Some things never change….even when you’re in a foreign country. We were late for church in China. Now, when we are late for Sunday School at home, we just say we are early for the church service. But that doesn’t work here. If you’re late then you must stay behind the rope, outside of the church. We had a slow go of it this morning with good reason. Sleeping is not going well for Gracie and me. She will wake up terrified in the middle of the night - she’s in new surroundings -and she will only go back to sleep on top of me. She screams and crawls her way to me and climbs on me to find my face or my chest. Seriously. She sleeps best when her face is on my face. Me…not so much. I’m getting 2-3 hours of sleep a night. Anyway, after we woke up, we went for breakfast and realized we were going to miss most of the church service. The girls got dressed in their "Easter dresses" that Emma had picked out the day before and we were off to explore.
The church on Shamian Island has a service is from 10:45 until 12:15 pm. We took a short cab ride to the island where it is absolutely beautiful…but not in an Asian kind of way.
“Shamian Island is a sandbank island just off of Guangzhou city. The island's name literally means "sandy surface" in Chinese. The territory was divided into two concessions given to France and the United Kingdom by the Qing government in the 19th century. The island is a gazetted historical area that serves as a tranquil reminder of the colonial European period, with quiet pedestrian avenues flanked by trees and lined by historical buildings. The island is the location of several hotels, a youth hostel, a church, restaurants and tourist shops selling curios and souvenirs.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamian_Island
“Shamian Island is a sandbank island just off of Guangzhou city. The island's name literally means "sandy surface" in Chinese. The territory was divided into two concessions given to France and the United Kingdom by the Qing government in the 19th century. The island is a gazetted historical area that serves as a tranquil reminder of the colonial European period, with quiet pedestrian avenues flanked by trees and lined by historical buildings. The island is the location of several hotels, a youth hostel, a church, restaurants and tourist shops selling curios and souvenirs.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamian_Island
We were dropped off at the White Swan Hotel. This hotel used to be where adoptive families would stay when the US Consulate was located on Shamian Island. Within the last few years, The consulate moved to downtown Guangzhou and families stay closer to that now. It is a beautiful hotel and had many beautiful statues carved from jade.
And of course their own indoor waterfall. And since today is Easter, we had to be wearing our EAC shirts!
We have been a part of Easter at Coolidge ever since it started 7 years ago (has it really been that long?) Our church has a huge Easter egg hunt in Coolidge Park and then we enjoy a 100 voice, 2-church choir followed by church in the park. This has always been a special time for our family and we have loved spending that day with our friends and thousands of other people in the park. So today we are especially missing our boys back home and our church family but we know we will be there next year….with a new little Brown enjoying her first EAC. And we know our boys were WELL taken care of at EAC...it was fun getting lots of pictures of them enjoying the day.
Once we left the White Swan we headed for the church to see if we could catch the end of the service. There was a red rope across the entrance and we were not allowed inside so we stood outside for a while listening….they spoke in Chinese and then in English….so I guess that’s why the service was so long! We next walked down the road to the church bookstore where we found several books we have seen before but this time in Chinese. We bought few things there and then went exploring some more.
We walked along the river and saw beautiful bridges and trees. The trees look so old here and the trunks of the trees look all twisted. Unfortunately the water was pretty gross…it looked like a thick river of stew with all sorts things floating in it. As we kept walking we found some interesting things for sale on the side of the road…and probably just pulled out of this thick soup.
We next headed for the little shops. I’ve seen on other families journeys here about a store that donates part of its profit to a local orphanage. We found that store and bought a few souvenirs there.
We went next door to Jenny’s and bargained with the owner for the squeaky shoes. Did you know I HATE squeaky shoes? You know, the shoes that make a squeaking sound every single time the child’s foot hits the floor?? Come on…kids make enough noise on their own! Well I love squeaky shoes on Gracie. And she has three pairs now. :) They’re made of real leather and I think we got them for $8 a pair compared to the $50 in the states. Emma picked out a cool dragon string puppet and a little wooden frog and I had a lot of fun bargaining prices with the owner. We made our way down the tree-lined pathway between the buildings and saw many beautiful flowers and lots of photography shoots. We were told a lot of magazine shoots happen on this island because of it’s beautiful landscaping.
