morning and then after her nap this afternoon it is like we have a different child. She is running around the room just laughing at everything that we do. She is warming up to Baba in the room of course. I still had to hold her during all the sightseeing today because she doesn't want anyone else touching her out in public. We were laughing saying that I am going to have huge muscles when we get back. It is not easy on your body carrying a 25 pound girl everywhere. The good thing is it won't last long because she will slowly get used to everything. We have to remember that she hasn't been out in public at all in her 2 years of life. So, everything is a new, exciting, scary, and fearful adventure. We can't wait for her to experience all the new things in life with us. Wow!!!