Paul's got a new ride

Sorry but the today's photos will be delayed again . Oh, how I hate computers sometime. Anyways we spent our best $25 in China so far on a stroller for Paul. He is killing Ted's arm (mine too on the rare occasion that I'm allowed to hold him). There's a baby store right by the hotel. We put him in one of their strollers to see how he would react. We assumed that he would cry if we put him in one, nope, he loved it. We pushed him right out of the store in it and went on a long walk. After the walk we pushed him right to our room. Of course he started crying when we got him out. Ted agreed it was money well spent.
Paul is doing better everyday. Today he almost tolerated me. He did say mama many times throughout the day which totally melts my heart. Ted is still the BIG #1!! He can't even go to the bathroom without Paul crying for him. Who knew that Ted was so likable.
I feel kind of bad because we can not pronounce Paul's Chinese name correctly. Yesterday I tried to have our guide teach me how to say his name. He explained that Chenzhou has it's own dialect so Paul probably wouldn't answer to the way he pronounces his name ( which he didn't). This morning our waitress was "all over" Paul as usual and I told her that he was from Chenzhou. Her eyes lit up as she told me that she too was from Chenzhou. I told her that we have been unable to say his name. The very first time she called him "Zhi Qiang" he turned toward her and smiled. For the rest of our breakfast she would walk past saying his name and he would stare right at her. It was pretty cool. He is a terrible tease with all of the waitresses.
We had an interesting experience this morning while we were out sight-seeing. Our driver had dropped our guide off at his office and parked right on the street. The traffic kept moving around us so we assumed that it was okay to park right on the street. Shortly after, the police came over and was firmly speaking to our driver. Our driver doesn't not speak a word of English so we had not idea what was going on. He jump out and was showing the police his license. The officer was yelling and pointing....the driver got on his cell phone and was talking very quickly........meanwhile our guide was nowhere to be found. It was quite entertaining for us. Our guide finally showed back up and jumped in the van, I don't think he wanted to get involved. He was even taking pictures for Mike ( the other guy in our group). Mike was loving every minute off it. The driver finally got his ticket and was allowed to leave. He apologized to us, little did he know that was the best part of our morning tour. His ticket was 100 RMB ( about $8) which our guide was going to have to pay.
Our food in Changsha has been great!! Our guide ( Ashley.... a guy) has been very good about ordering our food for us. After our few meals in Beijing and knowing that all of our good junk food was in the suitcase at home we thought it was going to be a long 2 weeks of eating. We have not had a bad meal yet. Tonight we had American food in our hotel restaurant. Natalie and Ted ordered personal pizzas. They were pretty good except for the fact that they had snow peas on them. Hmmm?? Today I also found a place close to the hotel that sells Diet Pepsi ( yahooooo). I thought I would have to wait until we got to Guangzhou to get any Diet Pepsi. There is plenty of Diet Coke but not DP. Tomorrow, Paul and Mary ( the other little girl in our group) are scheduled for a photo shoot at a local photographer. I guess they dress the kids up in traditional Chinese clothes and make actual hard back books from the pictures. The price is even fairly reasonable.