Trip to China
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Tuesday, August 26, 2008 Today was a day to explore Guangzhou, to shop, and to sail on a cruise for dinner on the Pearl River. For Eva, it meant a lot of being carried around from shopping trips to the dinner cruise but we also had a fair amount of play time. Play time for Eva consists mostly of grabbing our hands and toddling along as fast as possible across the floor of our hotel room. Eva has a circuit she likes to run from one end of the hotel room to the other, stopping to be lifted to view herself in the mirror. She also loves her stacking cups and other assorted toys. But mostly she delights in playing with us and with learning to do what she wants to do most which is practicing her walking, standing, cruising, toddling and climbing. She is the ultimate curious toddler. And, any question we had about whether to install baby gates, cover our outlets or otherwise baby proof the house has been laid to rest by her insatiability curiosity and sense of adventure. The first stop of the day was a taxi ride to the Pearl Market in downtown Guangzhou. We exited the cab at a huge square adorned with old stone gates and emblazoned with Coca Cola, McDonalds and KFC ads. Picture Times Square on steroids. What we found was that the open air shopping mart went on for block after endless block and, even for a Tuesday morning, was teeming with people even by 11 am. Inside one huge shopping area our CCAI representative showed us to two pearl stores where the quality was apparently very good. But what was fascinating about this "mall" was that as the wholesale market for jewelers from all over the world, one could see that each shop had a specialty from cubic zirconia to gems to pearls and was mostly selling wholesale to jewelers world wide. The pearls were lovely and every color. After pearl shopping we wandered through the open air markets for a long time mostly searching for fun t-shirts for Daniel. Everywhere you look the Chinese are wearing very fun and cool t-shirts many of which have completely nonsensical English phrases and slogans written on them. Unfortunately, far too many of the t-shirts were intended for women only but the search was fun and Eva was snug in the carrier. Also, because we had left the group behind, it was just the two of us wandering through the market places and taking in that we are really in China. Not ancient China but modern, consumerist, capitalist, hip and fashion-conscious China. Teeming with people and sounds and music and sights. Although we heeded the precautionary advice not to buy food from the street stands, some of it looked amazing, especially the skewers of grilled squid. After more bottles in a department store and at home, and more play time, we headed out with some of our group to a dinner cruise on the Pearl River, Surrounded by another 25 families or so (our little group is 12 families but the entire CCAI group this trip is 40 families) we cruised down the very dirty waters of the Pearl River as darkness blanketed the city and transformed the river into a magical landscape of neon lights, videos projected on buildings and light sparkling off the waves of the river. The pictures show some of the neon but only being there could convey the dazzling quality of all the lights and the sheer size of the city scape as we floated past. One photo is of the Jiang Yue hotel -- Jiang Yue or Jiangyue is Eva's Chinese name (it means magical pearl river), and so the picture is a must take. On the way out of the ferry building, we managed to avoid the entreaties of a man selling tricks performed by a monkey held on a leash. It wasn't a cute or charming moment, it was kind of a bummer for the grownups some of whom feared getting bit and contracting monkey pox. Daniel didn't even attempt to snap a photo. Luckily Eva and the other little girls were too young and too tired to notice. Two more days here before we can head home to our Louis and Nathaniel. Mostly two more days of running around the hotel room with Eva, and shopping for gifts while we wait for the U.S. Consulate to finish processing our forms. Then we can fly home to meet and kiss and hug Eva's big brothers and begin our life together as a family of five! Love to all --

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