Spring! Lente! Primavera!

The warm weather of the last days has finally made the flower buds on the trees to break open and engulf the city in a sweet perfume. Since there are cherry trees everywhere in Changchun, it seems the whole city is in full bloom.
Japan is famous for it's cherry blossoms, but I have to say: in all the eight years that I lived in Japan, I don't think I have ever seen so many cherry trees in one city!

Until now, Changchun was a grey and dirty city to me, but at this very moment it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to. It's strange what flowers can do to me. The open bags of garbage lying on the side of the road, the dirty construction sites, even the dust in the air doesn't bother me when I smell the sweet perfume of cherry blossoms. This is, without a doubt, Changchun at it's best!
With all these flowers outside, it would be a waste to stay inside, so I've been going out with Auro at least once a day. Today we walked to the university campus and wherever the branches of the trees were in reach for Auro, we stopped and had a closer 'look'.

One, two, three!

While his father is in Japan writing papers and fixing boats, Auro is busy mastering his 'sitting by himself' skills. He is not quite there yet, but he practices every day. And believe it or not: he doesn't mind tipping over when he looses his balance. He actually seems to like that part the best!

Teeth time

For two days now, Auro has been sucking on his bottom lip and making a lot of smacking sounds. I wonder if he has started teething? I've tried to feel with my fingers in his mouth, but I don't feel anything out of the ordinary... When I offered him a teething rusk however, he took it very eagerly... could that be a sign? Is this it? Or should I prepare myself for lots of crying and sleepless nights?

Little man

Remo left for Japan yesterday and now Auro is the man of the house. He takes this job very seriously and supervises everything I do. When I'm sitting on the sofa, he is sitting in his 'walking chair' pulling at the cables of my computer. When I'm in the kitchen, he is right behind me opening and closing the cupboards. And when I'm in the dining room, he wheels himself under the table so he can pull at the tablecloth. Isn't he the cutest little man in the world?

Tummy time

Three days ago Auro turned 7 months, but he still doesn't show any interest in rolling over from his back to his tummy or the other way around. Sometimes he rolls over from his tummy to his back, but because that seems to surprise him every time, I believe it's more thanks to his imbalance than a desire to return to his back. Even though he loves exploring the apartment, the idea of crawling around by himself does not seem very appealing to him either.
But mama doesn't give up so easily! Two or three times per day I try to stimulate him by putting him on his stomach. It probably will never be his favourite position, but he doesn't cry anymore from the moment he is on his tummy. He'll be ready to crawl when he is ready to crawl! You'll see!

Jilin

This morning we came back from a two days' visit to Jilin. The city of Jilin lies about 120km to the east of Changchun (one and a half hour by bus) and even though it is the capital city of Jilin province, it is considerably smaller than Changchun (1,7 million inhabitants in Jilin versus 2,3 million in Changchun). We also found Jilin to be prettier than Changchun...

On the first day we visited the 'meteorite shower museum', mainly because it was really cold outside (around 0 degrees) and secondly because I had never seen a meteorite before. The museum claims to have the biggest meteorite on display in the world: 1,7 ton! I don't know what I was expecting, but it looked just like an ordinary rock. They also had a smaller meteorite for visitors to touch (10RMB!), so we took Auro out of his stroller and let him touch to his heart's delight. He looked like the first man on the moon!!

On our second day, we walked from our hotel to the other side of the river and visited a Confucian temple. After paying the entrance fee, a lady accompanied us and opened up the buildings as we walked along. She, as most of the people we met in Jilin, was totally crazy about Auro and kept touching and kissing him. Even when she took him out of the stroller, Auro was fine...at least for a while ;-)

In the afternoon we took a taxi to Beishan Park, a hilly park on the outskirts of the city. The main attraction of the park (at least for us) is a beautiful Buddhist temple, but because this temple is situated on the top of one of the hills and we had to climb a lot of stairs, I had to take Auro out of the stroller and carry him. On the way up we left the heavy stroller behind with a lady who was selling good luck charms. On the way back, we bought something from her in return, upon which she presented Auro with a small wooden charm to hang around his neck. Then she either told us that it would make him sleep better or that we should remove it while he is sleeping to prevent him from strangling himself. Just to be sure I've attached it to his bed ;-)

Everywhere in the park Auro was attracting a lot (if not all) the attention of the Chinese. We literally couldn't go 2 paces without people stopping us and asking us all kinds of questions about Auro (of which we only understood two: boy or girl? how old?). He was kissed and photographed by so many people, you would think I was carrying Buddha himself! Even when he was asleep in his stroller, people flocked around him (silently) just to catch a glimpse of him sleeping!

