Shopping in China

I'm happy that this time I went armed with a shopping list to China.  Last time I had one item I wanted and went really with blinders on until we got that jade family ball.  This time, I researched where we were going and knew that Nanjing was famous for brocade and Suzhou famous for embroidery.  I also knew that I wanted to buy a calligraphy set, dresses for all the girls in the family, and we hoped to find a spoon for Lily and a bell for Phoebe.  I measured each child before we left and wrote down their measurements since the sizing is so different from what I'm used to using.  I brought a tiny measuring tape with us to take when we went shopping.  Phil had a list too.  It was fun this time to be on a mission to hunt down everything we were looking for in China.  We also knew that if we found what we wanted IN Province to get it instead of thinking that everything would be available in GZ for cheaper.  Somehow last time we were under the impression that we should wait to shop until we got to GZ but much of what we saw Shaanxi was not available in Guangzhou.

If other adoptive families are reading and need ideas for shopping, here is a list of ideas:

silk shoes (we got little embroidered silk shoes for Jemma that are ADORABLE! instead of the squeaky shoes that are the usual purchase - found them at Amy's on Shamian Island)

silk outfits/dresses

porcelain chop sticks (we bought the bamboo ones last time and they didn't hold up well with lots of washing)

jade - we both got jade jewelry this time from the jade market.  you can ask the shop owner to set the jade into a setting so it can be used as a necklace pendant.

authentic souvenirs from the province as well as a cheaper knock-offs - we got hand woven brocade for Jemma and ourselves and then a knock-off one for Phil to take to work; we also got hand embroidered art - again one for us and one for Jemma - from Suzhou.

We had family chops made - carved stone stamps with each person's name in English and Chinese and then also a smaller one with our last name - these we had made at the Cantonese Folk Art museum for fairly reasonable prices, although I did see that they could have been made at Shamian Island - not sure how the prices compared

A nice Magic Cloth and Calligraphy Set - we got the magic cloth which is a ancient version of Water Wow where you paint with water and when it dries it disappears.  It is for practicing writing Chinese radicals.  The calligraphy set comes with brushes, a water pot, an ink stone, ink block, red ink pot, a little water spoon, and a chip.  Oh and a porcelain brush stand.

I like getting magnets while we are in China.

We purchased a Chinese/English Bible for Jemma.

This time we also got pearls.  We bought three (yes, I wrote 3) pearls for each girl to have made into purity rings.  The pearls we bought for their rings were the whitest, shiniest pearls from the sea - hence why we bought 3 and not a full strand.  I also bought 5 egg shaped pearls (much much cheaper because they weren't round) to have made into a nest necklace by an artist in the states.  Each pearl is slightly different in color.

There is an artist at the Cantonese Folk Art museum who paints with his hands.  Last time we watch him for a quite a while but didn't buy anything.  We wondered why after we got home.  This time we went right to him after getting our chops and picked out artwork from him.

We made some other smaller purchases - a Christmas ornament, some little gifts for the kids, oh and a diaper bag, can't forget that.  I love getting diaper bags IN China because it's something different for that baby.  :)

We got Starbucks mugs from the cities we went to and bought Jemma some clothes that fit her (we didn't want to bring too much and have nothing fit her so we opted to buy cute Chinese wholesale market clothes - I LOVE doing that since they are unlike the clothes we can buy here).

We really only made one big unexpected purchase which was a paint brush holder.  It is hard to find and not available in the States at all and I wasn't expecting to buy one at all.  But we ended up buying one and I'm SO glad we did.

I'll add pictures to this post as I have time.