Sept. 12 Touring

Sept 12.  Megan was up for a bottle a couple times during the night and then up for good at 8am.  She was a little constipated, so after that resolved, things were better. 

I forgot to tell you about a couple of things that happened yesterday.  First, I found out more about Chinese names.  I knew Megan’s last name was Tong, but I didn’t know exactly how Min Xian fit.  I had thought maybe Min was considered her middle name since all the babies from her orphanage have that character in their name and then Xian was her first name.  When we were filling out the paperwork yesterday, I found out that the Chinese do not have middle names even though Min Xian is 2 Chinese characters.  So Megan’s Chinese first name is more accurately Minxian.  Also, for official paperwork, her birth city is unknown, but her birth province is Jiangxi.

Megan also had another bath last night.  Since there was no baby bathtub, I had to get into the bathtub with her.  She enjoyed her bath much better this way,.

OK, now back to Sunday.  After breakfast, we headed on a city tour.  Unfortunately it was raining.  First we stopped at the 6 Banyan’s Temple.  This is an old Buddhist temple and pagoda.  Banyan is a type of tree that looks like it has roots hanging from its branches.  Apparently there are banyan trees in Florida too.  Next we headed to the old Chen House.  Chen is the most common surname in Guangdong province.  The Chen family owned the house until about 1949 when the gov’t took it over and made it into an academy of the arts.  Currently it mainly displays many different types of art such as porcelain, embroidery, sculptures, and wood, ivory, and bone carvings.  The most impressive art to us was the embroidery.  It was so detailed that it looked like a painting.  Lastly, we headed to an upscale arts and crafts store that sold high quality local arts and crafts-everything from paintings to jewelry.  We decided on some porcelain chopsticks and a chop.  A chop is a stamp that is hand engraved.  Megan’s stamp has her Chinese and English name engraved on it and a tiger on the top.  She was born in the year of the tiger.

Because we had done our paperwork yesterday, we didn’t have any more scheduled activities for the rest of the day.  After lunch at Lucy’s (the American food café), we went back to the room for a rest.  Megan didn’t take much of a nap, so then we decided to walk around the island.  We didn’t find anything too exciting.  For supper, we tried out a deli just outside the hotel.  We ordered BBQ pork with vegetables and rice.  What we got was rather interesting.  It was cooked cauliflower and what looked like romaine lettuce and tough pieces of pork with a sauce and a bowl of rice.  The pork was OK and we didn’t touch the lettuce.  Amazingly, the cauliflower wasn’t too bad and I don’t eat cauliflower.  I guess all the normal cauliflower taste was cooked out of it. 

It was a very nice evening with a cool breeze, so we went for another walk.  We found a store that sold paintings that were done with the artist’s fingers and fingernails and ink.  We bought a few bookmarks.  Since Megan wasn’t tired, we decided to venture into the Mattel playroom.  At first we were the only ones there, but soon 3 or 4 other families joined us.  Megan had a great time playing with matchbox cars and mega blocks.  She is getting closer to doing a regular crawl.  She can get up on her knees, but hasn’t figured out how to move her knees forward.  It was a great way tired her out.  When she started fussing, we headed upstairs for PJs and a bottle.  She went to sleep well, but it took awhile before she would let me lay her down.

Guangzhou is going to be hosting the Asian games in November, so the city is doing lots of preparation to have everything look nice.  I would say that this is something similar to the Pan Am games that we are familiar with.

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