Guangdong Folk Art Museum

This is Lilly showing me how to use a traditional art set from China for calligraphy. You bet I had to get one.

This is of a woman carving a chop. A chop is a personal stamp artists use to sign their work. In China, the chop has the same weight and authority as a signature does in America. They are traditionally carved out of soapstone. The ladies in the gift shop at the museum carve these while you wait. I'm just floored by the creativity by the Chinese.

Medical Exam

Update: TB test cleared!!!!!

First on the list in Guangzhou was a Medical exam and TB test. This place was a zoo with all the families in line. How those doctors and nurses go home sain is beyond me.




All tuckered out after a long day.

Bouillon clothes and a plane ride.

After our visit at the Inn it was time to pack up and head for Gaungzhou. We had a little mishap with our clothing the day before. We desperately needed clean clothes so Yifei asked around and found a place we could take them. Jason returned stunned that he left our clothes where he did. He said he handed our clothes over to a guy in a nasty alley way. We were just hoping we got everything back and in time to get it packed. Unfortunatley when Jason returned after picking them up they smelled like they had been washed in bouillon. The entire room stunk. Okay....it was washing in the sink time. Only hiccup was that everything had to be dry by the next morning so we could pack our bags to leave. This is a picture of our room as you walk in. We had things hanging everywhere.

We had no luck getting things dry by the time we needed. Even tried using the blow dryer in the room, but it was as powerful as if I just blew on our clothes. Jason headed down to see our new friend and manager Ken Low. Ken is from Singapore where he says they speak English regularly so he was the only other person we could talk with other than Yifie during our stay. Wish I had thought to take his photo but I never did. After hearing our crazy sob story Ken agreed to dry what was still wet. We also were wanting to pay to have them rewash our jeans. We did all our running around that day and came back to nice smelling clothes and Ken didn't even charge us. What a guy and what a nice ending to a very stressful night and morning.
We packed our things away said our goodbyes to our sweet and generous guide Yifei and then we were off to Guangzhou. Just a 2 hour flight with no delays. Yippee!

The first plane ride for Landry. He was not a fan of the seat belt. We found out that he rode on the arm rest in the car with his foster family. Every time we catch a cab he points to the arm rest and says "my seat". Boy is he going to hate the 5 point harness car seat. That should be fun.

Back to Room #3

We returned to room #3 on Friday with Landry. An experience I will never forget. We arrived to open arms and kisses for a little boy they had not seen since handing him over to the police 2 years ago.

The Yingchun Inn


This is room #3.

While we were there the ladies up and toted Landry off. In China people just pick up other people's children. Even strangers will pick them up and kiss on them and such. Yifei said that they just wanted to go get him a drink but it made me so nervous as they headed across the busy street and never even asked before taking him. They of course brought him back in about 10 minutes but we had our eyes glued to those women the entire way.

They returned with two packages of milk or kiddie drinks Yifei called them. This kid acted like he had candy. They put him on the ground and he immediately had to have one. We popped one open and he sucked it down in no time then proceeded to take the rest of the packages back to room #3. He also wanted me to put the packages on the little end table in the room. It was like he knew that room even though he was left there when he was only 2 months old. It is amazing what the mind remembers.





So glad I was able to see this and experience these women in this Inn. I hope it helps our little guy as he gets older in understanding his background. What a treasure.

First Haircut. Buzzzzzzzz

On our way home from the grocery we decided we'd stop in the Yes I Do Salon and get Landry a haircut. He was looking a bit shaggy. We had actually stopped in this salon the day before with Yiefei but she told us that she thought it was too expensive. She said it would be 5 US dollars and she thought we could get it done for 1 US dollar. We agreed to go somewhere else with her but were amazed at how cheap she thought we should get it for. Even though Yiefei was going to try and take us somewhere else we knew we were running out of time and just decided to go ahead and get it done while we had a few extra minutes.

Not one person spoke English in the salon. We just did a lot of pointing at Jason's head and Landry's hair. Hee, hee. They loved it and laughed. They went and got chairs, water and wanted pictures taken. One guy stood behind me and examined my hair. He kept pointing to my hair doing a thumbs up and wanted to fix it. I kindly declined and kept pointing to Landry only.

Landry cried at first but then settled down. Afterwards we had ourselves the most handsome little man around.

Grocery shopping

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We hopped onto the elevator and headed to the street to make our way to the Grocery store during one afternoon without Yiefei.

On our way I snapped a picture of some kids on break from their school day. They all wear these uniform jump suits. School begins at 8:00 a.m., though students have to be present at 7:30 for morning cleanup. There are two hours for lunch since most students go home for lunch. Students are back at 2 p.m. for afternoon classes until 5 p.m. There are 2 hours for dinner and then students return to school at 7 p.m. Students stay until about 8:30 p.m., twelfth graders until 9 or 9:30. Many even go to classes on Saturday. Talk about a long day. And we complain about our kids having too much homework.

This is a shot of a "basket man". These men sit outside of the grocery to help people who buy too much carry it all home. They can carry enormous amounts of weight. We saw them carrying items as large as refrigerators on their backs.

Inside the market many items are sold in single serving packages. Many things are in vacuumed sealed bags that hang on the walls. Not many boxed items.

They are also in LOVE with gelatin. Isles of gummy jellied items.
Funny enough but no J-E-L-L-O.

An aquarium of fish to be bought to eat.
If it is in the sea they have it for purchase. ALIVE!

Meat anyone? They do have it on ice, but nothing in a package or under glass. Flies abundant.
All milk products are packaged like kids juice boxes. This is a picture of Landry's favorite kind. The shelf life of this stuff is unreal and it doesn't need to be refrigerated. Yogurt is very different here too. All of it is liquidy. Landry loves drinking it.

This is Landry riding a grocery cart escalator down to the next floor. They may have these in New York but this was our first experience with these. Really cool. I think the carts magnetize to the belt because once on the escalator they don't roll.

Experience after experience. Who knew going to the grocery could be so cool. Many crazy looks as the American was taking pictures in the store but I just had to show you.

The Chinese Market

We woke up to another morning of rain. Seems to rain here alot but we managed to avoid it for the first few days. Yifei was really wanting to take us to the Chinese market even though it was raining. We weren't thrilled to tromp in the rain trying to hold a 26 pound child and only having 1 pair of tennis shoes with us, but we agreed to tough it out. It ended up not raining at all and I'm so glad we went. It was the most interesting open air market trip of my life.
This place reminds me of our flea market but with unimaginable things to purchase. Shelters packed with herbs, nuts, animals of every kind, plants and so much more.





These were trays and trays of worms. They looked very similar to that type you find in the trash. I just can't bear to even type the word out it gives me the hebbie gebbies. Yifei assured me that they weren't but that they were worms to feed the birds with. I'm still not sure I trust her on that. She even picked one up for me to show me. Shnikies!!! I know she thinks we are the craziest Americans ever. Yifei you rock!!!!!


Pigeon eggs are considered a delicacy.

Puppies, kittens, chickens, birds, fish, hamsters, mice, mini rabbits, turkeys. You name it they had it.

Dentist/dentures anyone? Wish I had a better picture of this but I didn't want to be rude and take pictures of people getting work done on their teeth. By the way, the animals were on the other side of this establishment.

These are like candied crabapples. They are very popular and were sold all over the market and they are also sold on the street. Kinda like we would see cotton candy venders walking around at a park. Never did get to try one but they looked interesting.

Still all giggles and grins after a long day. This kid is a trooper.

Wow, it is almost midnight. I better stop posting and go to bed. More to see and do tomorrow..