One of the reasons why we made this trip was to find out how easy or difficult it would be to travel with Auro in China. I was especially worried about his sleeping during the night. We had asked for a room with two beds: one for us and one for Auro. We put him in the middle, tucked in the sheets as tight as we could and: he slept the whole night! So traveling in China with Auro turned out to be not too difficult. We will definitely be doing this more often!

Music box

Auro loves music. He especially likes the music from my jewelry box. Even when he is all upset and crying, he starts kicking his legs in excitement as soon as I start winding up the key on the bottom of the box. And when I open the box and put it next to him, he calms down magically.

La legacy of India

During the weekend it was very warm (over 20 degrees), so perfect weather to go out. Today we went to an Indian restaurant downtown. When I found 'la legacy of India' on the internet, we were so happy at the idea of eating curry that we decided to check it out right away. As the information on the internet had mentioned, it wasn't a very fancy place, but the food was goooood!! We ordered so much we couldn't even finish and we paid only 7 euros!
While we were eating curry and nan, Auro had a puree of apple, pear and cauliflower (homemade!) which he seemed to like very much. Today, by the way, was the first time he had solids for lunch. So far he only ate in the morning and in the evening. For some reason I was never able to make him eat more than 2 or 3 spoons at lunch time. Anyway, after his lunch, Auro fell happily asleep on my lap.

Face to face

Usually I cook almost every day, but last Friday we ran out of gas and I haven't been able to use the gas cooker in the kitchen since then. The gas here works with a rechargeable card that you have to insert in a machine in the kitchen. On Friday, Remo took that card to the university and with the help of someone in the office we charged our 'gas card'. However, when Remo tried to insert the card in the machine again, absolutely nothing happened! Today (yesterday was a holiday) the same person who charged the card for us, called the gas company to ask what we should do and they told us to change the batteries in the machine. So, we tried that, but... still nothing!!!

Anyway, because we can't cook, we have basically been eating bread three times per day. So to have a change, we went out for lunch today. We went to eat noodles in 'Face to Face', a restaurant close to the university.

Poverino!

Even though, and probably because, temperatures have gone up the last couple of days (today's maximum temperature is 20 degrees!!!), Auro caught a cold. It started Sunday morning with a light cough, but it got a bit worse towards the evening. During the night his own cough woke him up every hour or so. Needless to say that yesterday was not the best day. He hadn't slept much the previous night and therefore wasn't a very happy baby. He nursed every 2 hours and in between he cried because he was tired. Every time he managed to fall asleep however, his own coughing woke him up again.
Last night he slept fairly well and this morning he looked rather happy again! He still has a stuffy nose and a light cough, but luckily it is not preventing him from falling asleep. He is taking his morning nap now, so I'm being as quiet as I can. We don't want to wake him... he has a lot of catching up to do!!

Plant a tree

It seems that winter in Changchun is finally over: the last couple of days the maximum temperatures were around 15 degrees! So, yesterday and today, we left our caps and gloves at home and went for a long walk. And we were not the only ones! It seems the city is waking up from a long wintersleep: people have traded in their thick wintercoats for lighter and more colourful jackets (and you can actually see faces again!), street vendors are selling fresh fruit (instead of frozen pineapple) and construction workers have started drilling, hammering and doing other noisy things again (day and night!). Also, there are people planting new trees along the road everywhere. Today, when we were out for a walk, we saw 3 trucks loaded with trees entering the university campus. Soon Changchun will be green again!!

