We shopped, and then we dropped...

Sorry for skipping a day. We left at 10:30 in the morning and didn't get home until 8:00. Most of the time we were walking. We had a wonderful guide who took us to areas to shop where everything was inexpensive.

I came over with a list of shopping that we needed to accomplish, which I thought would never get done, but to my surprise it is almost completed. Let me see, this is how the list goes; I wanted my older daughter and two new ones to pick out all the books in Chines that they wanted and cds. We found a seven story book store and set them loose. Hmmm, that was a mistake. Eighteen books and 12 cds later we left the store into a torrential downpour, with only two umbrellas. So the umbrella people took turns walking over each one to an underground passage. Of course the twins and the older daughter thought their Papa was moving too slow and raced ahead of him and got soaked.

Did I mention that every time we go somewhere we need two taxis? Which is not always easy to do. So I got the first taxi with 4 of the girls and dh stayed behind with elder daughter to catch another taxi. It took us about 20 minutes to get home. As I walk in the door my phone rings, it's dh, no taxi! Oops. Finally after 20 more minutes he got a taxi, yeah!

Oh yes, back to the list. The list covered underwear, socks, shoes, tops, pants, sweaters, souvenirs the twins wanted to get as gifts and several different fabrics for their sewing teacher who has been so kind. Sounds easy? Ah no. But as of yesterday we completed the list. We probably covered over 50 shops and walked about 4 or 5 miles. Everyone slept very well. We did have a sad moment when my deaf daughter just started crying. It took a lot of my attempts of signing and my daughters writing in Chinese to understand her pain. Finally we understood that she missed her school and two special friends. Darn! No one told me about her friends, I could have done something for her in Beijing when we were there. I will now contact the guide that we had to contact the orphanage representative to see what we can do to keep them in touch with each other.

We are now off for a traditional dinner with the General Manager of the apartment complex. We can't wait. Ah, no cooking.. I love this.