Beautiful Sights

Dear Vivi -

I'm going to be honest with you and tell you right off the bat that kung fu means nothing to me.  I can see the discipline and understand how it's an art form and appreciate the precision of the moves, but it just isn't my thing.  Daddy thought it would be cool to go see the temple where it was born though, and I agreed.  It was a fun, if long, day trip filled with some really cool things.

Like this huge stone statue that greeted us coming up from the parking lot.

And this cool gate through which you enter the community. (Daddy will edit this post later if I'm using the wrong terminology.)

You were taking it all in from the comfort of your stroller, although it was a chilly morning.

There were several courtyards of boys and men all doing various forms of martial arts.

Then we watched a show where guys did remarkable things like this.  They also did a truly spectacular "worm", which I had no idea got its roots in kung fu.

We had a traditional Chinese lunch, then walked through the gift shop area to see that these food stands were there but closed for the day.  Too bad, because I would have enjoyed a "U.S. Burger".

"El Pollo Chicken" sounded good too.  Or as we would call it, "Chicken Chicken".

It's official - the Shaolin Temple has the most beautiful trash cans in the world.  And they're both recycling or regular trash, depending on which lion you choose to feed.

Despite all of the fighting moves we saw today, this place really has the most peaceful sights.  

 

Some were mildly frightening, but still beautiful in their own right. 

 

These are pagodas where dead monks are memorialized and their ashes are entombed. 

Here's the thing, Vivi.  In spite of all of that beauty, I thought that this was the most incredible sight I saw today: you wanting to walk EVERYWHERE!!!

We knew that you could at least cruise furniture, but we didn't know anything about how well you could walk unaided.  We know now that you cannot walk at this point without assistance.  You need to be holding on to something like the bed - or Daddy's fingers.  But what we also didn't know that we now do is that you have the will to walk and seem to desperately want your independence.  To us, this is key.  It says that once we can get you the help that you need, you are willing to do the work that will be required for you to be able to walk all on your own.  (We also think that having Micah and Liam around to chase won't be a bad motivator either.) You seriously would have walked all day if you could.

You stopped occasionally to take a little break and sit on a bench like you were posing for Old Navy ads. Which you are totally cute enough for, by the way.

And then you were off again.  The steps were your favorite!

That beautiful smile, back in our hotel room at the end of a long day. 

In addition to the beautiful physical strides we can see you making, Mommy and Daddy are also catching up on "Vivi-speak".  It's tough trying to understand a girl who speaks a little of three languages!  Here's what we know:

• At the very least, based on our limited Spanish, you say, "Agua", "Ola", "Piyaya" (pajamas), and "Boca" (mouth) in that language.
• At the very least, based on our limited Mandarin, you say, "Xiexie" (thank you), and "Ni Hao" (hello) in that language.
• At the very least, based on our limited ability to understand the differences in all three languages that you speak, you say, "cookie", "car", "bike", "hungry", "feet", "Daddy", "Mama", and several other words in English.

So a typical string of words in "Vivi-speak" like what we heard today is, "Agua Cookie Xiexie", which means, "Water Cookie Thank you" and uses Spanish, English, and Mandarin.  You just turned two, and you are already more advanced in language than Daddy or Mommy.  You're really vocal though, and you don't give up in speech either, so we're just having fun trying to figure out what you're asking for and in what language you're asking for it.

Tomorrow is a free day, and we're choosing to stay close to the hotel, rest, maybe walk to the closest park, and get ready to fly to Guangzhou for the last leg of our trip.  We are very much appreciating seeing your homeland, but we are also very much missing those big brothers of yours and can't wait to get home to them in just about a week!!

Love,
Mommy and Daddy