into every adoption some rain must fall

We woke to gray skies and wet streets this morning, which put a little damper on our day.  We’d planned to hit a bunch of shops to buy some souvenirs that can only be found in Mongolia (where else are you going to find Genghis Khan gear?) and then head over to a local park to burn off some energy.  The rain nixed the park, but we still got our Genghis on.

I have to admit, I was a little doubtful.  The place had a goat tethered just outside the entrance!  But right off the bat Levi was in his glory–swords galore!  We perused the selection of fine Mongolian steel, making a few choice selections before we hit another bump in the road.  Our trusty Hohhot interpreter and expert on all things local got woozy and fainted.  Kim barely caught her before she hit the ground.  Turns out our fair guide is with child, and wasn’t feeling 100% today.  She opted out of the rest of our shopping experience, but found us an employee to show us through the facility.

And some facility it was.  Every turn brought us to a new and wonderful collection of Inner Mongolia’s finest wares.  We saw some stunning jewelry and agates the size of coffee tables (only 60,000 USD!), leather goods of all sorts, and maybe the world’s finest cashmere/wool long underpants.  I was sorely tempted, but managed to pass on the long undies!  We bought lots of goodies, including some things we’ll tuck away to give to Isaac on the anniversaries of his Gotcha Day.  Nothing too elaborate, but some things to celebrate where his journey began.

The last stop on this magical mystery tour was the snack section.  There for your sampling pleasure was just about every kind of jerky known to The Great Khan–beef, venison, sheep, camel, and some things that I’m just going to call “meat.”  We tasted them all!  After the meats came a selection of candies and sweets.  We bought a little of both (meats and candies) then went to find our sickly guide for the bus ride back to the hotel.

Instead of an afternoon romping in the local park, we pulled out another just as delightful activity–homework!  Yep, we’re just that fun!  The kiddos are missing 12 days of school, so we have 12 days of homework and assignments along with us, as well as a couple of school laptops.  Unfortunately (I guess) for us, Google docs is blocked by the Great Fire Wall of China, so the well-intentioned students have been a little stymied.  Josie and I worked on a few pages of math, which turns out to be just as fun in China as it is in our kitchen.

I had a great talk with one of the Australian couples who are here adopting a baby girl.  They’ve been waiting for 7 years to get their referral!  The other Aussie couple (also adopting a baby girl) is having a rough go.  Baby girl has some sort of upper respiratory thing going on, and they had her at the hospital last night and this afternoon.

We tried a new restaurant for supper, and Kim liked it better, even though she and Josie never got their food!  The meals all came out at different times, with the appetizers arriving in the middle of the meal.  Kim and Josie got their noodles to go, and ate supper in the room while a tickle fight broke out around them.  Turns out that the International Language is neither love nor music, but a good old tickle battle!

Levi just finished skyping with his 4th period Spanish class (hola muchachos!) and we’re wrapping things up for the night.  I’ll leave you with some pics from the day…