Nooooo! not Sha Main Island

Dan

Our China adventures are starting to get extreme. Today we took a taxi all by ourselves back to Sha Main island! As you can see above Mei Mei shares the same option about the island as I did last time. This will shock Grandma who listened to me complain last time we adopted that I was trapped on that island and wanted to go any where but there.  I was surprised how comfortable I felt. A lot of the same friends were there and we were happy to sit and eat a familiar meal.

SHOPPING UPDATE - This next part is for those who are familiar with the island or who will be going to the island and are adopting.  If you are not interested, you can skip down.

The streets and building are beautiful and the White Swan has been gutted. The first 5 floors are missing the exterior walls. So pretty major renovations.

We stopped at Judy's place who is a Chinese christian woman and she and Helen had become good friends when we were here to get Baby Cakes. She was happy and surprised that we had come back and told us that she was hoping to have another baby.

Emma's was gone and the young man had up'ed the prices on just about everything. Of course there a "good price for you" if you'll buy more. We moved along.

Michael's is still the best price for laundry and he will come to the China Hotel to pick up and drop off laundry. if you'll cover the taxi costs. So worth it! Inventory has dropped off but there are still plenty of  artistic treasures.

At Jenny's, I was excited to see she had birthday candles. Our friends found them in Nanchung and we have been watching for them. It adds great pyrotechnics to any birthday celebration. Jenny's continues to have beter quality stuff. She remembered us and was very kind as always.

We love the store "A Gift from China" - which was open.  They have good quality items and they target christian market. We were able to get some beautifully crafted pieces and they do well to help orphans.

We even walked down to the subway to look around. We learned that at any given time the subway has at least two million people on it. I'm hoping that Helen will be brave and ride the subway with me. I had no idea that it tunnels through out the entire city.

Today - we still had plenty of tears, Momma wanted to spare everyone at breakfast. But through out the day we managed to take a few more baby steps. We got her to stand and even walk with assistance  and she'll now sit up on her own. (Not with out complaining but .... at least she is not flopping over) helen and I were thinking that mentally she is two and physically she more like 8-9 months. We tried the slide and I got her to ride on daddy's shoulders.