To 'celebrate' the coming of spring, we ended our stroll today in a coffeeshop nearby (actually the only coffeeshop in this neighbourhood as far as I know) and treated ourselves to a hot chocolate and some blueberry dessert. Auro, as usual, preferred milk :-)))

beim Arzt

Today, we had an appointment with a pediatrician in the "German village". The German village is a well guarded compound where most of the Germans in Changchun (who work for Volkswagen, I think) live. In this 'village' there also lives a German doctor and twice per month a German lady pediatrician comes from Beijing to treat all the German children.
The doctor examined Auro for about 30 minutes and everything was ok.

Weight: 6,79 kg
Height: 66 cm (but I doubt that a little... I think he is longer...)
Head circumference: 44,5 cm (this was 33,5 cm when he was born)
We have a very healthy boy!!!

Risotto

Today, for the first time, we had a guest for lunch. Han is Remo's student. Remo is in charge of helping him with his research so he can graduate next year. But Han is much more than 'Remo's student'. He has helped us on numerous occasions with things that have nothing to do with physics. If it wasn't for him, we would not have mobile phones, we wouldn't know where the university cafetaria is and we wouldn't know how to get downtown. If it wasn't for Han, I don't know where we would be!

Movie Star

This afternoon, Remo and I took Auro to the university. We had told some of the staff that we were coming, so they were expecting us. What happened was like a scene from a movie: people literally ran out of their offices to see the blue-eyed baby. Cameras (=mobile phones) were flashing everywhere. And before we knew it, Auro was being passed from person to person. It didn't take long, though, before Auro lost sight of his mother and his bottom lip started trembling. And then the tears came.
Almost as soon as he was in my arms again, he calmed down and after some minutes he even felt safe enough to look around him and see himself surrounded by many unfamiliar, but friendly faces.

All the excitement made our movie star tired and on the way home he fell asleep. I didn't want to wake him, so, without taking of his coat, I put him on the sofa as quietly as I could and there he slept for another 15 minutes!

Indulgence

Yesterday, we went to Chonqing Road, the Changchun variant of the Avenue Louise in Brussels. This area is popular for shopping, but it seems to me that it's more the richer part of the people in Changchun who do their shopping here. The street literally begins at the Changchun Shangri-La Hotel. This is usually where we ask the taxi driver to take us, because whichever way we try to say 'Chonqing-lu', we never seem to pronounce it correctly enough for the taxi driver to understand. Starting from the Shangri-La Hotel and ending near the Banrou Temple all the way at the other end of the road (the picture of me and Auro in his stroller was taken in front of the temple walls), there are lots of big department stores as well as smaller shops, cinemas and food stalls.

Our goal yesterday was to buy a small food processor to help me make Auro's fruit and vegetable purees. (The past couple of days I've been pureeing his apples and pears by hand , which works too, but with a blender I can make bigger portions and freeze them!) However, before going to the baby shop (where we also bought the stroller before) , we first went to eat in one of the (as far as I know) only two Pizza Hut's in Changchun, right accross from the Shangri-La. Especially Remo, having some pride left as an Italian, would normally never step into a Pizza Hut, but since there are no other restaurants here that serve pizza, we have been forced to reconsider our 'standards' and have actually become real Pizza Hut regulars: about once every other week we go downtown and treat ourselves to (what we now consider to be) delicious pizza!!
So, after our little indulgence at the Pizza Hut, we walked to the baby shop where we were (as usual) warmly greeted by the whole staff, who , as soon as we had entered, moved all their attention to Auro and surrounded his stroller 'en masse' to talk to him, to touch his cheecks and to (yes!) rearrange his clothes. For some reason mama never dresses her baby properly: when his cap is on, it needs to come off and when he is not wearing it, it is neatly put on again... Anyway, we got the baby food processor, some extra bibs (it's amazing how so little food can make such a mess) and 2 ready-made baby purees for Auro to try (might be handy when we travel, so we need to find out which ones he likes).
By the time we were home again, it was dinner time for Auro, so we tried one of the jars of baby food. The pumpkin-puree looked quite good, but the taste (I tried it) wasn't all that great. Auro ate some of it, but I don't think he'll ever be a big fan. It nevertheless resulted in a very 'colourful' picture!