Wednesday

Long day out touring today. First stop - Pearl Market. This is the place that many jewelry businesses around the world come to buy pearls and other jewelry wholesale. So the prices are very good. I had googled buying pearls last night and what to look for, so I knew the basics. But other than that, I pretty much listened to our guide and the salesclerk and told them what I was looking for, and what I liked. Then we went to Lychee Bay Park - a very large and pretty park with canal ways throughout and waterfalls, etc. A group of teenage girls came up to our group, and one of them asked David why we had Chinese children with us. After he told them, we had adopted them, they kind of absorbed it for a minute. Then our guide came up and explained a few things to them in Chinese, and they then went up to each family and said thank you, etc.

Afterwards we went to a Chinese Restaurant in a park near our hotel. Our guide ordered several different dishes for us and we had our own little buffet. Everything was really delicious and inexpensive - all 3 of us were able to eat a lot of food for about $13 US total. I've been trying to find a store that has stuff for kids to play with, but without luck. Just basics - coloring books, playdough, bubbles, etc. It's probably here right under our noses somewhere close. I may ask our guide about it later. She's pretty busy with so many families to take care of, and to get to their various appointments, transportation, - not to mention so many details with paperwork, etc...

Tomorrow we head to our consulate appointment where we go through some sort of ceremony where we swear to take good care of our children and never abandon them. Sarah (another mom in our group) went through her appointment a couple of days ago. Her friend came to the ceremony too, and they all dressed up. But she said that it was just someone behind a 'bank tellers window' sort of thing, that had people repeat after her, etc. - rather anti-climactic. She has adopted from the Ukraine before, and she said their ceremony was a much bigger deal there. I'm not sure that we have anything 'scheduled' for tomorrow other than our respective appointments. Then Friday we get Kaleb's Visa and take the train to Hong Kong, where we stay overnight and take a flight out on Saturday. We'll see how Kaleb does with a 13 hour plane trip to Detroit, then another 2 hour trip to St. Louis. We're very excited to see everyone back home!

Hope your Wednesday goes well. It seems strange to be finishing our Wednesday up just as you're about to start yours.