Shamian Island

Shamian Island is a wonderful little place in the hustle-and-bustle of a major Chinese city. People wander the streets and shop in stores that are completely geared to the "new mothers" of adoption: "You lucky momma. Very pretty daughter." It got my wife every time. The Cow and Bridge Restaurant has wonderful food!

Quick Tips:

It is very Western, complete with a 24-hour 7-Eleven that offers steamed barbecue pork buns instead of the crispy tacito rolls we have in the States.

Best Way To Get Around:

It's small enough to walk around, which is what we did nightly.

After 2 weeks of fantastic Chinese food, it was still cool to find a place where I could get a greasy burger and fries with an ice-cold beer. And the onion rings were as decadent as any diner back here.

You spend 2 weeks with a group of strangers all adopting Chinese children, so you begin to bond with them. "Sometimes when we touch, the honesty's too much..." came on as we sat around talking and laughing. Before we knew it, we were all singing and swaying to Dan Hill's vocals.

As we left, we were approached by a non-Chinese tourist who tried to get us to exchange his $100 bill that was clearly counterfeit. When we suggested the currency exchange desk in the hotel, he booked.

I think everything you need to know is in the name of the restaurant. I found it to be extremely tasty. I ordered what I called "The Big Bowl of Beef with Spaghetti." Salt, soy, and slurp!

The island economy tends to cater to the adoptive parents. All the shops offer cute little dresses, squeaky shoes (imagine a dog's toy on the feet of a toddler running around your house), and various authentic Chinese souvenirs. One shop in particular really went out of its way to sell to my wife, and it worked. She got bargains without even trying to barter for 3 straight days.

Adopting parents will buy a special gift to give to their adopted child each year up until the child turns 18. This day is called Gotcha Day, which is the day the parents first were handed their child. Most people wind up buying an extra suitcase just for the gifts.

In addition to the shops, there are some amazing restaurants and one little grocery store called The Friendly Store, where we discovered Mint Sprite, Salmon Lays, and the most incredible Kit Kats ever--orange-flavored, not white chocolate dyed orange, but creamy, dark, chocolaty orange-flavored Kit Kats. (Gimme a break--sell those here!)

The Liurong Temple was built in 537 A.D. and named by a famed writer/calligrapher during the Song dynasty 500 years later. It is said when the man gazed on the six Bayan trees inside the grounds, he quickly wrote two characters liu and rong describing these trees on stone slabs that are supposedly still inside the temple gates.

The temple is also famous for the Flower Pagoda (or Hua Ta), which rises about 200 feet straight up. Once again, I stayed below and waved to those who went up. Please note: There are no railings anywhere on the outside of the tower.

Three Buddha statues are housed at the temple, one each for the past, present, and future. While we were there, a monk performed a Buddhist blessing ceremony for those of us who wished one for our new children. The monks asked for a small donation; some of us gave $5, which was a huge donation to the monks.