Real China

Monday 1-20

In our guide’s words, today we saw “real China”.  She took us on a walking tour of some of the market streets that the locals shops.  There were multiple blocks of nothing other than bulk Chinese herbal medicine ingredients.  This included scorpions, which apparently can be boiled to make a curing tea.  Another street was filled with pet supplies—and cages of cats or birds, and bins of fish and turtles.

We visited the most popular shopping area, which had modern supplies such as clothing.  There is also an entire mall selling jewelry, particularly pearls.   The other families bought some pearl necklaces.  

Then we did the thing that makes me cringe when I read it on adoption blogs: we ate at McDonald’s.  I used to think it was wrong to avoid the Chinese culture, but have now honestly found that McDonald’s and western food is very common here.  The kids had all previously eaten at McDonald’s and were very excited to get French fries.  Teagen typically doesn’t eat much meat, but she told the guide that she wanted chicken nuggets.  She ate them all, plus an ice cream cone and half my Coke.  This is the most I’ve seen her eat other than ramen noodles.

We’ve been told to stay at the hotel for a few hours this afternoon in case any of the kids need to have a chest x-ray.  Hopefully the blood work they performed on Saturday comes back all clear, as I don’t think a return visit will go over well with Teagen.