May 24: Guangzhou, Day 2, Shopping

What a blessedly uneventful day!

GG woke up happy around 7:15 and delighted in turning on the lights and
awaking jie-jie (older sister.) Our room was up and ready to go fairly
early, but the boys (specifically Anakin & LilDude) slept until well after
9am, giving LilDude a 14-hour night. He seemed better today with only
minimal cold symptoms and very little ear pain.

After breakfast, we decided to try our luck at shopping. Dh, in
particular, enjoyed bargaining. He searched for a chess set and wanted to
visit several shops to find the one he wanted most. This worked in his
favor as clerks would start out telling him a particular set was 320RMB
and then follow him out of the store saying it was now 150RMB. After
comparison shopping he went back to the 150 location and was told it was
200. When he reminded them that they’d said 150, they said, “Ah, good
memory” and gave him the price agreed upon.

We broke up the afternoon with naps and then shopped a bit more before
meeting the rest of the group for a good, but very expensive Italian meal.
You know you’re in trouble when a can of soda is 28RMB (or about $4 U.S.)
But the meal gave us new insights into GG’s tastes; apparently, lasagna is
on the “okay” list. He was quite disappointed to learn that his meal was
limited to what our family ordered; he was only too happy to make friends
with the people sitting opposite us when he thought their pizza looked
better than what we were having.

It’s sorta the same lesson he learned later in the day…that “just because
you hold a toy in a store doesn’t mean it’s yours.” Tonight at dinner, one
mom in our group (who also happens to have 5 kids and also adopted a
3-year-old who is only 3 days younger than GG), said that she is convinced
that shopkeepers are telling our kids to “pick up the toys you want and
tell mom and dad to get it for you,”…all in Chinese, of course. I
seriously thought one clerk must have told him that today. She followed us
around and handed him a series of toys. I had to pry several out of his
hot little hands (accompanied by screaming.) You might say, “Why didn’t
those mean parents just buy him the toys?” Hehe. You want to spend 13+
hours on a plane with a toy that sings the exact same, loud, annoying
electronic phrase in Chinese??? Hmmmm???? If so, come to China! They have
a wide variety of very loud, cheap, electronic toys to choose from.

It rained most of the day. We put away our umbrellas for the walk back to
the hotel from the restaurant. That was it for dry skies. I’m again in a
room with two boys who are supposed to be sleeping. LilDude went right to
sleep. GG has gotten up about 6 times or more. I just carry him back to
bed, give him a kiss, and say night night.

Tomorrow are medical examinations for all the kids. And SHOTS for GG. One
of the new, unfortunate realities of the Hague convention is that he must
be completely caught up on his shots in order to enter the U.S. Anyone
else find it ironic that although he is my child, I cannot control whether
or not he gets shots? If I was on U.S. soil I could. But since I’m here,
the U.S. government is forcing me to get my child shots…shots that may
very likely be substandard and will have to be redone, stateside. Hague
children are routinely having to get between two and six shots at their
appointments. Nice thing to do right before flying, dontcha think? If they
don’t already have a fever for some other reason, six shots is surely
enough to give them cause.

It was a great, uneventful day. Very thankful.