Day 8 (August 8th) Painting at Maria's and exploring Luoyang

Since MBHOH just opened a month prior to us arriving, there were not many kids there (around 40 or 50, whereas the capacity is over 100) so our focus here was more so on doing work projects than on playing with the kids. We had to paint the wall surrounding the orphanage. It was so tiring but so fun!

Stephanie, Julie, and myself took the fun to a whole new level. The walls were hard to paint with rollers, so we started using our hands. It helped us smooth it in plus it felt pretty good! We got a little curious about what it would feel like to have our feet covered in paint as well. We couldn't resist sticking our feet in our paint pan once the task was finished.

After painting for a few hrs, we headed into town to eat supper and explore the town a bit. We were taken to a shopping centre and given a time limit, then we were free to go and do what we chose. We split off into different groups and wandered around. Stephanie and I tried to shop (key word, tried) for clothes, but the people in Luoyang are very unfamiliar with white people, so it was a little overwhelming. Everyone stared and the sales people basically attacked us, trying to convince us to buy their items. We went to a store called Carrefore, which was basically a store with everything. I couldn't resist taking pictures of different things around the store. Everything is so different!

Seeing this car made me smile. Good ol' Hondas :)

The buses had seatbelts on the backs of the seats (???) Stephanie and I tested them out, trying to figure out HOW they were supposed to work. We are basically the same exact size, so we managed to both fit in one seatbelt.

MBHOH had a roof that we were able to go out on. The view was so amazing, and it was also a nice place to get away from things. Stephanie and I went up here after our shopping excursion. She bought a pint of ice cream so we wanted to sneak away and eat it :) One pint of ice cream would not go far at all in a group of 20 people. We sat up there, had some good conversations, and ate to our hearts delight. It was so nice. I'm so so thankful she was on this trip.