Jabber Jaws Finds a Treasure

Have I mentioned that Isaac is a jabber jaws?  This child likes to chat and he talks a lot.  He’s trying words in English and I think he’s going to pick it up quickly.  Most of the time though, he is just jabbering away in Chinese.  On the bus he keeps yelling out to our guide “Jie-jie” (big sister) until she answers him. 

So, this morning as we were sitting at breakfast he kept yelling at a kid who was sitting two tables away from us.  It was busy in the restaurant so we just figured he was jabbering with someone.  Well, when he persisted in trying to communicate with the other table, I finally walked over to the table and asked the family there where their children were from.  They were adopting two and one of them was from Henan Province.  I asked if he was from Luoyang and they questioningly answered “yes”.  I asked how old their son was… 3 ½ , just like Isaac!  So, I asked what his name is.  Turns out that this little boy is Isaac’s best friend!!!  He had spied him and was trying to get his attention.  Once I pointed out Isaac to Xia Xian, you should have seen the huge grin on XiaXian’s face.  It was priceless.  I would have LOVED to have a picture of that moment, but the picture of the two of them being happy to see one another is pretty nice!  His family will be here in the hotel until next Saturday, so we will definitely get these boys together to play.  So all Isaac’s talking paid off.  He found his best friend.  Turns out his family doesn’t live all that far from us, maybe 3 hours!  Maybe these boys will be able to maintain their friendship.

Later in the morning our group went to Shamian Island, where English traders were allowed to do business, so it is very colonial in style.  There are TONS of tourist shops and statues and brides.  I don’t know how many couples we saw getting their pictures taken today.  I guess they rent their attire and have pictures taken before the wedding day and they don’t necessarily wear these gowns for their wedding.  Some of them had on so much make up they looked fake.  We bought a few souvenirs but figure we’ll be back there later in the week so we’ll wait to see what size clothes Jennai really wears and get matching Chinese outfits for the three kids. 

Getting OFF the island was an adventure!  We had to walk out to the busy street to get on the bus since it was too big to go on the island.  Well, it turns out it was too big to get down the street where it was headed, so the driver turned and drove on the island.  Well, we ended up right back where he had picked us up but at a T intersection instead of going straight like he would have done had he done so in the first place.  Anyway, there is this cement wall dividing the highway from the little side road so when he TRIED to make a right turn, he couldn’t do it.  He blocked traffic for a while, then backed up. How he did that I have NO CLUE since the traffic was bumper to bumper everywhere!  He tried again, blocked traffic, backed up, tried again, blocked traffic, backed up…. And then……. HE WENT THE WRONG WAY! Yep, he started driving against traffic on the entrance ramp! (I guess it must have been an exit ramp that HE used as an entrance ramp!  Shoooeeyy!)  Then he had to get that big bus turned onto the highway.  An adventure, but we made it back to the hotel safely.  (Oh, and all the while I was busy changing a poopy diaper in the aisle of the bus.  I had a clear view of the road.  I took a video and will post it when we get home.  Quite the adventure!)

Around 4:30 we met our group in the lobby of the hotel for another adventure.  We decided to go (unguided) to take a riverboat cruise on the Pearl River.  We took the subway, which was VERY crowded, but we somehow managed to all stay together.  There were 17 adults (or people over the age of 13) and 7 kids under the age of 6.  We found the place to buy our tickets then went to eat a “quick” supper.  The restaurant staff assured us that they could have the food to us and we could eat it in 30 minutes.  Well, the food STARTED coming out after 25 minutes.  We shoved the food in our mouths and asked for “to go” boxes and ran for the boat dock.  We made it!  The river is lined with beautiful buildings with different colored lights, many of the lights changed colors every few seconds.  We saw a very tall building that was all lit up.  I guess for a time it was the tallest building in the world.  The bridges were all lit up and reflected beautifully in the water.  We enjoyed our 50 minute ride.  As we were leaving the boatdock, a lady was standing there on the sidewalk.  She said to me, “Do you remember me?”  Well, I didn’t!  She was from the restaurant and had brought the 5 meals that hadn’t been brought out to us before we had to leave to catch the boat.  It’s nice that she was honest, though I don’t think anyone was too concerned about it at that point.  We then headed back for another subway adventure back to the hotel.  We had a little trouble getting the token machines to sell us the tokens we needed, but finally got all the tokens and crowded onto the train.  Guille is starting to pick up the cultural aspect of “PUSH”.  When we told him it was almost time to get off the train he loudly said, “Push, push!”

Once back at the hotel we had a little snack and the boys headed to bed and I came down to the hotel lobby to write up these two blog posts.  It is now 11:20PM here and 10:20AM Eastern time.  I better get to bed since tomorrow is such a big day.  I’ll update again tomorrow.  Thanks for your prayer!