Today after Violet’s morning nap we headed out to Shamian Island.

Our friends from North Park, who just left here on Friday, but who were here in the same hotel, with the same adoption agency as us, went there a few days ago and told us about a few Christian shop owners whose main customer base was the adoptive families from the White Swan hotel. Since that hotel is closed now for a whole year for renovations, they are hurting financially. Since we wanted to visit the island and since we also wanted to pick up some souvenirs we went there to look for those shops.

The buildings there are Western in style as they were created by the French and Great Britain back in the 1800s. It was a very pretty area. There were lots of statues depicting both Chinese and Western pairs of people in various activities – a Chinese and Westerner playing music together, playing board games, etc. There is a big courtyard area with greenery and there were many photo shoots of brides and grooms going on. I’m still not sure if they were for print ads, etc. or if they were “real” couples.

By the time we got home, we opted to not go to dinner with our group. It was a good thing because Violet had a very short afternoon nap in the afternoon and was down for the night by 6:45. We will join our group tomorrow for our Buddhist Temple/Old Chen House/Provincial Arts and Crafts outing.

One last note - We got a few more cute shots of Violet today. Well, we think they are ALL cute (biased, adoring parents), but I particularly like the one of her smiling really big. I just wish I could have gotten her whole face in the picture, but she always rushes the camera!

As we were meandering a woman held out a card that said “Jenny’s Place”. That is one of the stores we were looking for! She lead us into her small shop and she closed the door behind us to help us personally! We picked out some squeaky shoes for when Violet starts walking, and various other items. Her English was fantastic. She showed me her photo album of adoptive family after adoptive family who she met over the years. She was the sweetest person ever!