We also found the infamous bronzed statues. I’ve seen photographs of these statues on almost every adoption journey I have followed. It was so surreal again to be putting Gracie in the “missing space” in the line of statue kids, like so many have done before us.
By this time we were getting hungry and headed to Lucy’s…a well known restaurant among the adoption Facebook groups that serves American’s food and has forks! Our server’s name was Grace and we got to sit outside and enjoy people watching. Denny and Emma wanted the American’ish food but I was missing the traditional Chinese dishes. Gracie had her congee…which is porridge-like of rice, broth and sometimes meat.
After lunch we took a cab ride back “home” as we knew we had a very important 5pm meeting that we could not be late for. At 5pm we had EAC.
When Emma first found out that she would miss Easter At Coolidge, she considered not going on the trip…that’s how much our family loves that day. Well, she finally came to her senses and decided she would have her own EAC…Easter At China. She had packed up some eggs and brought candy to stuff them with as she wanted to have an Easter egg hunt with the other kids who came along on the adoption trip. EAC back home had 100,00 eggs, but this year we could only pack up 21 for our Easter At China hunt. At this point in the trip, Emma was getting homesick so the timing was perfect as it helped lift her spirits to do this. So at the start time, we headed down to a little outdoor area at our hotel and Emma and her new little friend Willow had their egg hunt.
When Emma first found out that she would miss Easter At Coolidge, she considered not going on the trip…that’s how much our family loves that day. Well, she finally came to her senses and decided she would have her own EAC…Easter At China. She had packed up some eggs and brought candy to stuff them with as she wanted to have an Easter egg hunt with the other kids who came along on the adoption trip. EAC back home had 100,00 eggs, but this year we could only pack up 21 for our Easter At China hunt. At this point in the trip, Emma was getting homesick so the timing was perfect as it helped lift her spirits to do this. So at the start time, we headed down to a little outdoor area at our hotel and Emma and her new little friend Willow had their egg hunt.
It was fun seeing Emma enjoying her time with new people in a new place and encouraging the other kids to join in. After EAC, we headed up to our room where Emma had so specifically organized and planned out a tea party for her and Willow. Emma had even brought down sodas from the upstairs lounge for the adults to enjoy. There were little chocolate chip cookies and chocolate bars also from the lounge. Willow liked those the best.
Since the water here is unhealthy to drink, each hotel room has a hot pot. Even the local people do not drink water from the spout…they boil all water first. There’s even a sign in our hotel room that says don’t drink the water from the sink. We used bottled water to brush our teeth with. So you fill your hot pot up with water and let it boil for several minutes which apparently kills all the germs. Well, I think I’m buying Emma a hot pot for her birthday! She had so much fun all week boiling her own water (we only used bottle water) and making the tea herself. She has become quite the tea lover.
Since the water here is unhealthy to drink, each hotel room has a hot pot. Even the local people do not drink water from the spout…they boil all water first. There’s even a sign in our hotel room that says don’t drink the water from the sink. We used bottled water to brush our teeth with. So you fill your hot pot up with water and let it boil for several minutes which apparently kills all the germs. Well, I think I’m buying Emma a hot pot for her birthday! She had so much fun all week boiling her own water (we only used bottle water) and making the tea herself. She has become quite the tea lover.
After this excitement, we headed up to the executive lounge to eat the appetizers for our dinner. This room had drinks and snacks throughout the day and then at night had heavy appetizers. We tried to make dinner out of this most nights as it was just easier. Emma ate a lot of bread from here and drank a lot of tea. We sat beside a few other adoptive families and we all shared a bit about our day. It was nice getting to talk with other families on similar journeys and share in their joys and struggles as well as our own. It was a great way to end our Easter Sunday…enjoying the fellowship of new friends as we have missed our friends back home. It was a long, fun, exciting and busy day and we have another one of those tomorrow as our agency has the day planned at the Safari Park.