handsful

2nd day in Guangzhou, and all is going very well. Dylan continues to be the entertainer, charming anyone and everyone he comes in contact with. There are 16 children in our group – 11 boys and 5 girls. I love seeing all the little boys adopted…when we told others that we were adopting a boy from China, we got many confused looks. Don’t they only have girls for adoption in China?!?

There are so, so many precious boys with special needs, waiting for families! Our group has children with heart issues, cleft lip/palate, limb differences, albinism, dwarfism, and seizure disorder. Some needs require more intervention than others, but all are “doable”. Dylan is the oldest child in our group, but we’ve seen boys as old as 13 being adopted here in Guangzhou. These kids deserve a life with a real family.

So, today was spent touring the Six Banyan Trees Buddhist Temple, the Old Chen house, and the Guangzhou Provincial Arts and Crafts market. But first, we had our buffet breakfast at our hotel, the White Swan. It’s known, at least by other adoptive families, for it’s amazing french toast. It’s really good. Randy doesn’t usually order french toast anywhere, it’s not his favorite. But, he’s loving it here. Not to mention the other items at the buffet…too many to list. Lots of Chinese foods, which I tend to ignore. I’m going for the fresh fruit, pastries, and – french toast.

See how BIG these buddahs are?!? The temple was very crowded today, with people bringing offerings of fruit and bottled water (not sure I get that last one). They buy big bundles of incense and burn them. They go in the temples for blessings that are given every so often during the day. We skipped the blessing – I’m pretty certain the big bellied guy has no pull with my God.

The original temple was built around 527AD, but there was a fire that burned down the whole property around the year 1000AD. They rebuilt it, and the temple that stands today is more than 1000 years old.

Next, we went to the Chen House. It was very beautiful and is now owned by the government and used as an arts and crafts exhibition center. There were ivory and jade carvings, furniture, and embroidery. We enjoyed walking around the gardens, with all the very interesting sculptures. We were especially amazed by the embroidery.

An example of the embroidery…they looked like actual photographs, the stitches were so tiny and colors so true.

The roof is decorated in painted porcelain, which Guangzhou is known for. Despite being in the elements for 100 years, it still remains bright.

Being Sunday, the Chen house courtyards were full of people. There were children all over, with sketch pads and pencils or ink, practicing their skills.

The courtyards are surrounded by stone walls with intricate designs carved in them. We got a photo of Lainey peeking through one of them back in 2008…had to do a repeat with Dylan!

Apartments, directly behind the Chen house. From historical wealth to this in just a few feet.

Now, for some silliness…

View from our room using the zoom lens…someone painting on the roof.

Touring over, we returned to the hotel room. Randy walked down to Susan’s Place to pick up our clean clothes (yippee…this is the first time we’d had clothes washed. We worked hard to NOT wash in Zhengzhou, knowing how $$ it is there. We spent $150 RMB here – roughly $25). Then, we had in-room lunch with cup-of-soup type things and rested a while. Paperwork for Dylan’s visa was at 4pm in our guides room – Randy watched Dylan take a late nap while I handled that.

Then, it was back in the stroller for more walking and shopping.

This area is very busy, with lots of model photo shoots and brides having their wedding shots taken. Shamian Island is the perfect backdrop, the architecture and landscaping makes you feel like you’re on a movie set.

Not the clearest shot, but I love the faces I captured in it :)

We ended our night with this delivery…we ordered too much. Cold pizza anyone? It was yummy.

Tomorrow, Dylan has his TB test read at 11am, and then we’ve arranged for a guided shopping tour in the markets in Guangzhou at 1pm – outside the adoption shops of the island. We’re going with our friends we’ve met here, Thomas and Kristin and their little girl Mei Li. Ann is a local and offers this service to traveling families…she can show us where to find really nice things and then bargain with the shop owners for us. Sweet!!

6 more night-nights here, as our Lainey would say. We miss our other children dearly!! Goodnight from Guangzhou.