Sunday, September 25 2011

Today we got up and went to Yuntai park. It is a pretty local park. Only four families went to the park and walked around. It has a lot of colorful statues and figurines in the park as well as a lot of pretty flowers and waterfalls. Zhao Lei, Sofia and Kyle ran around and had fun. It started raining pretty hard while we were there and we all had to cram together under shelter. We took a quick trip to Carefoux (sure I am misspelling that)
to buy some groceries. Zhao Lei chose some noodle soups and a few drinks. I had read in a blog that a woman had ordered dried squid from Amazon for her daughter that they had recently adopted from China. I found some and brought it to Zhao Lei and she said yes right away. She also chose some other dried stuff afterwards. Ray ran out of clean clothes a couple of days ago and so he was on a mission to buy a couple of shirts. It was interesting to see what types of food is offered at their stores. I had heard that this store was a lot like our Walm^rts, but I didn't think it was. I had been hoping to find coloring books and a jacket for Zhao Lei. It was more like a big grocery store with a couple of other stores connected to it. We returned to the hotel and Ray and two other dads headed out to pick up their laundry from Shaiman Island. Zhao Lei and I stayed in the room and relaxed. We did have to go to Michael's room for a few minutes to get him some paperwork, but otherwise it was nice to relax. When Ray got back it was my turn to escape. I wanted to go to Shaiman Island to shop again. I would have liked to bring Lei, but she really doesn't like shopping. She constantly pulls at me and says, "Let's go." She was a little upset, because she had wanted me to bring her to the hot tub. I asked her again if she wanted to go and she said she didn't. I asked Ray to bring her out somewhere so she wouldn't be bored and he said he would. I headed out to the island and loved it. Loved the cab ride over looking at all of the apartment buildings, loved walking around the White Swan Hotel, loved walking around the island, and loved looking around in the stores. My plan was to get an idea of what I wanted and then look at several stores to make sure I was getting exactly what I liked. I did find two stores I liked and got an idea of what I wanted to buy. My plan is to bring Ray back to do the haggling for the bigger items. It was so peaceful walking around the island. A lot of people were out exercising, walking, playing card games, fishing, or doing martial arts. There were several couples getting their wedding pictures taken or photographers shooting pictures of models for advertisements. So far, the island is my favorite part of China. Luckily it is close by and only costs 20 Yuan by taxi (about $3 dollars).
That evening we went back to the island with two other couples for dinner. We walked through the White Swan Hotel because they hadn't seen it yet. It is so pretty with the waterfall, koi pond, and beautiful pieces of art. We took pictures of our kids on a red couch. Not in their outfits and not on THE couch. Maybe tomorrow. Then we all ate dinner and headed back. Zhao Lei got a little too wound up a couple of times today. She gets really excited to be with the other two kids when we spend time with them. It is a little hard trying to figure out the balance here, so we are letting a lot of things go. Not that she is hard by any means. But it has been tricky when she chooses not to listen right away. We know that all of this has been really hard for her, so we are letting little things go. The truth is that she is being really easygoing and incredibly brave for all that she has gone through in the last week. She asked me to buy her this beaded hair piece this evening and then wore it home. She has a great sense of style and it will be fun to see what she chooses to wear after we get home. Right now she is stuck wearing clothes I brought for her. She has told me a couple of times that she wants to grow out her hair.