Shopping, anyone???

Bethany helped me to display 1/3 of the breakfast buffet that we enjoy every morning in the rotating restaurant on the 45th floor of our hotel.

Hello once again,

Three more "sleeps" as our fellow Minnesotans have said until we come home!! We found out today that we leave the hotel at 6 am Friday morning to make our 9:30 flight to Shanghai, which arrives about noon, and then we wait in the airport until 5, when we leave for the 13.5 hour flight to Chicago. From there we hopefully get through customs fast enough to make our flight to Minneapolis - HOME!! It's going to be a VERY long day, but well-worth it at the end. We also found out that our seats on the flights are NOT together, so please pray that we can negotiate something with the airline or with surrounding travelers that day. The flight will be long enough as it is, and even longer if we are not together.

Our friend Chris Davidson with his son Jonah before the reality of physical examination and thus the crying hit. Priceless.

Okay, on a more positive note, we got through another hurdle today...the "medical exam." I put it in quotes, because among adoptive families it is known as a joke...they don't really do much and in fact, our guides said that on the form which asks if our child has had a fever or not that we are supposed to check "no" no matter what. They basically weigh and measure your child, look in their ears, listen to their chest, and give them a look over - and that's it...but we need the signature to get the visa and get out of the country, so we fork out the money and get it done.

Sharon Grimaldi exercising her freedom of speech in places where it has never been exercised (or legal) before... Notice the sign above...


A red couch with all of the kids in our group. Not quite the red couch, not quite just the kids that were adopted on this trip...

After the official business,we had as much of the day as we wanted to do more shopping on Shamian Island, so SHOP WE DID. We also had lunch with most of our group at the infamous "Lucy's" where they have great western food. Dan had a cheeseburger and I had a chicken wrap. We then headed over to the equally infamous White Swan Hotel, where we had our kids line up for a picture on the red couch...not sure it was the couch we've seen on many other blogs, but it worked for us! It was a gorgeous day out, and we found some gifts for the boys and a few people that are taking care of things for us while we are away. The salespeople are very friendly, very service-oriented and very PUSHY, so it is quite exhausting. Bethany reminded us towards the end of our afternoon with some of her behavior that she is a tired 3 year old, and she fell asleep during the cab ride home. Upon awaking, she happily shared some Pringles with daddy. :)

Both of the above pictures were taken with shopkeepers that we made some purchases from. The lady in the second spoke Cantonese (Bethany's native) and was from Wuzhou City (Bethany's hometown).

Tonight we were finally able to connect with our fellow Minnesotans the Bjorlins for dinner at the Italian restaurant we had been to earlier in the week. They taxied over with a few other people from their group, and we "hosted" the evening. Evidently, the restaurants on our end of town are a little better on their end, so the place was a hit. Now we're settling in for another night in preparation for another day tomorrow.

The decorations for Chinese New Year in our hotel lobby...

It was good this morning to talk to our boys after they had been back in their own beds for a night after being gone 10 days in Sioux Falls. They were excited and refreshed and that makes it easier for me to be gone these last few days. I CAN'T WAIT to give them the hugs and kisses I've been storing up while we've been gone.

The light show on the front of our hotel. It's much bigger than the pictures gives credit for...

Good night, and happy inauguration day tomorrow!! :) (HA!)

Love, Becky for the 3 of us

The following were taken on Shamian island. Turns out it's a popular place for wedding pictures to be taken. And because the Chinese Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) is just around the corner, it's a very popular time of year for weddings. First they take the "western style" picture, and then the more traditional, usually red attire picture for the bride.