Wednesday in Urumqi was our free day. We slept in (OK, well Noelle slept until 2, watched a video, then fell asleep again until 8 or so) and then went down for breakfast at the buffet. Then we walked up the street a bit and back to kill time, because the department store Lily sent us to for clothes didn’t open until 11. Then, we went clothes shopping for Peng. The attendants thought we were funny. 
We’d ride the elevator up a floor and there would be ladies there to great us. I’d point at Peng and ask if they had clothes for him on this floor and they’d point us upstairs. Turns out the kids’ section was on the 4th floor. We had 2+ sales ladies all to ourselves. Peng got shirts and pants that fit (he’s really only in a 3/4 at the moment) and both kids got new, blue, Garfield sneakers. Shopping was a hoot, though Noelle was a bear. The poor thing, like most of us, does not do well on less than the required amount of sleep.
In the afternoon, we went swimming. After lunch, I pulled out the swimsuits and we talked to Peng about swimming. If you remember, he’d wanted to do it that first day and the fact that we had not had made him upset. This afternoon he kept saying no to the swimsuit. Daddy showed him the flashcard of a fellow swimming and Peng kept insisting, no. Daddy had it right. He thought maybe Peng was worried it would be too deep (he kept pointing to the white space way below the swimmer on the flash card and shaking his head no). So, we called Lily and she spoke with Peng. It turns out he wanted to watch first (it may have been that he told Lily he was scared and she suggested he just watch at first). So, down we went to the pool. Noelle and I got into the little pool and goofed off. Pretty soon, Peng was ready. When he and Daddy went to get into the pool wearing their T-shirts, the attendants came over to ask them to take off the shirts. We showed them Peng’s back and they indicated it would be just fine for Peng to continue to wear his shirt — clearly they didn’t want to scare off the other patrons (I think the hotel rents use of the pool to locals). Peng *loved* it. He was stiff as a board for most of it and shivering within 10 minutes (as he has no body fat), but he loved it. The next day he talked to Lily about it and said, “I can swim and I like it!” This kid is as adventursome as they come.
That evening, we went out to dinner at Pizza Hut. Sadly, Peng does not like pizza. I hope that he eventually acquires the taste. We ordered the pizza and I asked the waitress to ask Peng what he wanted to drink. She read through all the options to him and he selected hot chocolate. His eyes went huge when the steaming drink came out. He really liked it, though he played with it more than drank it. He told Lily about it the next day and she explained to us that it was his first cup, ever, of hot chocolate. He’s a problem solver, like Noelle. He asked for some of Daddy’s coke with the ice cubes. We poured it into a cup for him and he fished out the ice cubes to put in the hot chocolate.
Speaking of Noelle, where was she through all of this? Well, she fell asleep in the stroller on the way to Pizza Hut. She slept through the jostling of Daddy carrying her in the stroller up and down the stairs of the pedestrian overpass and into the restaurant, slept through us moving her from the stroller to the bench seat, slept through our putting her back in the stroller, and slept through the night till 2 or 3 or so. But Momma was pretty smart … we brought the leftover pizza back to the hotel room and Noelle ate it for “dinner” when she woke up in the wee hours of the morning.
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