[KarenInCa]

For anyone who has already BTDT, and wants to share, I thought I'd start a thread about things you can buy in China for yourself, your family or your adopted child.

First, I wanted to mention that it's customary to haggle prices. They expect it.

Also, as a tip about buying jade, I was told by a friend who's from China, to stay away from the side street venders for jade. glass bracelets can be dyed to look like jade. While we were in China, a merchant showed us how to test for real jade. She took a piece of hair from her head, and wrapped it around the jade bracelet, then she lit a lighter under it, and the flame did not burn the hair or the bracelet. I don't know if that's an 'official' test or even a test at all, but it was impressive.
Obviously you can't do this yourself, but it would be interesting to ask to have it done for you when buying the jade.

As for pearls, I learned a long time ago that real pearls feel gritty on the teeth when you rub it against your teeth. But I'm not sure how to tell if it's fresh water or salt water pearls.
We bought strings of pearls for more than we expected to pay but when we came home, realized that they were about 3-4 times more than we had paid for them.

So besides the obvious (pearls and jade) Here's one thing we were very impressed with, and would encourage ANYONE else to do.
At any of the store fronts in GZ, you can have a glass globe painted. We printed our favorite pictures of our daughter, from the digital camera, using the White Swan's conference room printer. One was a picture of our daughter with her nanny, and one was a picture of our daughter on adoption day.
Then we gave the two pictures to the merchant. In a matter of only 2 days, an artist hired by the merchant had 6 glass globes painted with the picture on the inside of the globe.
Keep in mind, these painted globes were painted from the inside out! The artist used a very fine brush and the painting looked astonishingly similar to the original pictures.
Each globe was only 20 US dollars. It's one of the most beautiful pieces of artwork I've ever seen....So much detail, and to think that they were painted from the inside, on the bubble of the globe is beyond amazing. These were beyond expectation and we will definitely plan to do it the second time around as well. If you decide to do this, make sure that you give the artist at least two or three days, or expect to have it shipped back to you once you're home.

Who else has something to share, for the 'must have' list??

Here is a picture of the one with our daughter and her main nanny.