And the shopping begins...

Monday, Dec 6th

This morning we met up with our group to get our kiddos TB tests read. Zhilu’s was fine, and then we were free to enjoy our day. Myself and two other moms (with kiddos in tow!) decided to venture off the island to do some shopping. I was excited to figure out how to be able to do it again, when I’m going stir crazy at the end of the week and needing an escape. It was nice to be back in “real” China again, instead of this sheltered Disney-esque experience here on the island (which I love, too, but need variety). I was on a quest to find diapers, and didn’t manage that, but we did find McDonalds! I realized that the location we ended up in is where our travel group is headed back to tomorrow, so I’ll have time to look around again.










We headed back after eating lunch, and I was able to get Zhilu to nap… yay! Mama napped too… I love it. After we got up, we played a bit, walked a bit, shopped a bit (found some GREAT deals!), and then headed out to dinner with friends. Zhilu has this lovely habit of throwing his food once he’s done with his meal, and he has these crazy go-go-gadget arms that seem to reach EVERYTHING, so he’s an interesting one to bring to these nice restaurants. But we made it through, and he was hanging in enough to do some more strolling and window shopping. (Do you notice a theme to our time here… eat and shop! )

We stopped back by the store that had the great deals earlier for a bit more shopping… I found a marionette dragon that I had been willing to pay more than $30 for at our local FCC auction, priced here for about $6. I love it! I remember Mom and I getting some really good deals at this store last time. The frustrating thing about shopping here is that many of the merchants are open to haggling… and I just hate doing that. So I love to come to a store where she just gives you the lowest price. The particular item I bought was 65 RMB, and at several other shops, the price had been about 110-120 RMB. For the exact same item! The shop owner is super sweet, too… she asked me if she could take my picture, to add to her book of customers. And she gave me (and my friends) several free gifts just for shopping in there. I’ll definitely be heading back!



We headed back to the hotel and did a quick spin through the playroom… Zhilu is getting bored with it already. But he LOVED wearing his very first pair of squeaky shoes… (and mama will be removing the squeaker probably ASAP, since they drive me bonkers!) . Then back to the room for skyping with Daddy and the girls. Zhilu had a lovely temper tantrum right in the middle of it, and the girls thought it was hilarious when I pointed the webcam at him and they saw him rolling around on the floor kicking his legs. I told them to get ready for it! He’s all boy, and he’s all two…. It may be funny over webcam, but it’s going to be less so in real life.

After that we did his bath, which he loved again and was back to being all smiles. Then it was snack and bed-time. He fell asleep a lot easier today, which is good, so I am back on schedule with all my blogging.

I’m including a picture of the children’s school, which is right next to our hotel. The older children were still in school at 8:00pm… what a long day for them! It seems like the younger children get dismissed earlier. When Zhilu and I were out walking before dinner, some young girls stopped us and wanted to chat. It was so cute, they obviously were just learning English and could say very simple things like “What is your name”, “Where are you from”, and the very best “You are our friend”. Adorable! And they giggled and acted all shy, but they really sounded great. The funniest thing was that they each had already picked an American name for themselves… similar to what we experience with all the guides around here, and the shop owners. They were “Kelly” and “Minnie”. Too cute!


So, our hotel being next to this school is very interesting… during nap time, it was obviously band-practice time. Thank goodness both Zhilu and I could sleep through anything, cause it is SO noisy here… and they’ve got a PA system that just blares so very loudly. I don’t remember this from last time, but last time there were some crazy noisy animals on the roof, so maybe this is the trade-off.

I found out tonight that we are exactly one floor lower than the room I was in with Leah… same room, though. I was setting up with a guide here to go shopping tomorrow and she said “I have your room number written as 3588”… it was our room number from last time. This time around its 3488. It would have been neat to have been in the exact same room, but this is close enough.

So tomorrow is another big day of shopping! In the morning, our group is headed back to the shopping area we visited today… I’m hoping to window shop and be ready for our shopping trip with a guide later in the afternoon. Ann runs a care package service which we used a few times to send things to Zhilu in the orphanage, but she also offers personal shopping service where she takes you around to the best merchants and haggles the deals. We got some amazing prices last time around, so I’m hoping to get the same sort of deals this time. Then at night, we are headed out on a dinner cruise… should be fun!