Park And Pearls

Our second day in Guangzhou began pretty low key.  It was nice to have time in the morning to just take our time and not have to be out the door at a certain time.  We didn't have a great night sleep as Ellie's tummy and teeth seem to be bothering her.  She also has had her world turned upside down in the last 7 days.  So we just keep loving on our little girl and take it a day at a time. 

I can't believe that just 7 days ago this little girl was placed in our arms and now is wrapped tightly around our hearts. 

We have discovered Ellie loves books. It is fun to see her trying to use her little hands to try to open the flaps in this book.  Every day her fingers and hands get a little stronger.  I know that in no time we will see her flipping those pages. 

We have also discovered that our little girl loves music.  She bobs her little head when we put music on.  

Later in the morning we walked to a beautiful park that is just down the road from our hotel.  One of the things I love about China is walking through the parks.  

They are beautiful and the people in them make them even more beautiful. 

Today we saw a group of women dancing when we first entered the the park.  

The paths around the park were absolutely beautiful.  

I loved all the trunks of the trees along the path. 

The were trees that grew in very interesting angels through out the park. 

The paths were around a beautiful lake that was full of water lilies. 

We continued walking taking it all in. 

Miss Ellie continues to soak up cuddle time with daddy when we are out and about! She isn't going to know what hit her next week when daddy has to go back to work. 

There were men and women reading, painting and doing other art.  This man was writing on large papers in the park. 

We have no idea what this building is in the park but it was stunning! 

It was a beautiful day to take in the park and the Chinese culture.  I am sure we will make our way back there before we head home. 

In the afternoon we did some power shopping with Ann.

Ann is known as Ann of Red Thread in the states.  You can order care packages or birthday cakes through her for your child.  She will get them to the orphanage or foster home for you.  She often will get updates photos for you as well.  In the morning she had gone with a family as a translator to visit the child's foster mom.  We used her to help us doing some shopping. She knows exactly where to go and where to get the good quality items.  

Our first stop was for traditional Chinese silks.  

I had my little notebook of the kids measurements and a tape measure.  We went to town finding silks for the kids and getting extras for the years to come as they grow. 

Look at that smile on Eric's face. Shopping is his least favorite thing to do ... let along shopping in China.  What a sport.  Ellie was a great sport as well. 

We stopped at the silk scarf shop ...

and the porcelain shop. 

We left that market and made our way on foot to the Pearl Market.  It was a crazy walk and keeping up with Ann was even crazier.  She is a woman on a mission.  We often fell behind and she told us not to be so gentle on the streets.  She would walk and shout out commands in Chinese and it seemed as those the sea of people would part for her.  Like I said she was a woman on a mission.

There are certain sights and smells from China that will always be part of our experience.  You could walk the streets of many China towns and see similar things. There are people on bikes with their pots of potatoes ...

or corn. 

People are pushing carts of food through the streets or on the sidewalks. 

There are carts parked all over selling various things.  This man was selling fresh squeezed juice. 

You will often seen men pushing large loads through the streets. 

We finally made it to the Pearl Factory.  The Pearl Factory is overwhelming.  It is floors and floors of pearl shops. Each shop has bags and bags of pearls. We went there when we adopted Max and had no idea what were were doing or where to even start looking.  I was wearing the pearl pendant that I bought when we were here adopting Max.  Ann informed me she would never let a client by something like that ... it was only worth $3 US dollars.  Hmmm yes that is the very reason we didn't buy too many pearls last time around.  We were clueless. 

We followed Ann as she made her way to a little shop and in no time there were strings of pearls all over the glass counter and she was moving strands left and right studying the quality that the store owner had laid out.  

She asked to put some away and bring out others.  We just watched and listened. 

Miss Ellie and I trying to decided on which strand of pearls would be hers for her wedding day.  

Next they brought out the single pearls and we picked some out and I ran with Ann to another shop to pick out the hardware.  We bought it and brought it back and watched them put our pendants together.  It was pretty amazing.  

Miss Ellie looked on as they strung her pearls. 

 There were three women in the store helping us and they were ooing and awing over Ellie and asking Ann all kinds of questions about her.  I could tell they were talking about her bow after a while.  Ann informed me that in China kids only wear white on their head for a funeral ... oops!  Ann told me she didn't really care and we were Americans so we could do what ever we wanted.  It makes me wonder how many other things we do that leave the Chinese very confused or even offended. 

 We finished the night with a stop on Shamian Island for dinner.  We stayed on Shamian Island when we adopted Max so ate at a variety of resturants there.  We decided to hit one of our favorite Tai Resturant called Cow and Bridge.  

We had another great day in Guangzhou and are starting the count down until we board a plane and bring Ellie home !