day 4

This moring we slept till 730 as Sunny and our driver whose name i cannot pronounce weren't coming until 11am.  I checked yahoo real quickly and realized all the storms /tornados that pounded north carolina yesterday.  We got in touch with Vicki quickly and she told us that Charlotte didnt get hit with the storm. 

 

We ate a big western breakfast as usual which is included in our hotel and very good.  We were seated next to what was obviously an adoption travel group.  There wer four of 5 families from denmark or sweeden, based on their accents.  We think they were ALL adpting little boys. At least on had an older girl that was previously adopted.  Joyce and I wanted to show Maggie and Grace the Carrefore so we headed over.  Ann came too.  It was almost as crowded as last time.  We were searching for goggles, eye drops and sun glasses.  We missed the sunglasses but managed to get the others and a few more snacks. 

 

Sunny bought the girls each 3 cartoon movies in chinese today.  She is very sweet.  Today we went to a local market, where the main products were fish (aquairium), birds, turtles and kites.  Sunny bought some leather and fake gucci. She was so excited.  she helped the girls buy mini chestnuts, the kind you dont eat. They are highly coveted by the chinese and they buy them in pairs.  you use them for relaxation and to exercise your hands. The more the nuts look alike, the more expensive they are.  Some pairs were 1000 yuan, which is about 155 us dollars.  We settled for tiny ones (the girls were buying from their vacation allowance)  Sunny helped them get some for 20 yuan each, about 6 bucks if I am doing the math right.  This conversion gets very tiresome and after a while, it's like, oh, just buy it who cares what the conversion is.  The market was very fun overall and the weather was awesome. Oh, and the girls all want to bring chinchillas and bunnies with us all the way home. Our driver, who I am not sure Ive mentioned yet, is a guy in his 50's who has been pretty quiet up till today and doesnt speak any english that we can tell.  We have determined he is a nice guy, and he has warmed up to the girls today.  He came into the marke with us. He actually picked the market and did some shopping himself.

 

After market we went to a popular Peking Duck restaurant.  It was very very good.  Maggie was apprehensive about eating duck at first but caught on quickly. We also had pork, spicy chicken, chinese veggies, corn, veggieballs with teriaki sauce.  There was so much to eat,.  First we ordered 2 ducks but then cancelled one.  Sunny says chinese people eat a lot more than americans.  I don't understand how that can be possible, based on the size of us vs. her.  Sunny ate with us today but the driver was too "shy" to eat with us.

 

After lunch we went to the Chinese government office that helped us arrange the trip (BLAS), and the chinese governement office that performs that adoptions.  We saw the famous "matching room" where babies are paired with families.  We asked to see our files but it was an unsurprising "no." I got to meet the girl I have been conversing with all these months for the arrangements and she was just like I pictured her to be. .. 20something and cute and outgoing. The BLAS employees were very nice and gave the girls gifts of Panda bears, nice papercutout books and puzzles of china.  It was very nice.  They seemed happy to see us.  Sunny has been teaching the girls a chinese song (like afolk tale) and the girls performed it to BLAS.  I think the staff enjoyed it. 

 

We got dropped at the hotel around 5pm.  the girls are at the pool and I have been catching up on the blog for 1.5 hours.  Will try to post some pictures.