Simming, Shopping, and Sight Seeing!

We had a good day today although started off with a little rocky start. This morning Sarah showered and got dressed, but did not want to go to breakfast. Instead, she just wanted to watch tv. So we thought she just needed some "her" time so we went ahead up to the 20th floor where the breakfast buffet is. About half way through breakfast, Kevin says "You don't think she hopped in a taxi and is headed back for the orphanage?" While he was kidding, all the sudden I started eating faster! But, when we came back to the room she was watching tv! Whew!

We toured Fuzi Temple this morning which is along the Qinhua River. Fuzi Temple is very famous as it is where Confucius taught his students. Now, it is a tourist area with lots of souvenir shops so I'm not sure what Confucius would think about that! But it was a beautiful sight and to this day people come to the temple to leave a red ribbon for their children in hopes that the child will go on to college and follow in the ways of Confucius. Several of the red ribbons have just recently been put up with the children's name and birth date -- one was for a child just born one week ago.

And then we did a bit of shopping! It's amazing how inexpensive things are here relative to the US. There are higher end stores but most stores are VERY reasonable. We stopped by a book store and bought 3 Harry Potter DVDs for about $3.50 each -- when we get back to the hotel and Kevin starts one up in the computer Sarah says "Harry Potter" and we said "Have you seen this?" and she says "yes." Humph ... guess that's $3.50 down the drain! Ha!

Our guide stopped us by an electronics store today and we bought an English/Chinese translator which looks like a little flip-top calculator but allows Sarah to type in Chinese words and read them in English (and the machine will pronounce it for her) and then allows us to type in an English word for her to see in Chinese. It's already been very helpful!

Sarah has not wanted to pick out any clothing for herself and she's wearing the last pair of pants we have for her today. So I asked her if she wanted to go shopping and she said "No" and said that I should shop for her. She really does not like to select things so don't know if she is worried about prices or just that she hasn't had many opportunities to select her own things. We are sure it will come with time. So Kevin stayed in the room with her and helped her write an email in pinyin (Chinese words using the English language but with four kinds of accents) to her friend who already lives in the states and I headed out to try to pick up a few things. I came home with two pair of pants, a pair of jeans, two shirts, pjs and some undergarments -- all for about $60 US. She seemed to like everything except she said the pjs looked too big, but that's not a problem in my mind.

Right before I left for shopping Kevin and I headed to the little grocery store about a block away. We both needed our hotel room keys because the only way the elevator moves is if you insert the key. But, the only way the lights work in the room is if the key is inserted in the wall. So we figured she was watching tv and the curtains were open with the sun coming in that she wouldn't need the lights on. When Kevin got back, the little smarty bear had taken a small sheet of paper, folded it over and slide it down into the key slot to get the lights to work! We said something to her about how smart that was and she just rolled her eyes like "Seriously, it wasn't anything!"

In late afternoon we headed down to the pool as Sarah has been very interested in going swimming. This was more of an "experience" than we would have thought! The pool here is more like a "day spa" where you escorted to the dressing room, given a private keyed locker, sandals, etc. When us girls finally got out to the pool Kevin was already in and had this horrible looking swim cap on! We were laughing at him until he pointed behind us and we saw a man coming toward us with two more swim caps! Seems you MUST wear one in the pool. And, you MUST wear the provided sandals from the dressing area to wherever you get into the pool! We finally pulled Sarah out about 1-1/2 hours later as we were turning into prunes, but I think she would have stayed all day!

Tonight we are watching some type of Chinese show that reminds me of the Three Stooges, only set in ancient China! There is a lot of ear pulling, being hit in the head, etc. She is just laughing away which is quite wonderful to hear!

Thanks to everyone who has left messages on the blog. We have found a way to view the blog from China, but have a friend uploading the text and photos for us. But we are not able to read any of the messages, but hope to be able to when we reach Guangzhou. But we can't thank you all enough for stopping by and sharing in our joy!

Here are a few more photos! One is one Sarah with two of the teachers when we visited the children's room at the orphanage; chickens cooked in clay and laying in a pile waiting to be bought, taken home, broken out of the clay and eaten; view along Qinhaou River, red ribbons at the Fuzi Temple; and Baba and Sarah.