December 20 -
Today we went on a city tour with Ann, our local guide, and the Everett Family from Texas. We first went to a Buddist Temple that was very old, yet nice culture to see. Emma had a blessing done, along with other babies that have been adopted. From the temple we went to a folk art musuem that consisted of 19 rooms displaying art and courtyards. Apparently the musuem used to belong to the Chen Family and then some time ago they gave it to the government who made it into this musuem. From there we went to a government run store where we actually bought nothing - too expensive. We then all shared an authentic Chinese lunch - the first plate they brought out was roasted duck, followed by sticky white rice, seafood papaya, brocolli, green beans with beef, noodles, fried rice, a stir fried beef and pumpkin dim sum. We even gave it our all and tried to eat with chopsticks; Aunt Kim did fine, I resorted to a good American fork for the little that I ate. Needless to say, we ended up ordering Papa Johns for dinner again tonight (at least it is not peanut butter crackers.) Emma was a bit under the weather today, she has a cold and is all stuffed up; hopefully we can shake it before we fly on Thursday. That's it for today - 3 more nights, but who is counting...