Sunday

Our sweet girl has an itchy rash on her stomach that we noticed tonight at bedtime. This is in addition to the dark bruises and lines on her ankles AND the spots all over her body (still not sure if mosquitos or scabies). Poor thing. Hopefully it will be gone by morning; otherwise, we might be taking a trip to the doc.

My stomach is still bothering me every time I eat (my starvation plan wasn't very successful). Randy injured his back somehow during his morning work out, so he was in a lot of pain today. We are quite the ragamuffin trio right now.

This afternoon we hired a private shopper named Ann that many of our friends have used. She took us and another family around to various markets. She is a riot and kept us laughing the whole time. She also helped us get some great bargains.

We took the subway to the first market, and it was CRAZY crowded; we were packed in like human sardines. It was an efficient and inexpensive (but claustrophobic) way to travel. People offered us their seats on a few of the rides since we were carrying babies. Strangers don't seem outwardly warm to us here, so the kind gesture was surprising. They seem to do a nice job of caring for pregnant women, babies, and the elderly in China; I think our culture could use a few pointers from them.

Our first stop was a silk shop to buy traditional Chinese outfits for our daughter. They also had silk shoes and - get this! - she happily took off her special orphanage shoes in favor of some new pink silk ones. She even let us put her old shoes into Randy's backpack. That, my friends, is trust! Yay!

The streets we walked between the markets were entertaining. Toddlers with their bums hanging out of split pants, disabled musicians, bicyclists transporting gigantic loads, beggars under the highway. Street vendors were selling everything from crepes, to sugar cane, to animal furs. Randy bought a coconut and drank the water straight from the middle with a straw. It reminded us of our Panama days.

We lost some steam after a few more markets; our daughter was asleep in the Ergo and my husband was in even more pain. Ann took us to a Chinese medicine shop, ordered up three special oils, and proceeded to lift Randy's shirt to apply them. She insisted that it would work like magic.

Our final stop was the pearl and jade market, where we went a little crazy. Randy kept adding to our order and telling me to get whatever we might want for the future. Knowing Randy and how much he enjoys shopping - especially jewelry shopping - I'm pretty sure that the pain meds had kicked in. Either way, our daughter's jewelry is set for her wedding day. With some to spare.

We finished the day by eating dinner at a surprisingly good cafe with our shopping friends. We gave our daughter her first taste of green tea ice cream. She made a horrible face. And then asked for more.

Back at the hotel we shared an elevator with an older Chinese gentleman. We get a lot of stares whenever we're out, and I've wondered many times what the Chinese are thinking about us. For the first time, someone actually told us. The man smiled at our daughter, looked up at us, and said, "Wow, lucky, lucky girl."

He exited the elevator and I quickly stammered back, "Thanks, but we are the lucky ones."

And we truly are. ♥