Thursday Outing

Today we went to The Ancestral Temple of the Chen Family and then to Shamian Island. The weather here is very hot and humid so if we look a little wet or drained, we are. The weather here is worse than the weather in August at home.

The Temple was beautiful as you can see from some of the pictures. The details on the outside of the Temple are incredible and all hand carved and painted. They are now using the temple as an arts and crafts museum. It was really interesting as they had some demonstrations while we were there. There was a gentleman showing us how to do hand painting. Watching him take a blank piece of paper and turning it into a picture with only his hand was pretty cool. The picture was a of a waterfall scene with bamboo. The picture of me feeding Tia is at the Temple. Whenever she gets her bottle she puts her feet in the air while she eats. The picture with the two pits are olive pits that they use to do carvings.

Then we went to the famous Shamian Island. This is where all adopted families used to come and stay until the last year. The U. S. Consulate moved off the Island to another location in the city. Families found hotels that were newer than the White Swan with larger rooms closer to the Consulate to stay at. After visiting the Island yesterday, I can see why people stayed there though. It is a nice little community with parks and little shops to walk around to. It is not as crowed as the city it self either. I really liked it.

We did not do the dinner cruise as it got over too late for Tia and we were all drained from the heat. Instead we went for a walk in the garden at the hotel with the other family that is here with us. They're John and Stacy Moore with their daughter Grace and son Conrad.

Sorry for no labels on the pictures and them being out of order. I am using a different app and have not quite figured it all out. It seems to put the pictures in whatever order it wants.