Day 4 with Claire!

We had a great day with Claire!  We started the morning skyping with the boys.  We miss them so much!

We had a day free of adoption official stuff today so our guide Becky took us to visit the Chen Academy.  It was beautiful!  Unfortunately I didn't look at my camera's setting before taking the pictures so they're very washed out.  I'll have to try to fix that later.

Me and Claire with Becky.

 Ryan and I with Claire.

 The beautiful building-there were tons of carvings all over it.  Becky was very knowledgeable and told us all about the history and what all of the different carvings meant.

 Inside the academy there was an artist there painting entirely with his hand.  It was amazing.  If you bought one of the paintings then they would write your name on it in Chinese.   We did lots of shopping here.  :)

 Buying "chops" for the kids.  They're these stamps carved out of marble maybe?? I need to ask what the stone is, and on the bottom of it they carve your cihld's name. 

 We bought paintings for the kids and the artist wrote their name and the date on them (in Chinese). 

 The weather yesterday was SO hot and muggy.  Just sticky.  I was wearing her in the ergo but she started to get a little heat rash on her face so we decided to try out the stroller.  It's best for babies after their adopted to be held as much as possible to facilitate bonding, so I try to as much as possible.  But it is sure going to be hard in the heat here and at home!  She did not really enjoy the stroller, if you can tell by this picture.  She lasted about 5 minutes and then just sat and whined.  We of course had to hold her then. :)  Ryan and I took turns so it wasn't TOO hot.

 Becky took us to a traditional Chinese restaurant.  It was good!  As most of you know I'm not a very adventurous eater so I mostly stuck to the fried rice.  I did try a few bites of everything else though.

 They gave us a big table and then on the middle they put all of the dishes family style.  They have it on a big lazy susan.  I tried jasmine tea for the first time, oh my it is good!  We bought some at a tea house here.

 Claire did not want to sit in the high chair so she sat in my lap during lunch.  She then needed a diaper change and our guide said to just change her right at the table!  There are no baby changing facilities in the bathrooms, that's for sure. 

 After lunch we shopped for 4-5 hours!!!!  We walked down this street and went to a beautiful embroidery shop.  We got some beautiful things there. 

 Then we went to the pearl market.  Becky knew a great place to go to buy pearls. 

 The market was HUGE!  Also crazy busy!  It's filled with just tons of tiny shops everywhere.  We would have been so lost had we gone by ourselves.  We found some jade jewlery as well here. 

 In the car on the way back to the hotel.  She was such a trooper the entire time we shopped.  She's having some snacks right now, right before she started to get fussy. She was done shopping!

 We tried to get a picture to convey the traffic and chaos in the streets but this picture definitely doesn't do it justice.  When cars merge they literally get inches apart and people just walk right between cars without looking or waiting to see if cars will stop.  We were joking that if we had to drive here we'd be stuck behind the wheel right where we started because we'd never have the guts to just merge in.  Thank goodness for our driver!

We ended the night with room service and then bed!  I'd say bedtime was a mix between the last two nights.  She woke a few times and wanted to sleep on us, but also had some time in the bed by herself.  We miss you all!!!