Is it time to go home yet?

Monday afternoon in Guangzhou and here we are in our fall back positions: Lucy in front of the TV and me updating the blog. If you could stick a fork in me, I'm sure you would find that I am DONE!

[WARNING: this is a long rambling post!]

Yesterday was our sightseeing day. Our guide took us and the other WACAP family to see the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall and the Chen Family Temple. We spent about an hour at each and Lucy was finished about half way through the second sight. Her camera battery is running out of juice faster than I expected and once she can't take pictures she loses interest in doing any more sightseeing.

The banyan trees on the grounds were beautiful.

Outside the Chen Family Temple.

The temple also functions as a museum for local arts. There is a local version of Chinese opera and there were a number of rooms devoted to this art form, including miniatures and full size costumes.

In the embroidery display, these pictures were just 2 examples of the superb hand work. They look like paintings, but they are all embroidery!

The fans above are made from the leaves of these plants.

Back at the hotel by lunch time, we tried a local version of fast food. They were cooking some strange looking meat, so I opted for a meatless rice dish in broth (picture chicken & rice soup without the chicken). The afternoon I had an appointment with Ann, the local shopping guide many families hire. It wasn't quite the experience I was hoping for. I got most of what I wanted, plus some items I hadn't planned on. I ended up getting talked into some additional purchases and started feeling stressed. Overall I think I won't regret my purchases, but it wasn't a fun time. The brightest moment of the afternoon was the 30 minutes or so of sunshine that we had before the rain returned.

The evening was better when we met 2 other families and had a big group (12 people total) dinner at the local Mexican restaurant. Because of our group size, we did have to wait 30 minutes for a table, but it was fun chatting with everyone and the time passed quickly.

This morning I needed to replenish my wallet. I've exchanged all of the large US bills I brought and decided to pull money from an ATM using my credit card. We did this for almost all of our spending money last trip and it worked very well. So I headed to the ATMs next to the hotel and couldn't get any money!!! I tried 2 different credit cards and the machine would give me my balance, but no option to withdraw funds! The guide had called to say that the other family had requested going shopping instead of the zoo trip, so we were heading to the wholesale mall after a quick stop at the clinic. With just over 200 RMB in my pocket, I was feeling pretty poor.

Then we get in the van and the guide looks at Lucy's arm - says there is enough of a bump from the TB skin test, that she'll probably have to have a chest x-ray. Yikes. How much will that cost? Fortunately only 109 RMB, and yes, she did have to have an x-ray.

With the equivalent of about $15 in my pocket we headed for the mall. Shopping was out of the question. Then I saw some ATM machines!! For 3 different banks. The one for the bank we used last trip was being used by a Chinese man. I thought I would wait rather than try the others until I saw him pulling the 4th or 5th pile of cash out while we waited. Our guide told me that the ATMs this morning may not have given my a withdrawal option due to being out of money. By the time this guy finished, I wasn't sure there would be any money left, so I tried one of the other bank machines. SUCCESS!!! With Chinese currency in my pocket again, we were able to go shopping and found Lucy a red wallet. They wouldn't drop the price and I almost walked away, but we've had a terrible time finding something she likes so I caved in and bought it. Only about $6 so not a huge investment, but when we got back to the room, she realized that the wrist strap which had been stored inside isn't the same color red!

Rather interesting seeing all the Christmas decorations for sale. Apparently Christmas is growing in popularity in China. The saxophone-playing Santas were everywhere and they all play the same song.

Someone described the scene as looking like a dollar store on steroids. Pretty accurate description.

Lunch was another Chinese fast food shop. Lucy wanted fried noodles, but the closest they had was fried rice. Good enough. They were really nice, figuring very quickly that I needed an English menu and taking our order from our table rather than making us order at the register like everyone else. Worked out great.

After lunch Lucy and I went shoe shopping. She has worn holes in the bottoms of her sneakers and with the weather being so wet, her socks and feet are wet every time we go out. We tried the local version of Walmart (Trust Mart) and the upscale Friendship Store without success. Next was Jusco, but before we got there Lucy and I had a meeting of the minds. Whenever we walk for more than about 15 minutes she starts grumbling about her legs being tired and starts falling behind no matter how slow I go. Going up the stairs to the pedestrian bridge over the roadway led to more grumbling and moving about as slow as molasses. I gave her the option of heading back to the hotel and wearing her holey shoes with no more complaining about wet feet OR walking to Jusco to look for new shoes with no more complaining about tired legs. She chose to keep walking. Thank goodness.

Jusco had a decent selection of children's sneakers and some very helpful sales ladies. Lucy was very particular about what she wanted. The first pair she liked was going to be about $40 and they weren't worth the money so I said no. Then they offered up a number of other less expensive options. Lucy's biggest concerns were color (she really wanted red) and shoes that didn't have holes so her feet would be dry. The thing is she was vetoing shoes because the uppers were ventilated. I tried explaining that the problem was that her old shoes had holes in the BOTTOMS which is why her feet were getting wet. Ventilated tops wouldn't be the same. We finally found a pair of white sneakers that weren't ventilated (I'm sure her feet are going to be hot) and that were less than $20. Good enough. I went to pay for them, while they got they got the second shoe for her. When I got back, Lucy was wearing her old shoes and they were boxing up the new ones. I told her to wear the new ones and we let the sales ladies dispose of the old shoes for us. Lucy walked much quicker in her new shoes back to the hotel and said her legs weren't tired. YEA! I told her I thought the new shoes made her faster! We needed something to lighten the mood after the earlier discussion. Also helps that she is getting a couple hours of TV time this afternoon before meeting up with 2 other families for dinner.