Chen Clan and chopsticks

So this morning we were kinda rushing because Little Miss decided to sleep in until almost 8:00. What the heck? We had to be in the lobby at 9 and we still had to eat breakfast. Unfortunately for the rest of our travel group, I was unable to find the time to apply makeup today. Oh well. The weather here in Guangzhou is almost arctic today! I think it was probably about 65-70 degrees this morning. I felt a little chill in my skirt and short sleeves. Maggie, however, was bundled against the elements so she was safe from the lashing winds.
It was actually kind of nice to feel such cool weather. Kind of fall-ish. I hated to come back into the air conditioning in the hotel. I cannot wait until it is cool enough that we can open our windows at night at home. We visted the Chen Clan Temple or Academy today. It was very (wait for it) interesting. The Chen family is the oldest and largest one in Guangdong province. To be honest, I'm not really sure what the purpose of the Chen Clan Temple is. I guess it was to enhance the learning and knowledge of the Chen clan. But it's a folk art museum now so we saw lots of native artisans at work. Amy told us that the artwork we see on Shamian Island are copies but this is the real deal. Some of you may have even scored a prize from the Chen Clan Temple. They had some pretty stuff. Embroidery that looked like a photograph. Ivory carvings. Etched glass. One of the more common carvings here is a ball that has different levels to it so it has many pieces inside each other. We have seen many that were made of jade. They are very beautiful. They represent the generations of your family. They had some ivory balls that really were, for lack of a better word, exquisite. This lady tried to sell us some ivory stuff but I think that might hold us up at customs. Here is how they carve the ivory balls. You can't really tell much from this picture but it will give you an idea of what it is.
We looked around for a while and did a little shopping, as I said. Then we left to go back to the Friendship Store. I thought we were going to a teahouse today but I was apparently mistaken. That is on Wednesday. So, sorry to those of you hoping to read about going to a teahouse today.

Since Brooke and I had braved the taxis of Guangzhou earlier in the week, we didn't need to buy much at the store. Maggie needed a new sweater though as her white one is 1. snagged from my bracelet and 2. crusty. There were about a zillion people shopping today. The Friendship store is for the more well-heeled members of Guangzhou society. They have a lot of designer clothes. We did return to the grocery area to buy baby wipes and I bought these corn things (they're like chips but if I wrote corn chips, you would think Fritos, which they are definitely not. Plus, Fritos? BLECH.) They're called "Grill-a-Corn" but that doesn't really tell you much either. Anyway, they taste GOOD and I might need to buy a suitcase to put a bunch of bags of those in for the ride home. We poked around the other floors because we got done shopping so quickly. You should see the teeny dishwashers they have here. They look like large toaster ovens. Very cute. A TON of women came up to Maggie and made faces at her and pinched her cheeks or smiled. Thankfully, she was still covered so no arrests were made by the clothing police. Then we came back to the hotel for lunch.

David and I got an assortment of Chinese delicacies from Food Street for lunch. I think I might move onto Food Street. But only if they have hamburgers too. Maggie was being a fusspot so I played with her for awhile because David and I have grown to prefer our food cold. The dumplings here RULE. I could eat about a hundred of them. I fed Maggie from my chopsticks today and she has obviously been fed using those before. She is much better at eating off of them than from a spoon. I told David tonight that I prefer to eat with chopsticks while holding her than with a fork. It's just easier. Maybe because the food is cut into smaller pieces.

We tried Maggie's squeaky shoes on her today to see what she thought. After she figured out that she was making the squeaking noise, she started stomping around while holding my hands. It was hilarious. I swear, squeaky shoes are about the cutest things ever. Be forewarned. She is not wearing a fashionable outfit in this picture.
And yes, Dad, you can remove the squeaker. Maggie started to turn into a bit of a crank after the novelty of squeaking wore off, so we rolled down to the 7-11 to get some ice cream. The 7-11 will be called the Curry 11 from now on because SHEW. That place reeked. But they had Haagen Dazs ice cream bars which were yummy. We saw Brooke in the lobby with Emma and talked to her for a while. They got about 1 hour of sleep last night. I can hear Emma fussing now so please keep up the prayers!!!! Emma tapped into Maggie's secret drug stash but I guess it is not working. Then we came upstairs and of course, Maggie and David zonked out.

We went to dinner at the Japanese restaurant here at the hotel with a bunch of other people from our travel group. It was very nice and one of those restaurants where they cook the food in front of you. They are not quite so flashy with the cracking eggs on the spatula and flipping things into their hats here though. Our chef cooked these GIGANTIC prawns. I thought they were lobsters at first. But MAN. They were tasty. OOhhh, they were good. David and I also lived on the edge and ate salad before dinner. It tasted SO good to eat tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce. Anyway, Maggie was not into sitting in the highchair so we took turns holding her and then the waitress came over and held her for a while. I felt good when she held out her arms to come back to me though (Maggie, not the waitress). Then I had just about had it, so I strapped her back in and fed her rice from my chopsticks. Success!
She got a little taste of ice cream at the end which tasted like cake batter. I was a fan of that and was sad that we only got 1 tiny scoop.

After dinner, we went down to the lobby and Brooke, Jeff and Emma were down there so we sat and visited with them for a while. David brought Maggie back up here and when I returned about 30 minutes later, it was obvious that somebody had missed her mommy. Maggie's eyes were all red and she looked super pitiful. She was not happy with me when I wrestled her into her pj's either but she was glad to let me hold her for a while. We cranked up the Chinese lullabies and sent her off to sleep. I have decided that when it feels like my arm is going to break off is when she is really asleep.

I have about a million bug bites on my legs. Maybe I SHOULD have gotten the malaria pills! I'm not going to think about whether it's bedbugs. It has to be skeeters. Tomorrow is the medical exam. It's on Shamian Island so I bet we will do a little shopping also. We were going to get out all of our purchases today and see what we still needed to buy. We did not do that. I forgot to say that we bought a stroller the other day and the Chinese people all made fun of us for having 2 strollers--1 for baby, 1 for purchases. It was rather humorous. And to end, here are some pictures of Maggie on the bus today.