What a wonderful day we have had on the island.  We started out early for breakfast, played a bit in the hotel playroom, Red Couch photos, lunch and much needed hot chocolate at Starbucks - Maddox slept through this, her first official visit to Starbucks - a visit to Jordon's, a walk through the park where we observed lots of modeling shoots taking place, and then the real fun began.....the herbal medicine market and the pearl market.  We were back in real China.  The herbal medicine market was a long street full of shops selling live snakes, snake skins, an assortment of live scorpions of all sizes (Colin even captured one with chopsticks no doubt!), dead scorpions, dead lizards on sticks, deer feet, dead black ants, dead seahorses, turtles, dogs, cats, fish, eel, shark fins, oh, and a goose, shall I go on?????  Oh, and there was an alligator being skinned for our enjoyment....yep, right on the street!  The people were everywhere.....I kept counting our children, we have FOUR now to keep up with, for those of you who have lost count!  Thankfully, our group has a lot of children and adults who all look out for one another....and have I mentioned our guide?  She is spectacular with the children and with all of us!

Following our herbal medicine market experience, we walked through the pearl market.  It is huge!  I didn't even count the stories, but I took a picture for those of you who are huge jewelry shoppers at home.  Strands and strands of every bead, pearl, pendant, jade pieces.....you name it, they had it.  You could buy in bulk or individually.  Thankfully, MK slept through this part of the tour....other families with other older little girls were not so lucky and their money was well spent!  Our last stop was at a Pandora store.....or, the China version of a Pandora store....the women were all taken with this stop and made some pretty things to bring home! We are off to dinner now and then into bed early.  We have an early morning tomorrow.  We visit the US Consulate to get the official passport and visa for Maddox....and then, drum roll please, we are officially done!  Until later.....
PS....for those of you who are following and wondering if we have been doing schoolwork in China.....the pic of Colin and Pryce reading in the park is for you! :)