Day 7 ~ Sightseeing, Dim sum, and McDonalds

Today was a free day to sightsee, and our guide, Elsie, took us, the McCains, and the Chens out for the morning.  Our new friends are truly great people and we are enjoying our time with them.  We went to the Dr Sun Yat-sen memorial hall (he is China's "first father" who attempted to bring democracy to China in the early 1900's ~ a cross between George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr), then to a famous Guangzhou park (we always notice the active senior citizens in the parks here ~ dancing, playing badmitton, doing calisthenics, and playing some pretty impressive hacky sack!), and then to a 1400 year old Buddist Temple ~ the 6 Banyan temple.  We then went out for some authentic Chinese dim sum ("snack food").  We probably wouldn't have had the nerve to try and order anything from this restaurant ourselves, but the Chen's are self professed "foodies" and they speak Chinese and know the cuisine pretty well, so they ordered for all of us!  We tried lots of wonderful new food, including pigs ear!  Wu Yi doesn't usually eat a whole lot, but she really chowed down today!  It was fun to see how skilled she is eating slippery food with chop sticks!  We had an amazing spread of food, and it only cost $45 US for all 3 families to eat.
We then did some shopping to see if Wu Yi wanted to pick out some new shoes.  I brought her 2 pair from home, but she is determined to keep her red snowboots.  Despite looking at lots of shoes, she firmly refused to show interest in any of them.  We then looked at some toys, and she was pretty excited to buy a new Barbie.  She has picked out a few new toys (dolls) while here, but she then refuses to play with them.
We returned to the hotel and were thrilled to finally be able to get through to home on Skype!  It sounds like there is a flu bug at our house, but despite that, the boys put on a great show for their new sister!  She didn't really want to be on camera, and she mostly pretended not to look at them, but their antics made her ALMOST actually smile!  She seemed to be in a better mood after that ~ good job boys!!
Don and I have physically felt really good this trip, but this afternoon, my stomach started to act up a bit.  I wanted to eat something normal for dinner, so we decided to check out McDonalds (even though I don't think I have been there for a couple of years).  I got some fries and an ice cream cone and we ate with a Missouri family from our hotel.  What will always be memorable to me about this McD's was an interaction we had with a gruff looking middle Eastern man who stood in front of us in line.  I noticed him looking at us while we were showing Wu Yi the menu and after he finished ordering, he turned around and started talking to us in very broken English.  He asked if Wu Yi was from China (we told him yes) and then asked if Don and I were from England (we told him America) and then he struggled to ask us another question which we didn't quite understand. I thought I heard the word "orphan", so I told him she had been an orphan and that she had been with us for 6 days.  He stared long and hard at the three of us, looking for the right words, and then he patted his heart, got a little teary eyed, gently patted Wu Yi's face, and then kissed the top of her head.  He was wiping the tears from his eyes as he quickly walked away.  I was so touched by this.  Especially because he was from a completely different part of the world from us.  It made the world seem so small to me.
Wu Yi made her usual daily phone calls to the orphanage, and today, for the first time, she did not cry.  Not once. :)