Hanging out in Guangzhou: Breakfast at the hotel, the temple/museum, the mall, the park ...

Today (Sunday) has been a pretty good day.  We started out at our giant breakfast buffet.  I have found what she loves to eat, congee, which is basically soupy rice, I think.  It is thinner than oatmeal, like almost watery.  When I give her a piece of bread or bun or muffin or anything, she puts it in the congee to soak.  Then she likes to eat it.  I saw some adults doing this in Lanzhou, so I think they must have done that in the orphanage.  Breakfast is where she eats the most, all soaked in congee.

Then our group loaded in the bus for a temple visit.  It was a museum that had all kinds of amazing carvings in all different forms, ivory, wood, and a paper-mâché type design.  They had painting demonstrations, some very impressive silk embroidery, and calligraphy.  It is so amazing how skilled and meticulous they are!

Rachel did very well riding in the stroller.  As long as she has a snack in her hand, she is basically happy.

Then we went to a 5 or 6 story mall filled with jewelry wholesalers.  I bought some pearls for Rachel for later.  There were children in this mall riding scooters and rip sticks and little kids riding toys right in the mall.  I guess this is what happens when everyone lives in apartments and no one has yards or suburban streets.

We spent the afternoon in the hotel room with Silas working on homework and me just hanging out with Rachel and reading.  We did go down to the park that the hotel has and, let me tell you, Rachel is fearless and she likes to have fun!  She did not shy away from the play area and went on the slide and the swing like she had been doing it all her life.  She loved it and of course Silas played with her.  She just giggled and laughed and had a great time.  It is even more impressive because when we got to the room I thought she felt warm, and she did have a fever.  She certainly did not let it slow her down.  So she fell asleep drinking her bottle and is sleeping.  I am really hoping and praying that this fever is just some weird transient thing, because we are supposed to go see a mountain tomorrow.  I get a little restless being in the hotel room all day, I don't want to miss the mountain visit!

Did I mention that she has been wearing only orphanage clothes for the last several days?  She will not let me take them off.  But they were filthy after today's outing where she fell down several times on the very dirty ground.  She found her other orphanage shirt in the drawer, so she let me take the dirty shirt off to wash it.  Then her pants got wet, so I washed them too.  So it feels like a victory that she is at least wearing something different, but she still is not wearing the very cute pink things I brought.  Someone at the play area thought she was a boy :(.