Night of 10,000 Words

The night of 1,000 bribes was pretty much taken away from us because Leah literally wants nothing. In its place she gave us the night of 10,000 words. After our movie Saturday, we let Leah call one of her orphanage friends. Once that was over, the stories began of the kids in the orphanage. Story after story of her friends. She was cracking us up and cracking herself up. It sounds like a great night of bonding with our daughter, doesn't it? Yeah, we understood about 1/3 of what she was saying! Still a great night of bonding if not a great night of storytelling. This girl wants to talk! I think English will come fairly quickly for her because she is determined to talk and be understood. Once that happens, watch out everyone!

On Sunday, we had tours of the 6 Banyan Temple and the Chen Clan Academy. Both we have been to before on previous trips, but for different reasons, both were worth the trip back. The 6 Banyan Temple we visited on our first trip with Hannah. We never completed that tour because Hannah had a little melt down. We wanted to go back with Leah and have her do the same pose in the same place. Check out both of the photos and see how we did. We wanted to revisit the Chen Clan Academy because it has great art and souvenirs. We got a few things for Leah and she was actually excited about them. As with our other 2 girls, we got her the necklaces that have their names engraved on a rice grain. She was pretty happy about that. We also got her a nice paper cutout of her Chinese Zodiac--the tiger.

After touring we had a little time to blow before meeting some of our group for a late lunch. Leah was starving at this point, so we had her try the few snacks we had in the room--cookies and potato chips. Healthy, no but certainly a revealing exercise. She ended up liking both, so there is a little hope that she will actually like some food back home. We ended up getting a taxi to the Island to eat at "Lucy's". We are not staying on Island, but after our 3rd trip there in two days we're kind of wondering why not? We're here all the time anyway. At least at this point, Lucy's is one of the few things that has remained as we remember it. Once there, Leah found a spicy Sichuan chicken dinner that sounded good to her. Well Guangzhou's idea of Sichuan spicy and Leah's idea of Sichuan spicy are 2 different things. She had them take her chicken back and make it spicier. When it came back she was very happy with it. Jon and I had some and it was SPICY! Leah, however, told us it was only a little spicy. Yikes! I think she will kill the rest of the cousins at the annual "spicy buffalo wings eating contest" without even breaking a sweat. You go girl!

This evening seems to be ending the way yesterday did--night of 10,000 words part two. Please pray for our ears!