An Exciting Day in Downtown Guangzhou!

We started our day out at 10am with a short bus ride to downtown Guangzhou. We first visited the Chen Family Temple. The Chen family is a very popular family in China and they built a temple for themselves. But then in 1949 when the government over took the country they made private ownership illegal, so now it is owned by the gov't. It is a very beautiful place. We all commiserated over the beds that they used to use (see picture below). We think that the White Swan Hotel still beleives that people prefer these types of beds as it feels like the ones that we are sleeping on - LOL :):)

We were then off to the downtown shopping area. It was VERY crowded and we had to keep VERY close tabs on our kids and the group - we didn't want to loose anyone! We shopped in the children's section of a Dept. Store for about 1hr. Then we started toward another section of shopping mall. It was like 3-4 stories at the mall and just HUGE. There were several of these. Anyway, we started for the mall for Pizza Hut. When we walked out the sky was dark, then just as we got close to the door to enter the mall a HUGE WIND came - HUGE!!!! It was kinda scary! Then a MAJOR downpour - and we were missing a dad and his daughter from our group:( But, after about 15-20 minutes, they showed up - very scary though! We had a nice lunch. We got a chuckle out of a family sitting next us. I think they bought a 1 trip salad bar b/c that plate was the biggest salad/fruit plate i had ever seen - we took a picture:)

Then we were off to the wholesale pearl market! VERY good prices!!! We picked out some pearls and they will be delivered to us tomorrow night:) Lance had fun at the wholesale DVD store. Each DVD was 12 yuan, which is about $1.25 each! On our way out of the mall, Jim Savley, the founder of our Small World Agency showed up!! They were on their way to the pearls too. We took a picture of him and thanked him. They were there with some members of his church checking on the new foster care program - what a WONDERFUL SUPRISE!!!

That was the good chunk of our day. Mom, Taylor and I did a bit more shopping when we got home and then we ordered dinner in our hotel (after the boys did a bit of swimming in the rain).

Hugs to all - a few more days!!