On Thursday we packed our bags and set off for Beijing.
This is the view from our hotel
The hotel is very cool. It’s one of those ones with six different overpriced restaurants, about twelve staff in the foyer at all times, and so on. We had some classic Chinese-culture difficulties immediately upon our arrival. We ordered a cot months ago, and when we arrived (exhausted from a moderately epic journey featuring about two hours of postpartum/lack of sleep psychosis from yours truly) they informed us that they had no cot, had never had a cot, and would give us a free bed (yeah, thanks).
CJ and I realised that having the mattress on the floor would make it safer (and of course removing every scrap of extraneous bedding to lower the risk of SIDS) but poor CJ had to try to explain our logic to five different people who were obviously very disturbed by our peculiar parenting methods, and would we like more pillows?
In order to help the poor staff cope (SIDS-safe beds look incredibly barren if you don’t know about the decades of life-saving research) we decorated Louisette’s bed with a variety of pink items, and all the toys we brought with us. They did eventually take away the frame, and it’s a good thing too – last night she fell out of bed (no real problem, since she fell about three inches onto carpet, feet first). (And today one of Bonnie and Bil’s friends has brought us a portacot, so that’s good. Someone else we’ve never met has lent us a stroller.)
Another staff member is determined to practise his Australian colloquialisms on us – G’day mate, hooroo, etc. It adds that surreal element you’d miss if it wasn’t there during a trip to China.
And then we rested.
Poor Louisette gets sleepy, but she’s just too excited to stop looking around. Then she gets much, much more tired. Observe her expression as we tried to settle her into the room:
I was still having large-scale hallucinations, so I didn’t leave the hotel that whole first day. CJ was rather impressed by the local Wal-Mart (an exotic place, to Australians) and their pet section:
My hallucinations have now stopped (CJ and his parents took Louisette away for six hours during the day today so I could sleep), but I’m still having dizzy spells so I’m being careful.
Right now I’m using public internet at a bar, which sadly I won’t be visiting every day. I’ll be as consistent as I can with blogging, but this *IS* China, so no promises. If you’re dying to know I’m not dead, you can check Project 365 (under Louise Curtis) for one new photo a day.
*No, I don’t know what that means. Welcome to Beijing.