Day 11: Sightseeing and shopping

It was Sunday, so most everything was closed, so we had a day with our local guides of just sightseeing and touring around.

Here we are eating breakfast.  There is bacon galore and so Elvin is eating tons of that.  We are also trying to make sure that the kids are eating enough fruit.  And Eliana found a cereal that is more sweet than Lucky Charms, so she enjoyed eating that.

We were in the lobby waiting for the rest of the group to arrive.  Xiao Yu liked riding up and down the escalator there.

We boarded a bus to visit a Buddhist temple that was over 1,000 years old.  The entrance had four statues, two on each side.  There were people burning incense to them, and giving offerings of small oranges.

Gabriel was looking at one of the statues and decided to copy their facial expression.  He said, "They do like this?"

We think he was copying one of these guys.

There was a shrine, where you could go in to have your baby blessed by the monk.  Several families did that, but we opted not to.  The monk walked around chanting a prayer or blessing, and sprinkled water on the folks kneeling there.

On the grounds, there was also a little orange tree with little oranges.  Gabriel wanted to pull one off to eat...

After that, we visited the Old Chen Academy/Temple.  Back in the day, each extended family or clan (the Chen family in this case) built their own temple and educational school for their family and kids. The Chen family is the largest in Guangdong, so their academy/temple is the largest and took 6 years to build.  It's about 110 years old.

It has very ornate statues on the roof.

Even the inside of the roof is very ornate with wood carvings.

Inside, we saw an artist who paints using only his fingers, no brushes.  He uses mostly the outside of his hand.

It was incredible what he would draw with just his hands and fingernails.

There was another artist who was carving name chops.  You can get these carved with your name, which you can use with an ink pad to "sign" your name.

The chops have little animals on top, which you choose according to the Chinese New Year zodiac.

We ordered one for each of our four kids.

Then we went to some shops where they sold souvenirs.  The girls had been asking at each place to buy pretty fans.  The other places we had visited had hand painted fans, which were a bit out of our dress up clothes budget.  But, this place had relatively reasonable ones, so they picked one out.  Since the girls were getting fans, Gabriel also wanted to get a fan and chose a green one with sequins.  Very manly.

Elvin was carrying Xiao Yu but left after about 3 minutes.  Knowing that he likes to throw this snack trap cup, Elvin decided to get out of that room filled with fragile, expensive souvenirs.

Apparently, they've had other customers in the past who have had mishaps.  The girls also got silk dresses and we got silk suits for the boys.

The girls also got silk dresses and we got silk pants and tops for the boys.  The boys went down for a nap once we were back, and the girls went to the pool.  Karina likes the idea of swimming, but never made it into the water.

Eliana was dog paddling across the pool.  Her swimming has really improved during this trip.

At night, we had a group dinner at a local Portuguese restaurant called Macau Street Restaurant.  However, the food seemed very Chinese and we were not sure what was Portuguese about it.  The only Portuguese element was that the fried rice had bacalhao in it, which is a Portuguese salted and dried cod.

Nevertheless, Xiao Yu liked the food.

Back at the hotel, he had a post-dinner snack.  He apparently knows a lot about cameras and knows how to smile for them.

He also enjoyed trying on Karina's backpack.

And Eliana enjoyed trying on her silk dress.  She also modeled her fan and a necklace with a jade pendant that we bought for her.

 The pendant has a carving of the rat, which is the year she was born in.

So we had a relatively easy day.  Tomorrow, we will be taking Xiao Yu to take a passport picture (for his American passport) and also a medical check-up, for his visa to enter the U.S.  

We are slowly figuring out his "triggers" and are learning how to handle his meltdowns.   When he is tired, he is completely out of control, and he also can't handle sitting at the table, without having food to eat (a challenge when you eat out EVERY meal!!)  So, we are trying to make sure he goes down for a nap when he needs it, and bring LOTS of snacks and fruit to every meal, so that we can feed Xiao Yu while we wait for our food.    We are working on figuring out more this little person who has just joined our family!!