Changsha Day 5 – Thursday Oct 29th

We were up early again about 5:30am. I caught up on a couple of emails and in fact caught Chris Dettling still in the office from the night before your time. It’s nice to think that at some point I’m still close enough to get a small exchange in real time.

First things first, Nora pooped this morning and just now again as she was getting up from her afternoon nap. Thank you God.

After walking down to the Wacko Market for bottled water, Mamie met us in the hotel’s lobby for today’s sightseeing tour. The first stop was Martyr’s Park that was adjacent to the Provincial Museum that we went to yesterday. The "Martyrs" to which the park refers, are the soldiers that died during the civil war. (Mamie’s term) I think it would be what we’d think of as the last revolution.

Martyr’s Park is the Central Park of Changsha. It was beautiful and it appears that many neighborhood people go there to hangout throughout the day. We saw a lot of grandparents with grandbabies, others that were exercising, dancing, playing music both singularly and in more organized groups, it wasn’t uncommon to see two groups playing music within feet of each other. There was also antiquated amusement park.

Mamie had prepared me for Nora and I being a bit of an oddity, but I have to say that Nora got many more stares than I did. That something that I think we’ll have a lifetime of getting use to.
Next stop was the embroidery factory; really it seemed more like a retail outlet with a few workers there to show off the process. The work was amazing but the prices were just too much to think about buying anything. On top of which, I’d have to get it home (already framed) in one piece. I’m already worried about the luggage factor with Nora in tow now too. I didn’t want to add framed art to that problem.

Tomorrow evening we move on to Guangzhou but we have nothing planned til check out at 4pm. I’ll write more about the car honking and the incredibly hard bed.