Busy Day
Whew - a very busy day. We began at the hotel; this is Liann snuggling while we wait with Uncle Zhou.



Then we hopped on a bus that took us into the heart of Guangzhou to the handcrafts museum. It was really amazing; rooms full of sculpture, painting, and my personal favorite, the silk embroidery painting. Each "painting" can take from 2 months to a year to complete, depending on the size and complexity. The thread just shimmers on the canvas. It is something to behold. The building itself was also really interesting, with borders painted and sculpted with Chinese fables.



Next it was onto the Jade Market, which was also next to the Temple of Five Hundred Buddhas. We were able to have one of the monks bless Liann while we were here. We were the only ones in our travel group to take up the offer of a blessing; my thought was, I'm not about to turn down a blessing for my baby, whatever the source, and also, I look at it as a blessing from her homeland. The temple was incredible, row upon row of Buddhas. At one point (I never said I was bright. . .) I asked Zhou, "How many Buddhas are in here?" Duh. The blessing itself was very moving, but very LOOONG. Kind of like a Catholic wedding mass, where you start to pray for it to end. The monk sang several prayers, then flicked some water on Liann with a leaf, then sang some more prayers. There was a fly that kept landing on my leg - I think it was one of the Buddhas sent to test me.



Then it was off to the pearl market. The pearl market is in a mall big as Richmond Mall filled with nothing but bead and pearl and gems and other jewelry makings. I was in heaven.



We celebrated the success of commerce by lunching at Pizza Hut, where my favorite image was diners building elaborate stacked towers of watermelon chunks - they are only allowed one trip to the salad bar, so people very creatively work around that restriction by building very tall engineered fruit structures.

Tomorrow should be much more relaxed. We won't know what to do with ourselves. . .