Day 2, City of Guangzhou, Guandong Province

Today was predominantly a free day for us to use however we wanted. Like all of the other families, we spent today shopping. For those of you that remember the post from yesterday, we returned to the store where the shop girls were so enamored with Emily yesterday. They were wonderful. Our mission today...try to find gifts to give to Emily at different points in her life as she grows up.

The first thing that needed to be addressed was finding Emily some traditional clothing. We found a few outfits, and we have included a picture here of the first in the "Princess Emily" line, complete with dragonfly patterned silk.

Another of the local crafts is to engrave a picture into a piece of polished black granite. We have seen this at home in different places, but it is usually done with a computer and machine etching device. As you can see from the picture below, they are done by hand here. It was amazing to watch these girls using a sharpened metal spike and a series of taps to create a granite etched lithograph. My grandfather was a lithographer, so I was especially fascinated by their skill. So much so that I took a short piece of video footage, which will be available on the "Our Journey to Emily" DVD due out in August.

The shop girls at Lucy's were so nice and so much fun that we were actually in the store for more than two hours. Some of you may think this is not a very long time to shop, but you need to understand that the store was approximately 400 square feet (about the size of a living room & dining room) and filled with half a dozen workers and about a dozen customers at any one time. Interesting note: the stores are all stationed near the White Swan Hotel to make it easy for adoptive families to find them. Each store is named "Lucy's", "Jennifer's", "Benjamin's", etc., yet run by Chinese. It's all very interesting.

Next was time to hang around the hotel room until dinner so that we could wind down from the exciting shopping trip. We hung out in our room with many of the other families. We have all grown very close during this journey together, and are already planning the reunions for our travel group. The photo on the left shows Emily playing with CJ Vocu.

Next we were off to dinner at a local Thai restaurant. Apparently, all of the families go there for dinner, as the place was filled with adoptive familes. These pictures show our table, as well as the other tables filled with adoptive families. There are so many families in town, we find that we are no longer the center of attention as we walk through the streets. It seems that the whole of Shamian Island is designed strictly to cater to the adoptive families.



Emily cries instantly when placed in a high chair, so we usually take turns holding her while the other one eats. Tonight, our tour guide, Maggie, finished eating quickly and she held Emily for a while so that we could finish our dinner. Judging by how much Maggie smiled and played with Emily I can't really say that she martyred herself for our meal.



Emily indicated that she was starting to get tired by snuggling up with mommy and sucking her thumb (her favorite snack). So we headed back to the hotel for our favorite part of the day... TUBBY TIME!!! We just love our tubby time!! (This was after passing by Lucy's again to pick up our laundry and let the shopgirls hold and coo over Emily.)

So much activity today that mommy & Emily both fell asleep waiting
for Daddy to finish writing today's website post.

Tune in tomorrow for pictures from Emily's Visa medical exam, as well as photos from another Buddhist temple and the Guangzhou pearl market.

Good night from Guangzhou.
Love to All,
Kevin