Sunday, July 24, 2005
Today can be summed up in one word – SHOPPING!! Many tourists visit Guangzhou and the shopping is here to accommodate them. We spent the day with the Obnamia’s and did make one cultural stop before hitting the stores – a local folk art museum. It was a beautiful indoor/outdoor museum featuring some contemporary and some historic artwork including sculptures, paintings, artifacts and furniture from different periods. The museum is a collection of courtyards with covered walkways and open rooms that house the art. It was fun, interesting and relaxing.
Lily at breakfast, ingesting the appropriate amount of carbs necessary for a full day of sightseeing and shopping.
This is a view from our table at breakfast in the Coffee Shop in the hotel. It is a boat used for cleaning debris from the river.
The art museum main gate. Notice the intricate, colorful carvings on the rooftop. They represent Chinese fairy tales.
One of the museum's courtyards. The rooms of art are located off the covered walkways. It is very relaxing - especially while we were there. It rained, which cast a further air of serenity on this peaceful place.
"Hey! What's so interesting?" Serene, peaceful, relaxing . . . and playful!
Afterwards, we hit the mall. Not just any mall, though. This was a wholesale outlet mall, mostly for pearls and jewelry. The wholesale pricing is REALLY wholesale pricing and we found some really good bargains. There were also stores for baby clothing and a DVD store. We got an entire collection of late and classic DVDs for Lily for about $2 US per DVD. That’s great, as long as you’re already here. But if you figure in the airfare, it’s probably not worth coming back just for that!
All in all, Dilla had fun buying, Justin had fun negotiating pricing and Lily was an angel throughout the whole afternoon. She seems to be getting better today – no fever or cough and still eating like a horse.
Almost all of these shops sell jewelry at VERY good wholesale prices. There is everything from silver and gold to jade and pearls. You'd do well to take someone who speaks Chinese with you, though!
Dilla gets down to some SERIOUS pearls shopping.
I think Dad just found out how much Mom spent in the jewelry store!
. . . and Justin thought working at Panera was tough - HA! Extreme Shopping is NOT for the faint of heart!
Lily not only handled it very well - she made out very well!
After some serious shopping, we loaded up the van with our goodies and made for the White Swan. All that “work” made us hungry, so we basically dropped our stuff in our rooms and all went out together for – what else? – CHINESE!! We found a great Cantonese restaurant a couple of blocks from the hotel and got a banquet of food for next to nothing. Even all 3 kids were hungry (which isn’t saying much for Lily). There wasn’t a morsel left when we rolled out of the restaurant, but we weren’t finished yet.
The night before, Rey & Lynn discovered a Deli shop with awesome desserts. Naturally, Dilla and Justin were skeptical and had to see for themselves. Well, they were right – it was delicious. We tried a big chocolate truffle thingy and a piece of layered chocolate mousse cake. Justin enjoyed a Hagen Daaz ice cream bar, too.
Surprisingly, the elevator was able to lift us up to our room. We settled in for the night to get some rest for tomorrow morning – paperwork and Lily’s physical.
A view of the street below our hotel at night.
A view of one of the river boats cruising past our hotel. The small speck of light over the buildings in the top-left-center of the picture is the moon. The picture doesn't do justice to how pretty this place is at night!