Olivia was able to sleep in until a little after 8:00 this morning, but Heidi was up by 6:00 so there was no sleeping in for mommy and daddy. Once we finsiehd breakfast, we went to a local bank to exchange some money. Right now we get about 6.31 RMB for every US dollar. After exchanging some money, we got in a taxi and headed back to Shamian Island to finissh our "birthday gift" shopping for Heidi and other miscellaneous souvenir shopping as well.
Yesterday, we only had about an hour on Shamian Island before it was time to meet some other adoptive families for dinner so we were only able to hit a few stores. Some of the stores close around 6:30PM because they are given only a limited amount of power so they must close a little early. We went in one store today and there were no lights turned on--the owner told me they did not have any power in their store today so she would pull things out of the back and bring them up front near the windows so we could look.
Most of the stores are HOT because the weather here is very warm and humid, even in the winter. Many of the stores are fairly small almost like the size of a Claire's in the mall at home but even smaller. They keep their doors open all day because several of them have no A/C at all and just a few fans placed thorughout the store. The stores that do have A/C have those portable units that they only turn on when they have customers walking around in their store.
Today we were anxious to see if Susan's Place was still on the island. When we adopted Olivia years ago this was one of our favorite stores on Shamian Island and we almost visited it daily and would have tea with the shop owner, Dong. He knew us by name when we were here last time because we saw him so often and even if we weren't shopping, he would call out to us to come have some tea with him in his store. We headed in the direction of Susan's Place first and sure enough it was still there and after walking in we saw Dong! He looks just the same to me as he did 6 years ago and he said he remembered us as well. We had our picture taken with him all the years back sitting at his little table drinking tea and before we left today we had another picture taken with him at the same table. He made us two different kinds of tea to try today and sold us one of them. We also bought two English/Chinese Bibles from his store and a silk blanket for Heidi. It was so good to see him again!
We were able to finish up our birthday gift shopping for Heidi. We bought her a wooden Chian province puzzle, chops (a special stamp they make here with the child's Chinese name), silk fabric to take home and have made into something for her later on, silk Bible cover/carrying case, silk passport holder, hairbows, Chinese/English first words baby books, a purse made out of beautiful China doll material, children's Chinese music CD, etc. In all we bought her 16 little gifts so she will have something to open every year on her birthday from China. And of course we bought squeaky shoes too!
Before we left Shamian Island for the day, we stopped in at the White Swan hotel. This is where we stayed the entire time we were in Guangzhou last time around with Olivia. The hotel has been competely renovated, but we heard a few things were still intact so we wanted to take Olivia there to see the hotel. The waterfall is the same as when we were there years ago and they still have the jade ship in the front lobby, but just about everything else was different.
This afternoon, Brian and Olivia walked to a few shops around our hotel while I stayed in the room with Heidi so she could nap. Someone had to stay behind anyway because we were waiting for a guy to bring our laundry by our room. Yesterday we had more dirty clothes than clean clothes and Olivia wore her very last clean outfit today so we had to send out for laundry. Our guide told us not to use the laundry service through the hotel because it is so expensive so we used one of her contacts instead. We sent out three plastic bags (think Target or Walmart bags) of laundry yesterday and it was all cleaned, folded and returned by this afternoon. It cost us 227 RMB or about $35 USD.
Heidi seems to be doing really well. She is learning a little bit of English already and will wave and say "bye bye", "good job" after sitting on the potty and when we tell her to go get her shoes on she heads straight to the wardrobe where she puts them when we come int he door and pulls them out to put them on. She is also very good at letting us know what she doesn't like by shaking her hand and head to tell us no. She loves spending time with Olivia and still tries to copy evyerthing she does. Olivia was in the "new sister honeymoon" period for the first week with Heidi, but now she tells us that "Heidi can be a brat somteimes". :) And so it begins....
Not sure I've ever known a younger brother or sister to not be a brat sometimes. I'm very heart-warmed to see your journey. You're an inspiration to many who may be going through this or will go through this. It sounds like Heidi is adjusting very well.
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