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....Well I’m pleasantly surprised. After a few days in this city I’m glad that we were able to end our trip here. The weather is perfect and shopping is better here than in Lanzhou; they definitely cater to foreigners here. It seems that because this is a port city, all of China's goods come here, so it seems like most everything China has to offer can be found here. We have spent most of our time on the island where our hotel is located. Yesterday, however, we went to a Buddist temple that had been around for over 1400 years. It was called the Six Tree Temple. This photo is of some of the other families with daughters from Pingliang SWI after we received the blessing at the Buddist Temple.
 Then we went to a folk art museum were we saw more examples of jade, bone carvings, as well as very fine embroidery work. Then we went to a shopping mall (not like one at home, but similar in that several vendors were selling different kinds of goods). It was a bit disappointing because the prices were higher than we have in the shops near our hotel. Yesterday afternoon, we completed another phase of the paperwork to finalize Allyson’s immigration visa. Along with our group, we went to the clinic for Allyson’s physical exam. There was not much to it. They weighed and measured her and gave her a quick once over. Her current stats are: Height 65 cm, weight 15.6 lbs, head 16 in. When we are home, we will have her doctor plot these on our growth chart to track her growth, but the good thing is all of them are bigger than the last ones we got when she was 7 months. The exam room was a madhouse. 7 docs, 26 parents, 13 babies in a room 10x15. All of the babies were crying and several of the first-time parents were beside themselves. Luckily it was a quick trip. Guangzhou is an enormous city and we have not even scratched the surface of what it has to offer. With over 10 million people we could spend a week here and still not see it all. Our focus has been the adoption so maybe when we come back we will see more. It’s a very westernized city, at least in the parts we have seen. Some of the people in the local stores speak better English than our tour guides!
....Allyson’s progress in the week that she has been with us is really quite amazing. The best way I can describe it is that it seems like her spirit has been awakened. So not only has she made progress developmentally, but she smiles a lot now and she seems to have come to life. The pictures that we’ve seen from the other families whose daughters where in the same orphanage as Allyson, always pictured her crying or upset. She is training Mike and I just how she wants us....she doesn’t like to ride in the stroller and is happiest when we are holding her. We are happy to oblige her! She also rolls over all the time now....we call her a rollie pollie! I also have to share a funny food story. The other night we went to a Thai restaurant with our group. The gal that sat across from us ordered shrimp in a garlic butter sauce, seems harmless enough, right?! Nothing here as far as food goes ever seems to be as straightforward as you think it will be. The shrimp arrives and it looks quite good. She starts to cut into it and realizes that all of the shell is still on it, even though it has a coating on the outside. So she makes her way through a couple of pieces by having her husband help her get the thick shell off. Then all of the sudden she lets out the loudest scream! I look over at her and see what she saw....two eyes from the shrimp looking right at her!!! Yep, that’s right....not only was the shell still on the shrimp, but the eyes were, too. Looks like they just plopped the whole shrimp in the boiling water and cooked it then served it up!! You should have seen the way the table of Chinese people behind her looked at her....never a dull moment at mealtime around here! In addition to finalizing our paperwork so we can leave, we have also been keeping a VERY close eye on the typhoon that is in the South China Sea making its way towards the South China coast. A day or so ago, it looked like the typhoon was set to hit dead on Hong Kong on Thursday, the day we are supposed to fly out of Hong Kong. I’ve talked to our travel agency several times discussing alternate flight options for us. I am ready to be home and have my family reunited. It would be more than I could stand if this crazy typhoon caused us to be delayed and I’m hanging on as it is counting the days until we leave. The typhoon, Chanchu, has turned eastward and looks as though it won’t hit dead on to Hong Kong. We are praying continuously that we are able to make it home as planned. The Chinese news station commented the other night that Chanchu is the biggest typhoon to hit China in the month of May ever! As if we haven’t had enough adventure already. We’ll sign off for today with another picture of Allyson. Mike bought her a watermelon outfit when he visited the department store in Pingliang (Allyson’s home town). It was a huge hit yesterday, everyone loved it.
Love,
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