Day 5--Touring

Today was our last full day here in Chengdu. This is a very large and modern city. Our first stop was the site where Pearl was abandoned. It was downtown in front of a hostel only a few steps from the site of the old Chengdu orphanage. Amazingly, only a few days later, a brand new orphanage was opened on the outskirts of the city and Pearl was transferred there. The new orphanage had preschool and nurture programs established by an American non-profit agency, Half The Sky. We believe that their efforts have resulted in Pearl's eagerness to accept us as her parents and in her good development skills. By another amazing coincidence, while we were looking around the old orphanage, the director of the new orphanage appeared and spent a few more moments with us and Pearl. She just happened to be attending a meeting there that day. She seemed to like Pearl very much and described her further as independent and helpful with the smaller children.

Afterwards, we toured a buddhist temple with only women monks. Their heads were shaved and there were a lot of women from the city who came in to recite verses. It was very beautiful and in stark contrast to all the modern concrete framed buildings surrounding it. From there we headed to an embroidery and brocade factory. The works were stunning and very pricey too. The Sichuan province is famous for this type of artistry and it was wonderful to see them producing these beautiful fabrics and designs.

We were tired after that and returned to the room for the evening, until we boldly ventured out to Pizza Hut. During dinner, we realized that Chloe was sick, very sick. I don't think she has ever had a fever the entire time she has been with us. She kept us up most of the night. I couldn't find the medicine that I thought I had packed, so we purchased some Chinese medicine, but Chloe absolutely refused to take it. I was really worried and we just hoped things would be better the next morning. By about 5:00 AM, she popped out of bed and enthusiastically asked for a bath. We were so relieved to see her feeling better. We knew that we were heading for Guangzhou the next morning and that we could probably find some familiar medicine once we got there.