Day 2 in ChengDu - Jinli Shopping/Wuhou Temple

Ni Hao! Today was a really fun day! We started out the day talking to everyone back home and then met our guide Mei for a wonderful breakfast. You should see all the food! I have decided that I am going to be adventurous this time around. I tried a lot of local foods, including bao zi or dumplings, spicy noodles, steamed buns and for lunch we actually ate at a hotpot restaurant! We enjoyed sitting around breakfast and sharing our culture/traditions with Mei and hearing about Chinese culture in return. She was so suprised to know that Chuck and Joanne are my in-laws and that they still work and are not retired! Chuck showed her many pictures of back home and of our beautiful desert southwest! She was really interested and loved seeing the different scenery. We had Lake Powell, Apache Lake, Sedona, The White Mountains and just the desert around Kearny to show her. We learned that the Chinese people do not pay taxes, just the really wealthy, that they retire around age 45 and are pressured to do so in order to make more jobs for the younger workers. We learned that they still receive a salary after retirement and that the average class size in elementary classrooms is around 50-60 students! We learned that the average living space here is 900 sq. feet. We chatted and learned all of this over some delicious food and then we headed out to check out the local sights!

Traffic here is amazing!! The streets are wide and jammed with cars, buses, pedestrians, bikes, mopeds and scooters. There really are no rules to speak of! Needless to say, we had a very interesting ride from our hotel to the Wuhou Temple. This was right up my alley! It was beautiful scenery and very rich in history! Mei has said that I need to read The Three Kingdoms when I return home. The temple we visited today was all about the struggle for power among the Ming, Tang and Shu Dynasties. The temple was dedicated to the main figures, the famous general Zhuge Liang and to the king he served. I have to look his name up again. Anyway, we saw artifacts that were over 2,000 years old! It was just amazing! We had a great time walking around the temple grounds and absorbing all of the history. We came upon several groups of locals gathered around the various statues debating which historical figure was greater. Mei said that in China, the Three Kingdoms story is taught from the time they are small. It is a very famous story and is the basis for many poems and other art forms. All of the Chinese know the story and figures well. We saw several young children taking notes while walking around the temple grounds.
We stopped in a gift shop inside the grounds and had a great time purchasing some local creations. The people are so kind and sweet! A young girl was so excited to use her English on Chuck. She spoke it very well! Chuck and I were also approached by a man and his grown daughter and asked if we would pose for a picture with them. They were very sweet and we enjoyed meeting their request! It's sort of fun to be the center of so much attention!:) I purchased two minority costume dolls for Kaia and a ceramic vase with a custom bamboo weave covering which has two pandas woven into it.
After the temple, we walked into the Jinli street shopping area. This was very cool. It's a very old street with a huge variety of things for sale. There are street vendors and shops everywhere. I found a beatiful wooden bowl that was hand painted. We also saw some beautiful paper cutting crafts and I loved seeing some amazing candy creations! These were like sculptures made from sugar rather than lollipops. I wanted to purchase one, but I knew there was no way to get them home in one piece! They had hand-blown candies too! It looked like a glass ornament. Another cool thing was a very intricately painted egg shell. So while we're strolling along through all of this ancient scenery, we spot a Starbucks! Too funny! I got Scott a Chengdu Starbucks mug which shows a panda and says ChengDu on the mug. I also enjoyed a vanilla latte!

Our next stop was a restuarant serving HotPot. Oh my gosh, it was SO SPICY! Mei ordered for us and agreed to keep it uninteresting, meaning no chicken's feet or fish heads! Thanks Mei! We were seated at a table with an opening in the middle which housed a burner. We ordered potatoes, cabbage, beef, tofu and sausage and we ordered the lowest heat level for our cooking liquid. The servers brought out a huge pot of chicken stock laced with chili oil, chilies and other yummy stuff. Mei says the cooks keep the ingredients very secret so as to not give anything away to other chefs! In the middle of this large pot was a broth w/o any spice. Mei ordered this for Joanne's sake! The food comes out raw and you use your chopsticks to place it in the boiling liquid to cook. It's sort of like fondue! Let me tell you, I love spicy foods and this stuff was beyond spicy!!! It made me sneeze and had Mei saying, "It's just too much, we can't do this!" She's adorable! We ate as much as we could muster before she finally wiped her eyes and declared us finished! It was just too much spice for this crowd!:) It was a really fun experience though and I was so proud of us for staying away from the McDonald's and KFC and opting for the real thing instead! I'm really enjoying all of the unique flavor of China this time around. This is such an awesome country, full of history and the people are very kind. I hope to take it all in so that I can give these wonderful impressions to our children as glimpses of their birth country.

On that note, I'm preparing as best I can to meet Josiah tomorrow! I've got gift bags together and a backpack for him. I've stuffed it with snacks and toys to distract him. We meet him tomorrow at 10:00am at the Adoption Center. That's 7:00pm Sunday night in Arizona! (Monday morning in ChengDu). Please pray for his little heart and for tomorrow to go smoothly. I just can't believe that I'm this close to meeting him!! I look forward to posting with picures of Gotcha Day tomorrow!!

Love,
Lisa