Monday, July 6 - Folk Art Museum and Market

After all the rain yesterday, it was a little cooler today.  We met the other family and a new guide, Helen, at 9:30 and went to a folk art museum that was really neat.  It had a lot of different types of carvings and sculptures, along with displays of how different rooms would be furnished in the old days.  We didn't see all the exhibits, but it was interesting and the kids did really well.  TongJie was actually interested in pretty much all the displays that we looked at.  It was set up all around a huge courtyard so it had the feeling of being in the open air, and probably wouldn't have been very fun if it had been much hotter.  So it was definitely nice that it was cooler today.  After the museum, we went to a jade and pearl market.  That was not so fun, mostly because it was getting to be lunch time and Ezekiel was fussy and it was pretty much just a mall of a whole bunch of different jewelry shops all crammed together with really expensive and boring stuff.  The other family has two daughters and they wanted to get a pearl necklace for each girl, so Helen took us to a shop that has genuine pearls and pretty good prices I guess.  Our family waited outside the shop, but there were rows and rows of other shops that looked just like it.  Jeff says he hopes he never has to go into a place like that again, ha ha!  Then we went upstairs to a jade shop that Helen took us to, and we bought a little jade horse pendant for Ezekiel.  When we were here in 2012, we bought a little jade tiger statue for TongJie, so now they each have a jade likeness of their zodiac animal.  Ezekiel fell asleep in the van on the way back to the hotel and Jeff was able to carry him out of the van and all the way up to our room and get him into his crib without him waking up.  The rest of us ate lunch and then I put TongJie down for a nap too, so now both kids are snoozing in the bedroom.

This evening, we are planning to meet up with the other family and try the Mexican restaurant that's near our hotel called Tekila.  It should be interesting to see what Chinese Mexican food is like!  Tomorrow morning is our visa appointment at the consulate.  Getting closer to coming home!

Two of the photos are of the museum today.  One is TongJie with some carrot and fruit juice that we tried and he really liked, and one is of Ezekiel's visa photo.  Poor kid - that's the picture that will be on his citizenship certificate.