Shopping on Xia Jiu Lu Shopping Street

Last night, Mary Alice did nail polish. Even toes! Shanna was thrilled and walked around holding her hands up for an hour afterwards, not touching anything, even though we showed her they were dry! She clearly had experience with this and it was definitely a special treat.

These are the roses that were in our room when we arrived. They are so lovely. 

Grandma and her two darlings.

Shanna took this picture.

We have met some really nice families on our trip. These people are all with our agency, so we are together often, now. They  joined us from different provinces. This little boy is so cute. He smiles and watches everything. He is just a year old.

The little girl that Megan is with is adorable. She can only see light and shadow but she is amazing at getting around and communicating. Megan ADORES her. They came to visit us in our room this afternoon and played together, then we went to the climber together. The video is Megan singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", with a few missing words. :)

She inspired Megan to go up and down the slide a hundred times!

Grace and Baba. She tucks her head a lot to avoid the light, but she is very comfortable and content.

Today was shopping day and we went to the shopping market street. This is a four story pearl & gem market.

Store after store of gems and stones. It's overwhelming.

These are bead animals.

This is the jade market. Stall after stall of jade. What on earth do all these people do with so much jade? We didn't buy anything, as the prices were high, even the best price. Although everything was very beautiful.

Here is a view of the alley where the jade market was. Each opening is a store filled with  jade beads and jewelry.

And for some reason there was incense everywhere. It was very crowded, too.

This is a giant McDonald's in the square.

The thing on the right is fried tentacles on a stick. Otherwise known as squid-kabobs or squid-sicles.

More choices.

More housing.

A shopper.

Riding in style.

This is a staircase in our hotel. Megan sure is learning lots of poses from these Chinese women.

This tree went up in the hotel lobby yesterday. It is sooooo tall!!

Mary Alice thought this looked like someone we know? Any guesses??  Hint: it's not Minister Tim!!

Christmas fashions......

See us at the bottom of the building?

See the tiny dots at the top?

They are cleaning the outside of the building--- not even washing the windows!! Can you say airsick???

A view of our hotel.

This building has scaffolding all around it. All the way up to the top.

Things are going very well for us. We returned to the medical clinic today to get the TB tests read and all the children in our group were negative, thank goodness. Now, the next step is to wait for our consulate appointment on Wednesday, and then receive Shanna's visa in the afternoon. Then we have to wait about 48 hours before we can leave the country, which means we cannot fly out until Saturday morning. For anyone who likes to plan ahead, you are invited and welcome to join us for a homecoming at the airport. We are due to arrive from Newark at 8:30pm. I am not going to say which airport, (for security-since this is an open blog) and I assume most people will know if this is local for them or not. If for some reason you are confused, please email me. Our friends, Kathy & Jeff will bring us our minivan so we can bring our family back home.

Shanna is learning new words every day. She repeats things willingly and uses the signs we are teaching her. Today she learned banana, more please and cracker! She can count in English up to 10, but she forgets 6 for some reason. It's better than I can do in Chinese. I can only get up to 3.

We are all hanging in there. Eating out twice a day is tough for me, but everyone else seems to be doing ok. We are sticking with McDonalds, Subway, KFC (which I don't like) and a place that we found called Oggi's. It's an Italian food restuarant which has lots of good choices and good service. They have a really good pizza and an avocado chicken salad. Plus they are completely peanut free. A very important factor.
 
I really miss my cats and am starting to long for home. I am grateful, however, that I don't have to cook or clean for a while longer.