And we still haven't found the statue of the five goats

There is a lovely park across the street from our hotel and we thought it would be an easy morning to go walk around in it. There is supposed to be a fairly well-known statue of five goats and the last time we were here, we spent a long time walking around looking for it and never did. Well, we didn't find it this time, either.

The weeks of travelling have begun to take their toll on these girls and both of them had complete and total meltdowns in the park. We ended up with J. carting R. out on his back and P. carting Y. It was not our most successful of outings. 

Here are some pictures I got before our little nuclear reactors went off-line. Since the lunar new year is very soon, everyone is getting ready for it. There is evidently going to be some huge doings in this park because we saw huge amounts of decorations being constructed. I kind of wish we could see it.

I also continue to appreciate the degree to which the Chinese people make use of their parks. There are groups of dancers or people doing tai chi. People playing games. And this group of musicians who had set up shop and were playing traditional Chinese music.

We managed to get the girls back, gave them some lunch, and then they rested. Life was much better after that. They went to the outside play area and blew some bubbles for a while, while I waited in the room to hear the results of their TB tests from yesterday. They were both negative, so no chest x-rays needed. Hooray!

This evening we had dinner with some families from our travel group at a restaurant that serves food from Macau. Macau was a Portuguese colony and their food is a mixture of Chinese and Portuguese... it was very good.

At bedtime, J. happened to be looking at a science article that included a clip of Glenn Gould playing piano. Y. became transfixed. Utterly and completely transfixed. So, we looked up other pianist playing on You Tube. She sat through a Bach prelude, a Mozart sonata, and a Rachmaninoff concerto and complained when we wouldn't show her any more. She watched intently, sometimes clapping if something really appealed to her, and sometimes moving her head to the music. Every so often she would point to herself and then point to the picture of the piano. She is an unusual child.

Truly, though, do you want to hear my best part of the day? Y. has not really wanted to have very much to do with me over the past couple of weeks. She will take me in a pinch, but it is grudging and she much prefers J. and P. I seem to be a tolerated nuisance. As a result, I've been keeping my distance and trying to only have positive interactions with her. Well, multiple times today this child has come to seek me out and give me a hug. Tonight she kissed me on the cheek when I tucked her in. I cannot even begin to tell you how happy this makes me.

R. seems to be over the worst of the effects from the impending seizure and we did catch it in time. She definitely improved over the course of the day and was back to being her sunny self by dinner time. J. and I agreed that the emergency drugs are riding with us in our carry-on for the ride home.

Tomorrow morning we must be in the hotel lobby at 7:30 am (gah!) to go to the US Consulate for the girls' visa interviews and the oath. It is the last step of a very long process. The count down until we can come home is starting.

Oh, and in the continuing saga that is Gretel's existence, whatever all of you are praying, keep it up, as it seems to be working. She had some more tests done, and though her platelet counts are low, she does not seem to have other terribly dire things wrong with her. The vet (who has been wonderful and has been keep five different people, all with different email addresses in the loop) is now thinking that it is a tick born illness and has given her some strong antibiotics to see if they can knock it out of her. Pray that these drugs will (finally) do the trick and we can stop worrying about the dog on top of everything else!