Smiling Right Along

Well its Sunday evening here in Guangzhou.  Laine is trying to go to sleep and Christina is off with the mom's getting massages for a whole 10 bucks for an hour body massage!  She took a little more money too, so I'm guessing more shopping is on tap too.  Just waiting for Papa John's to bring our dinner!  Yes, that pizza chain is here, pepperoni on the way. 

 

Today was pretty leisurely. We had a small city tour this morning and napped in the afternoon. The first stop on the tour was a Buddhist temple where we received the baby blessing. They have the 3 largest Buddhas in southern China there we're told.  They represent the past, present and future.  They also have a female Buddha temple too, where many people were bringing all kinds of offerings from flowers and drinks to fancy chocolates.  Many of the ladies thought it was pretty funny they brought chocolate to the female Buddha!  They had a nine story Pagoda too, but it is actually 17 stories tall once you get inside and see all the smaller levels, our guide said.  That part wasn't open to the public.  Christina snapped a squattie pottie photo too, got a kick out of the foot flush handle.

 

Then it was off to the Chen family house.  A large museum of all the best art forms from the region.  The house itself, was a treasure with very intricate carvings on the walls and colored porcelain sculptures on the roof.  Inside we had very talented kids having an art class I guess and were doing great drawings of trees and the house itself. These were young kids maybe 3rd or 4th grade and the quality was amazing.  We saw a man doing hand painting with his fingers and fingernails that looked like they were done with a fine point pen. Some of the displays had bone carvings, silk paintings, and Qing Dynasty furniture.  On the way into the house we passed a large park area with all kinds of people playing hackey sack and badminton! It was so cool.  Everyone was well into their 60's! They were kicking those sacks all over and bending in ways only a teenager could!  Two couple were doing a badminton ballet, with a racket in each hand and just batting the birdie back and forth behind their backs, under their legs, all with the grace of a dancer!  Amazing! Just another day in the pa

 

The last stop was a gift shop.  It was a government owned shop with set prices.  Funny we have been to at least one of these type of shops in every city.  It seems like maybe someone from the Chinese government mentioned at some point to the adoption agency it would be nice if your families stopped here, hint hint! We found some neat stuff though.  Watched a teen aged girl hand paint names in a bottle. Also saw a man hand painting a vase.  Perfect straight lines for probably 15 inches, all free hand!  Just spectacular talent. Some will be on display at our house!

 

Lainey is blossoming more every day.  She is starting to play peek-a-boo with us and giggling more.  Some forms of babble are there too.  She still has a comfort level with people who look like her more though.  She will often smile back very easily at Chinese girls in the stores who say hi to her.  But she has also fallen asleep the last two days in Christina's arms which wasn't even close to happening early in the week.  She seems to be fine after all the shots.  She woke up about 3am and stayed awake for an hour.  Just laid with her eyes open.  Then fell back to sleep.  We think maybe she was a little sore and woke up.  Tomorrow we go to the Pearl Market in the morning, prices are supposed to be 1/3 of what we would pay at home for top quality pearls.  Christina is looking forward to that. We are thinking of sweet 16 and wedding gifts!  Have to plan ahead!