Day 5: Friday - Free Day

Today we had no official visits for the adoption, so it was a free day.

Started out street shopping near the hotel. As we had been told, there is quite the baby commerce district right around the hotel. There are probably 20 or so shops of all sizes lining the 2-3 blocks in each direction. Our favorite shop keeper is Dong and his wife "Susan" at "Susan's Place. Their store is tiny; not much bigger than a kiosk at an American shopping mall.


We bargain hard with Dong and usually get him down to about 60% of his initial asking price on most things. In some ways I feel bad because the prices are already low ($3 for a pair of baby shoes) and they are obviously not making huge money - at least by US standards. Nevertheless, we are told bargaining is the norm and if we don't we'll definitely overpay.

Other shops are larger, more like small stores in the States, and a few have lots of floor space but have 7 foot ceilings and 5 foot archways between rooms in the shop.



One item selling like hotcakes here are the squeaky shoes. They come in all baby sizes and colors and have squeakers in the heel so you know when she's coming. We have already bought about 9 pairs for about 25 yuan each ($3.25).


We had intended on going to some other places as well, but Keira got really sick. She has a bad, congested cough and her nose is running like a faucet. So we took it easy the rest of the day. At night we gave her drugs for the first time. Infant Benadryl; worked like a charm. :-)