Today some of us woke up at 2:00 a.m., much to my dismay. I did manage to stay in bed until 5:30 a.m. We had breakfast in the hotel. All I can say about that is that I will not gain weight on this trip. After breakfast, we met our guide, Joy, and the other families in the lobby for a trip to the grocery store. It was a fun experience - truly! Here is a photo of us checking out from the grocery. Nothing too bizarre in this market.
We purchased bottled water (you can't drink the tap water here - even if it says it is safe), some cheetoes-like item that, instead of cheese, had strawberry cream on the top, some flip-flops, laundry detergent, Diet Coke (called Coke Light here) and some green apple candy.
We attempted to buy some bananas, but apparently didn't handle that correctly. We were supposed to get it weighed by the weigher-girl, and didn't. So they didn't come home with us.
After the grocery run, we all went to the China Bank to exchange our U.S. currency for Chinese yuan. The currency rate of exchange for U.S. to Chinese is .675 right now, and we needed to change the money for the orphanage donation fee for Monday. The bank transaction took a bit of time. Here are a couple of street scenes from our trip to the bank and grocery store -
Street vendor for fried rice.
Apartment area.
After the bank, Joy suggested that we all come back and take a short nap before the acrobat show. Lee (Laura's mom) and Scarlett napped while Laura downloaded photos from the cameras, read, and generally relaxed. We met back in the lobby at 4:30 p.m. to ride the bus across town to the acrobat show. This was at the same place we saw the show five years ago, but the show was different. The acrobats were amazing. I wish we had been allowed to take photos.
After we got back, the Kari and Tim Rinkleberg and Kathy Schroeder and her friends Juelle and Mary Jo and James and I decided to take Joy's advice and treat ourselves to an authentic Chinese dinner out. We walked about a block (taking our lives in our hands crossing the street) and had a fantastic family style meal of prawns in sweet plum sauce, steamed pork dumplings, beef and vegetables, noodles, and tofu. We didn't eat everything - there was too much food! I'll try and post the photo later.
If anyone wants a fun job, we saw someone this morning mopping the flag pole outside our hotel. Not sure why this needed to be done, but I can assure you that we have the cleanest flag pole in all of Asia!
We enjoyed skyping this evening with family and friends. We will try again with a few others that we not on-line this evening. Love to all!
5 comments:
Sounds like you had a great day! So glad!
The market sounded fun. Remember the Walmart in Wuhan? Those really, really big live frogs... ewwww. And some things in the freezer section that were unrecognizable! So many "interesting" things for sale there.
The Coke Light. Yeah - not the same as a Diet Coke. But it works in a pinch.
You can look forward to the yummy breakfast in Guangzhou. You may be longing for it by then. But glad you enjoyed your meal last night! Did Scarlett love the Chinese dumplings? Seem to recall that she loved those. I know Hailey did/still does.
Enjoying reading your posts. Getting a great feel for what you are all doing and how things are going. Love your descriptions! Will be anxiously awaiting the next post.
Love to you all.
M.
I am so happy to hear from you on your blog!!
I wish you were finding out for us about our little one- but anyway...
I am glad that you are safe, and I am looking forward to following your journey!!
Andrea
I am loving the trip details. I can't wait to see pics of Jackson with his big sister! That is so weird that you did not get to take pics of the acrobats. We did in 2005, but then, maybe we weren't supposed to do it then either. I don't remember.
But I am praying you all stay healthy and have great bonding with your new little guy.
Sivje
we liked the pre-packaged ducks feet in the supermarket--they appeared to be "regular" and "barbecue style" but we didn't try them to find out!
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